Abstract

The discipline of Psychology has been challenged for its over-reliance on Western philosophical pre-suppositions about what it means to be a human being. The taken-for-granted relationship between the knower and what is to be known, namely an objective, disinterested stance towards the object of one’s knowledge, has also come under scrutiny. The dominant codes of professional ethics, which have their roots in Europe and North America, have not escaped this criticism. Using the idea of the person as the point of departure, this chapter critiques the philosophical basis of mainstream psychological ethics. The chapter challenges the dominance of the Kantian tradition in ethics and goes on to provide a rationale for an approach to ethics that is informed by indigenous African epistemologies. The ethics of Ubuntu, or Botho, provides an alternative to the individualistic Western orientation towards ethics, which prize human rationality above human life. The main tenets of an Ubuntu-Botho-based approach to ethics, as applicable to psychology, are outlined and discussed. Ultimately, the idea is to show that ethics is not a matter of abstract individual legislation, but a semiotic process that involves a negotiation of different meaning systems. The chapter concludes by outlining a process that can be used to negotiate between competing ethical points of view.