Defining ubuntu for business ethics- A deontological approach
Abstract
The term ‘ubuntu’ defines how people and communities should interact, based
on the aphorism that ‘a person is a person through other people’. Adopting a
deontological perspective the paper reviews the work of many writers on ubuntu,
and examines three possible interpretations of the ubuntu principle before deriving
the principle that: ‘An action is right insofar as it promotes cohesion and reciprocal
value amongst people. An action is wrong insofar as it damages relationships
and devalues any individual or group.’ The various elements of this principle are
discussed and some objections considered. A brief case study considers how the
principle could be applied.
... Nonetheless, in South Africa, much has been written about Ubuntu and its influence on business, social, and political life, including government ethical values such as the Batho Pele principles in service delivery [19,24,28]. It is also claimed that the famed King Code of Corporate Governance is underpinned by Ubuntu ethics [5,28,29]. ...
... Nonetheless, in South Africa, much has been written about Ubuntu and its influence on business, social, and political life, including government ethical values such as the Batho Pele principles in service delivery [19,24,28]. It is also claimed that the famed King Code of Corporate Governance is underpinned by Ubuntu ethics [5,28,29]. Specifically, Ref. [29] examined pre-and post-apartheid CSR governance systems in South Africa. They affirmed the influence of Ubuntu in promoting responsible behaviours to create a caring society. ...
... However, despite its attraction, there is still doubt about how the Ubuntu philosophy can be utilised as a CSR theory. Ref. [28] says it is difficult to make any Ubuntu definition and create a principle-based theory of right action applicable to a business situation. Similarly, Ref. [12] also questioned if Africans' embrace and practice of Ubuntu in the workplace given the many heated debates on its defining characteristics, theoretical sophistication and grounding, and the lack of definitive empirical evidence about its utilisation. ...
Culture significantly influences corporate social responsibility (CSR) behaviours and
business ethics in Africa. In that context, various claims exist about how Ubuntu ethics can also serve as a practicable theory to guide CSR actions. In line with such claims, this study critically interrogated the practicability of utilising an Ubuntu-based approach to guide CSR actions among African businesses. It drew perspectives from published theoretical and empirical literature focusing on Ubuntu as a CSR construct. In conclusion, based on the analysed views, the article argues that although the Ubuntu philosophy adds valuable insight into how firms and managers in Africa can conduct their CSR activities, its transition from a cultural philosophy to a business ethics theory needs to be revised. This implies that the current aspirations of Ubuntu-based CSR relevant to local contexts may not be realised soon.
... Besides that, ubuntu when applied in management can serve as a framework for ethical business decision-making (Taylor, 2014). There are four main components of Ubuntu ethics: ...
... 1. Actions are right insofar as they promote cohesion, 2. Actions are right if they promote reciprocal values among people, 3. Actions are wrong if they damage relationships and lastly, 4. Actions are wrong if they devalue a group or individual (Taylor, 2014). This set of rules can assist in the moral decision-making of a business by managers and executives. ...
The concept of corporate management has a long history. In fact, it may be traced back to a plethora of major firms that were launched back in the 16th and 17th centuries. Management is there to essentially cater for the needs and interests of shareholders. Due to this fact, share ownership patterns may result in maximizing profit which often results in discord between the legitimate interests of a firm which is mainly profit and catering to the welfare of everyone who engages with the business, which may call for superfluous expenses to successfully make it happen. This qualitative study seeks to demonstrate how the adoption of ubuntu ethics can help to address the challenge which management faces on how to blend dual responsibilities in a way that is beneficial to a firm’s shareholders and fair to all concerned stakeholders by ensuring inclusiveness. Ubuntu ethics as an African moral theory is the framework of choice because it advocates the pursuit of collective good as opposed to individualistic goals which often have dire consequences for the collective. The basis for morality in ubuntu is how people relate in a way that furthers the interests of the whole community. The study argues that the adoption of ubuntu ethics in corporate management can transform how a firm conducts its business and better serve mankind.
... These tenets are uniquely aligned to achieve the outcomes presented in this review by being encapsulated in a single construct (Etieyibo 2020). Taylor (2014) asserts that in a practical sense when managers make decisions that aid the cohesion among individuals and mutual beneficence, they are morally correct. Conversely, pursuing choices that diminish interconnectedness and devalue any individuals or groups are deemed morally incorrect actions. ...
This systematic literature review explored the application of Ubuntu, an African philosophy, in business contexts. Ubuntu has been increasingly recognized for its potential to advance positive outcomes in various settings. However, despite its growing prominence, a comprehensive understanding of Ubuntu's antecedents, descriptors and consequences is still required. This paper analyzed existing articles, using a thorough search strategy to identify relevant literature. The findings of this paper reveal that the most ubiquitous precursors of Ubuntu in businesses are a mandate for corporate social responsibility and cultural diversity. A business culture of fairness was found to be the most prevalent driver of implementing this philosophy. Conversely, individualism was determined to be the prevailing inhibitor of Ubuntu. Humanness and interdependence were found to be the most frequently used descriptions of Ubuntu in the included articles. Increased collaborative decision-making and better stakeholder relations are the most common outcomes found. This study concludes with managerial implications and recommendations for future research.
... The importance of ubuntu is ensuring that existence coalesce (Setlhodi-Mohapi, 2013;Setlhodi & Oupa, 2014). The element of humanity that distinguishes Ubuntu must lead to an action-oriented mind-set (Taylor, 2014) and a desire to improve performance. ...
Corporate governance is becoming more widely recognized as a critical factor in determining an organization's overall performance. The King Code I-IV was created to provide a corporate governance framework for South African corporations that is easy to understand and follow. The fourth industrial revolution forces change and flexibility, necessitating innovation in order to compete in a fast-changing environment. The purpose of the research was to look at the basic endemic corporate governance practices that make Ithala Development Finance Corporation (IDFC) efficient and come up with a conceptual and legislative framework for them. Microsoft Forms were used to collect the information. The study used a pragmatic mixed methods approach. The descriptive statistics were calculated using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 27. All study components were subjected to exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and research hypotheses were tested using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) in SmartPLS version 3. The findings of the study confirmed a relationship between board independence and organisational performance. The findings on board diversity were inconclusive. The relationship between board committees and organisational performance was not supported. The relationship between board oversight responsibility and organisational performance was positively confirmed. Finally, the relationship between a CEO's people-centred leadership skills and organisational performance was positively confirmed and supported. The study is limited to IDFC and cannot be generalised. The findings of this study will add to growing existing knowledge that will aid in the understanding of corporate governance's impact on organisational performance. This research will also assist business leaders in implementing King IV and corporate governance as a driver of organisational performance and the fourth industrial revolution. This thesis's theoretical framework, conceptual framework, and results are likely to entice researchers to do further study into identifying the parts of corporate governance that are critical for strong organisational performance. It should also encourage practitioners, executives of state-owned enterprises, and researchers of strategy, business leadership, and corporate governance to participate more deeply in discussions about the fourth industrial revolution and organisational performance. The findings should find significance to public officials and government leaders, given their considerable interest in long-term company success.
... Here, thinking about duties toward self and others provides the action-guiding facets of ubuntu-inspired 'mixed' ethics. Some ubuntu scholars, particularly Metz (2010Metz ( , 2014a and Douglas Taylor (2014) have offered deontological approaches to decision-making. Here are two deontological views. ...
In this paper, I address human-induced environmental ills we face using an ubuntu-inspired ethical lens. I follow ubuntu scholars to stress the significance for moral agents to embody virtues. Virtue development is essential to carry out obligations and address human impacts on the environment. Thaddeus Metz, in particular, has drawn attention to how embodying ubuntu virtues of humility and friendliness can prompt moral agents to be other-regarding. The view I developed in this paper differs from his ubuntu-inspired account in at least two significant ways. First, humans cannot be in harmonious relationships with some species such as Black Mambas, Hyenas and sea urchins even if they can interact. Second, we must acknowledge the consequen-tialist dimension of ubuntu ethics and prioritise the different aspects of ubuntu 'mixed' ethics, ranking them to offer possibilities for a more realistic recommendation to change our moral life. This paper demonstrates that the three dimensions of ubuntu 'mixed' ethics are fundamental because we need to think about moral consequences, right action and our virtue in accounting for our actions.
There are three major reasons why ideas associated with ubuntu are often deemed to be an inappropriate basis for a public morality in today's South Africa. One is that they are too vague; a second is that they fail to acknowledge the value of individual freedom; and a third is that they fit traditional, small-scale culture more than a modern, industrial society. In this article, I provide a philosophical interpretation of ubuntu that is not vulnerable to these three objections. Specifically, I construct a moral theory grounded on Southern African world views, one that suggests a promising new conception of human dignity. According to this conception, typical human beings have a dignity by virtue of their capacity for community, understood as the combination of identifying with others and exhibiting solidarity with them, where human rights violations are egregious degradations of this capacity. I argue that this account of human rights violations straightforwardly entails and explains many different elements of South Africa's Bill of Rights and naturally suggests certain ways of resolving contemporary moral dilemmas in South Africa and elsewhere relating to land reform, political power and deadly force. If I am correct that this jurisprudential interpretation of ubuntu both accounts for a wide array of intuitive human rights and provides guidance to resolve present-day disputes about justice, then the three worries about vagueness, collectivism and anachronism should not stop one from thinking that something fairly called 'ubuntu' can ground a public morality.
Since the advent of democracy in South Africa, there has been a concerted effort at reviving the notion of ubuntu. Variously conceived, it is seen as the authentic African ethical concept, a way of life, an authentic mode of being African, an individual ideal, the appropriate public spirit, a definition of life itself and the preferred manner of conducting public and private business. Thus, among other public displays of the spirit of ubuntu, the government of the day has deliberately chosen its service delivery mantra and its public slogan as Batho Pele (people first) to animate, or perhaps pay obeisance to, ubuntu. In this paper we seek to advance arguments that question such a public, widespread, and concerted ‘ubuntu-isation’ of the intellectual, business, public and private lives. Our project follows two main lines of reasoning. (1) We seek to show that the aggressive promotion of ubuntu in post-apartheid South Africa is an elitist project so conceived by the new black elite. It is conceived both as a restorative move that is aimed at securing the dignity of the black masses as well as an attempt at forging a so-called black identity. This line of reasoning will rely on similar historical cases on the continent that sought to aggressively promote an African mode of being, which coincided with both the end of colonialism and the rise of black elitism. We note that such attempts always ended in very public social and political failure. (2) We seek to question the desirability of ubuntu as a mark/guide of the spirit of the nation. Here our critique shall be concentrated on the disjunct that exists between the metaphysical conditions necessary for the attainment of ubuntu and the stark ontological and ethical crisis facing the new elite and ‘our people’.
Since WWII, dignity has become an important legal and moral value in almost all of the instruments of human rights and international law, and has no been incorporated into constitutions as a foundational value and ideal, including in the constitution of South Africa. Within South African jurisprudence and critical theory there has long been a disagreement between whether or not uBuntu could simply be encompassed in the ideal of dignity. This chapter argues that uBuntu and dignity can and should be distinguished, it tries to delineate their difference, and yet also defends a position that uBuntu is able to defend the European ideal of dignity, even as it goes beyond it in its demands for economic transformation.
I argue that Metz's undertaking, in seeking a 'comprehensive basic norm' to underpin African ethics, is similar to Hans Kelsen's postulation of the Grundnorm in his Pure Theory of Law. But African ethics does not need to be underpinned by an approach such as Kelsen's. In my view, Metz's preference for seeking to develop a Grundnorm rests upon a failure to attend carefully to the distinctness of African ethical thinking from Western ethical thinking. This failure is manifest in a spurious distinction (on which Metz relies) between 'moral anthropology' / 'cultural studies' and 'normative theory'. It is also manifest in Metz's failure to attend carefully to the work of Wiredu and Bujo, both of whom present systematic, critical analyses of African ethical thinking while implicitly rejecting the quest for a Grund norm as being unAfrican.
This is the first comprehensive casePub to address the relationship of uBuntu to law. It also provides the most important critical articles on the use of uBuntu, both by the Constitutional Court and by other levels of the judiciary in South Africa. Although uBuntu is an ideal or value rooted in South Africa, its purchase as a performative ethic of the human goes beyond its roots in African languages. Indeed, this casePub helps break through some of the stale antinomies in the discussions of cultures and rights, since both the courts and the critical essays discuss ubuntu as not simply an indigenous or even African ideal but one that is its own terms calls for universal justification. The efforts of the Constitutional Court to take seriously competing ideals of law and justice has led to original ethical reasoning, which has significant implications for post apartheid constitutionalism and law more generally. uBuntu, then, as it is addressed as an activist ethic of virtue and then translated into law, helps to expand the thinking of a modern legal system's commitment to universality by deepening discussions of what inclusion and equality actually mean in a postcolonial country. Since uBuntu claims to have universal purchase, its importance as a way of thinking about law and justice is not limited to South Africa but becomes important in any human rights discourse that is not limitedly rooted in Western European ideals. Thus this book will be a crucial resource for anyone who is seriously grappling with human rights, postcolonial constitutionalism, and competing visions of the relations between law and justice.
In this article, I demonstrate that the term ‘ubuntu’ has frequently appeared in writing since at least 1846. I also analyse changes in how ubuntu has been defined in written sources in the period 1846 to 2011. The analysis shows that in written sources published prior to 1950, it appears that ubuntu is always defined as a human quality. At different stages during the second half of the 1900s, some authors began to define ubuntu more broadly: definitions included ubuntu as African humanism, a philosophy, an ethic, and as a worldview. Furthermore, my findings indicate that it was during the period from 1993 to 1995 that the Nguni proverb ‘umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu’ (often translated as ‘a person is a person through other persons’) was used for the first time to describe what ubuntu is. Most authors today refer to the proverb when describing ubuntu, irrespective of whether they consider ubuntu to be a human quality, African humanism, a philosophy, an ethic, or a worldview.
Essai d'archeologie de la connaissance africaine en tant que systeme de connaissance et de pouvoir dans le cadre duquel des problemes philosophiques majeurs ont surgi recemment : l'" africanisation " de la connaissance et le statut des systemes traditionnels de pensee. L'A., analysant le pouvoir des anthropologues et des missionnaires, s'interesse directement a la transformation des types de connaissance
The paper, which exploits conceptual analysis techniques, interrogates an African notion of a ‘community’ as embodied in the ideas of ‘Umntu ngumntu ngabantu.’ The problem the article seeks to address is the erosion of community values. The study intends to explore the question: How can we retrieve the communal cultural values of tolerance, humanity, respect and some of common elements of our cultural treasures of Ubuntu that African communities used to be proud of? Using the philosophy of Ubuntu as a hermeneutic key, I argue that any member of a community whose personal life is guided by Ubuntu could be said to have embraced the core humanistic attributes of Ubuntu. These are being caring, humble, thoughtful, considerate, understanding, wise, generous, hospitable, socially mature, socially sensitive, virtuous, and blessed: character attributes that veer away from confrontation towards conciliation. The paper is based on a small scale survey, which exploited an open ended questionnaire in its data collection. Data revealed that despite major constraints such as poverty and scarcity of resources, crime, substance abuse and many others, family members are still willing to help and support each other. Finally, the study suggests that the values of Ubuntu, if consciously harnessed, can play a major unifying role in the process of harmonising the South African/African nation(s).
I argue that Metz's undertaking, in seeking a ‘comprehensive basic
norm' to underpin African ethics, is similar to Hans Kelsen's postulation of the Grundnorm in his Pure Theory of Law. But African ethics does not need to be underpinned by an approach such as Kelsen's. In my view, Metz's preference for seeking to develop a Grundnorm
rests upon a failure to attend carefully to the distinctness of African ethical thinking from Western ethical thinking. This failure is manifest in a spurious distinction (on which Metz relies) between ‘moral anthropology' / ‘cultural studies' and ‘normative theory'. It is also
manifest in Metz's failure to attend carefully to the work of Wiredu and Bujo, both of whom present systematic, critical analyses of African ethical thinking while implicitly rejecting the quest for a Grund norm as being unAfrican. South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 26 (4) 2007: pp. 347-355