1. Person and Person in African Thought
1.3. Personhood and Value
provide a complete account of personhood without a corresponding reference to value, where this involves, at a minimum, considerations on the moral worth of persons.
The idea that any useful theory of personhood must incorporate either explicitly or by inference at least a statement about why persons matter at all or more specifically about value is not novel, but perhaps is worth illuminating further. Two general approaches to making this connection can be detected in the history of philosophy. The first approach construes persons as bearers of ultimate value, with the implication that fundamental value is an intrinsic quality of persons. Another way to express the same point is to claim that some item in the constitution of persons is the basis of assigning ultimate value. Examples of this sort of approach to establishing the link between personhood and value abound in the literature. In Western philosophy, for instance, the relation between personhood and value is commonplace. Immanuel Kant famously articulates in one of his formulations of the categorical imperative, the humanity principle––the view that persons are valuable in themselves, where such value is expressed in terms of dignity, which is a function of the capacity for rational deliberation and autonomy.21 Also, Western theories of personhood, like Descartes’, that identify the essence of a person with the soul point directly to facts about the inviolability of the person, thus implying that value is integral to personhood.22
21See Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, (1965:96) in which he says, ‘every rational being, exists as an end in himself, not merely as means for arbitrary use by this or that will… he must in all his actions… be viewed at the same time as an end’. This way of thinking gives rise to the humanity principle which is stated thus: ‘Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, in your person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means but at the same as an end.’
22In particular, the concept of ‘ensoulment’, which refers to the moment a fetus receives a soul, is used to establish the person-status of the fetus, particularly in the Catholic Christian tradition. This comes with the implication that fetuses cannot be aborted since the possession of souls suggests their inviolability. See Pope John Paul II’s ‘Evangelium Vitae’(1995).
Moreover, the link between person and value is not foreign to the African theorizing about personhood. Whether it is the descriptive metaphysical or normative conception, African philosophers implicitly or explicitly infer this correlation. For instance, in any culture- specific variant of the descriptive metaphysical view of personhood, one of the constituent elements (e.g. emi, okra etc.) is said to proceed directly from a divine source and thus constitutes the basis for claims to dignity.23 To the extent that being a person involves having dignity, it can be claimed that persons are bearers of fundamental value. To see this more clearly, consider any African conception of what it means for something to be a person at the level of ontology. What is obvious is that part of the constitutive elements of personhood is some entity taken to be not just the basis of life but also the grounding for basic dignity, which persons qua persons have in equal measure. This constituent of personhood is usually attributed to some divine being as its primary source.
Among the Akans, for instance, the okra, which is described as an ‘aspect’ of God, is understood to constitute the essence of the individual while at the same time providing the grounding for the intrinsic value that each individual person possesses. Gyekye’s description is illuminating. A person is described as ‘having in his/her nature an aspect of God’ and this ‘aspect’, which is the ‘okra is held as constituting the innermost self, the essence of the individual person’.24 Further, in virtue of possessing something of the divine, a person ‘must be held as of intrinsic value, an end in himself, worthy of dignity and respect’ (1992:114). Here, Gyekye leaves us in no doubt whatsoever that the basis for
23Gbadegesin (1985), Ikuenobe (2006) and Okere (1983) are examples of African philosophers who hold this view. Below I focus on Wiredu and Gyekye as representative examples.
24Gyekye, K. ‘Person and Community in African Thought’ http://www.galerie- inter.de/kimmerle/frameText9.htm
considering persons as ends and thus intrinsically valuable is the okra. Wiredu is even more strident: ‘A person consists of three elements. One of these comes directly from God and is, in fact, a speck of the divine substance’. Elsewhere, he adds that ‘being begotten of a direct gift of God... He or she... is deserving of the basic respect and sympathy’
(1992:199).
The upshot of all these is that the ontological arm of the two-tiered conception clearly captures a certain relation between personhood and value namely, that persons are the bearers of the most basic and fundamental moral value––that is, human dignity, upon which certain natural rights and entitlements are subsequently grounded. It is this fact, the possession of dignity that makes a person an end, the subject of right and autonomy and ultimately deserving of respect. ‘Any human being’, writes Wiredu ‘contains an element of divinity and is, on that ground alone, entitled to life, liberty, and an ample dispensation of natural rights’ (2005).25
As you would expect, a number of implications follow from this approach to correlating personhood and value. First, the most fundamental value, upon which the recognition of the moral worth of persons rest is intrinsic––that is, it is internal to the constitution of persons. In this case, the okra, which is an essential constituent of personhood in Akan thought, is the basis for allocating inherent value, in the shape of a dignity, to persons.
Second, this intrinsic value is non-instrumental––that is to say, persons are of such value that they cannot, in Kantian parlance, be used merely as a means to some further end.
25Wiredu (2005) New Dictionary of the History of Ideas.
Quite unlike the first, however, the alternative approach to correlating personhood and value construes persons as standing in some appropriate relation, typically of dependence, to that which is taken to be the bearer of ultimate value. This dependence relation is characterized in terms of notions like ‘communal belonging’, ‘communal participation’, communal recognition’ and ‘status-acquisition’. In each case, the individual is supposed to be dependent on the community for her existence as well as moral and social flourishing.
This explains Mbiti’s dictum ‘I am because we are; and since we are therefore I am’(1969:109) and Menkiti’s insistence that ‘as far as Africans are concerned, the reality of the communal world takes precedence over the reality of individual life histories, whatever these may be’(Menkiti 1984:171). This results in the communal definition of person.
On this approach to theorizing about personhood, any identity-constituting features about individual persons depend on facts about communal belonging, participation and recognition, so that persons are properly thought of as socially and communally produced rather than metaphysically specified. This alleged priority of the community is not without further consequence on our judgment about personhood and its relation to value. The implication is that whatever it is that is valuable about persons derives from something else namely, the community, which is the bearer of ultimate value. Here Wiredu’s claim is instructive: ‘the greatest value is attached to communal belonging’ (1992:199).
All of this points to a substantial modification on our initial judgments about personhood and value––since by locating ultimate value in something external to the individual person, it seems that the true value of personhood is extrinsic rather than intrinsic.
Let me now sum up the relevant deductions. First, the two-tiered conception of personhood incorporates two distinct accounts of personhood, each of which gives rise to different judgments as to where fundamental value lies. Second, the differences in judgments are not merely trivial; indeed the judgments are deeply conflicting, implying that persons are at once the bearers of ultimate value and not the bearers of ultimate value (insofar as ultimate value is thought of as inhering in community). Put differently, the two-tiered conception of personhood in essence combines the diametrically opposed intuitions that fundamental moral value is both intrinsic and extrinsic relative to persons. Third, and relatedly, since they conflict, the intuitions that underpin the distinct views of personhood in the two-tiered conception are constantly pulling us in different directions regarding our treatment of persons as objects of value. That is, this conflict of intuition yields two different ways of responding to persons as objects of moral value. On the one hand, the first tier of personhood seems to imply that since ultimate value inheres in persons, we should never treat persons as means to some further end. On the other, the second tier implies that since ultimate value resides in communal relationships and other similar facts, persons, being merely derivative in value, may be treated merely as means to the ultimate end, which relates to the community. All these strike me as deeply confused.
Thus far, the analysis of the widely received two-tiered conception of personhood has led to the uncovering of the problem of where fundamental value really lies. Regarding the question of where to locate value, two options have suggested themselves. These may be formulated as propositions: (P1) Fundamental value is intrinsic to persons and (P2) Fundamental value is extrinsic to persons (i.e. it inheres in communal belonging or similarly construed facts). The two-tiered conception of personhood is an attempt to wed both propositions. It seems to me that there are four possibilities if the two propositions are to be made intelligibly integrated within a single conception of personhood, such as the one under scrutiny.
Possibility #1: Only P1 is true Possibility #2: Only P2 is true
Possibility #3: P1 and P2 are both false Possibility #4: P1 and P2 are equally true
Each option is worth examining separately. The fourth possibility strikes me as independently implausible, since fundamental value cannot be at once intrinsic and extrinsic to persons. At the level of simple logic the claim seems to me deeply incoherent, violating the principle of non-contradiction. To my mind this rules out the fourth possibility. I find suspect the insight captured in possibility #3. The reason is that, because it denies that value is either intrinsic or extrinsic to a person, and by implication damages whatever link there is between personhood and value, it cannot explain the practical significance that attaches to personhood or why facts about personhood matter to us at all.
Yet, as pointed out earlier on, personhood is a concept with immense practical import. And one way to capture its practical import is by correlating the concept to value.26 Another reason why option three strikes me as unconvincing is that it implies rather oddly that the two arms of the two-tiered conception of personhood are equally false, since what each tier of personhood claims is what option three categorically denies. If I am right, then the live options are #1 and #2.
Consider, then, the first possibility, (P1) is true––that is, it is the case that fundamental value is internal to persons. This may entail both that fundamental value is not extrinsic (i.e. P2 is false) and the corollary that whatever value attaches to the community is merely derivative. That is, since individual persons are the source of fundamental value, the value we attach to communal life and belonging depends upon the value of persons as such. One likely challenge for a conception of personhood that incorporates at its core the proposition
‘P1 is true’ is that it would be unable to account for the ‘community priority thesis’, which is the claim that in African thought the community is metaphysically, morally and epistemologically prior to the individual. So, to the extent that adducing to the insight captured in that thesis is crucial in making a conception of personhood distinctively African, it may be further claimed that the resulting conception of personhood that makes
26African theorizing on personhood obviously has significant practical implications as has been shown in the discussion thus far. Ajume Wingo clearly articulates this point in his reflection on Akan philosophy of personhood by suggesting that the discourse on personhood is not merely of academic interest (2008). In Western philosophy of personal identity, contributions from McMahan (2002) and De Grazia (2003) have illustrated clearly the practical significance of personhood in relation to end of life dilemmas including Abortion, Advance Directives etc.
communal value dependent on the value inherent in the individual person is not distinctively African.27
Now consider the second possibility, (P2) is true––that is, fundamental value is extrinsic to persons, insofar as it inheres in community. To this may be added the corollaries that fundamental value is not intrinsic (i.e. (P1 is false) and that whatever value persons may have is merely derivative from the community to which greatest value attaches. There is one obvious drawback with this option. However, before discussing that problem let me quickly point out that this option dovetails nicely with the second tier of the two-tiered conception of personhood since the communitarian and normative conception uses as its springboard the claim that community takes precedence over individual facts and is the basis of ultimate value.
Now to the problem––it would be impossible for any African conception of personhood that upholds (P2) to justify why it is the case that individual persons are ends in themselves and the subjects of dignity and inalienable rights or entitlements, seeing that this fact was grounded in the first place as something worth pursuing by appeal to the okra, or its metaphysical analogues, which is internal to the constitution of the person. It is important not to miss the point, which is that if dignity, rights or any such value is grounded in something extrinsic to the individual person, then it is hard for persons to be regarded as
27I should point out straightaway that I happen not to share this intuition about the importance of that thesis in shaping an African theory of personhood. Although it is not my interest to articulate the reasons here, I shall later on explain why I think an African theory of personhood need not incorporate belief in the metaphysical, moral or epistemological priority of the community over the individual.
ends in themselves. As such, whatever rights or entitlements persons may have in virtue of possessing a dignity would be merely derivative and secondary in value relative to facts about communal belonging.
In conclusion, then, each of the four options poses a dilemma––i.e. there are costs associated with opting for any one of them. Even so, my proposal is that there are rational pressures, arising from contemporary concerns about grounding individual liberties and rights, prompting us in the direction of possibility #1 above. In other words, a theory of personhood that upholds the proposition that fundamental value is intrinsic rather than extrinsic to persons holds enormous promise with regards to the possibility of grounding dignity as well as basic rights and entitlements as non-instrumental goods, worth pursuing for their own sakes.