This book focuses on the domains of moral philosophy, political philosophy, and political theory within African philosophy. At the heart of the volume is a call to imagine African political philosophy as embodying a needs-based political vision. While discourses in African political philosophy have fixated on the normative framework of human rights law to articulate demands for social and global justice, this book charts a new frontier in African political thought by turning from ‘rights’ to ‘needs.’ (...) The authors aim to re-orient discourses in African philosophy beyond the impasse of rights-based confrontations to shift the conversation toward needs as a cornerstone of African political theory. (shrink)

In this article I articulate and defend an African moral theory, i.e., a basic and general principle grounding all particular duties that is informed by sub-Saharan values commonly associated with talk of "ubuntu" and cognate terms that signify personhood or humanness. The favoured interpretation of ubuntu (as of 2007) is the principle that an action is right insofar as it respects harmonious relationships, ones in which people identify with, and exhibit solidarity toward, one another. I maintain that this (...) is the most defensible moral theory with an African pedigree at the time, and that it should be developed further with an eye to rivalling dominant Western theories such as utilitarianism and Kantianism. (NB: a mildly revised version, avoiding some typos and phrases that invite misinterpretation, appeared as a chapter in Isaac Ukpokolo, ed., _Themes, Issues and Problems in African Philosophy_ London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, pp. 97-119.). (shrink)

Towards and African Political Philosophy of Needs (2021) is an edited collection of ten chapters on the topic of needs in contemporary African political and soc.

In this paper I attempt to construct an African philosophy of education, focusing particularly on how notions of ubuntu and community guide educational practices.

This book focuses on the domains of moral philosophy, political philosophy, and political theory within African philosophy. At the heart of the volume is a call to imagine African political philosophy as embodying a needs-based political vision. While discourses in African political philosophy have fixated on the normative framework of human rights law to articulate demands for social and global justice, this book charts a new frontier in African political thought by turning from ‘rights’ to ‘needs.’ (...) The authors aim to re-orient discourses in African philosophy beyond the impasse of rights-based confrontations to shift the conversation toward needs as a cornerstone of African political theory. (shrink)

The mounting ecological catastrophe and its negative effects on humanity and future generations of life, demand proactive actions. The ongoing crises of deforestation, air and water pollution, land degradation and many other ecological predicaments are critical global moral and justice issues. Although postcolonial Africa’s economic theories undermine the integrity of Creation, Africans are equally responsible. Following Pope Francis’ invitation to Creation care, I argue that the lwiindi [the annual rain-calling ceremony] illustrates ecological concerns and possesses ecological insights that can aid, (...) inform and positively transform Africa’s ecological actions. The article opens with a brief discussion on the growing ecological consciousness in global Christianity and Africa. It employs the lwiindi to illustrate the ecological role of ancestors as guardians of the land. It is from this perspective that the Enlightenment influenced concept of ‘progress’, is examined. The article concludes with some critical reflections on the environment and Tonga culture. (shrink)

A mildly revised version of an article first published in the Journal of Political Philosophy (2007), now avoiding certain unwelcome turns of phrase and misspellings.

Although 1994 is popularly represented as a year of major transition from an oppressive society to a democratic one in South African history, it did not mark the end of White Supremacy but instead its evolution from one constitutional form into another. This is because the so-called “right of conquest” remains affirmed in South Africa by the much celebrated constitution Act 108 of 1996. Since the early 90s, Ubuntu has been employed by the elite parties involved in the “negotiations” (...) for the transition to the “new” South Africa, to justify the new society. This perverse employment of Ubuntu has been largely supported with the aid of sophistic academic posturing by the largely white academic establishment in South Africa and its network of international allies. Using African philosophical hermeneutics as a method, we will ground another interpretation of Ubuntu which stems from two interrelated roots. The first root is a firm understanding of and engagement with the Bantu languages and cultures which are its primordial philosophical basis on the one hand. The second is the study of the history of Ubuntu as lived and living philosophy responding to the challenge of the conquest of the indigenous people in the unjust wars of colonisation. Towards this end we will draw from the experience of Ubuntu -inspired movements in the history of the wars of resistance and the struggle for liberation ongoing since 1652. (shrink)

This essay is a critical theological and pastoral study of the Working Document of the Second African Synod. The article engages the articles in the document which deal with the theme of reconciliation. This essay begins by exploring the Christological and ecclesiological foundations for an African theology of reconciliation as found in the working document. While engaging the significant aspects of the working document which relate to articulating an African theology of reconciliation, this essay shows the limitations (...) of the document in its historical and cultural analysis of the situation in Africa. Drawing from a phenomenological hermeneutical engagement with African history, cultural grammar, and Christ-centered African Christian imagination, the essay widens the scope of theological engagement with the task of reconciliation in Africa. It does a theological aesthetics of reconciliation in Africa, by integrating diverse cultural, ontological, and Christological symbols within the African world on vital participation and vital union. Through the inculturation of vital participation as analogous to Trinitarian Communion, the essay shows how the Church in Africa can deal with the ever-revolving cycle of violence, conflicts, and divisions in the churches and political institutions which have all hampered the mission of building relationship and God's kingdom in Africa. The essay concludes by recommending four pastoral approaches through which the Catholic Church in Africa can be both a reconciled community and an instrument for reconciliation in Africa. (shrink)

This article explores reverse mission as practised by African Christians in Britain. The main research question is what crucial role does African identity play in African mission in Britain and how does that lead towards developing African British theology? It is argued that such a theology will help African Christians in Britain be affirmed in their cultural identity whilst at the same time reach beyond African communities in their mission engagement. African British theology (...) is related to Black British theology in that they both take the black experience seriously for theological reflection. However, African British theology is also distinct in that it seeks to understand African identity and mission in a postmodern multicultural British society. My research methods have been as an African Practical Theologian involving active participation as well participant observation. My approach has been interdisciplinary engaging the fields of practical theology, diaspora missiology, African theology and Black theology. (shrink)

This paper argues that there is a general absence of democratic theory in African political scholarship in terms of providing the underlying principles, meaning, canons and criteria of democracy in African culture. The paper exposes the conceptual errors implicit in the conflation of democracy as a concept and as practiced in different political systems. Consequently, it contends that an eclectic appraisal of our indigenous democratic values and practices as well as democratic ideas from other cultural traditions can provide (...) a resonant African theory of democracy. The paperconcludes that eclecticism is consociational in principle, and can help solve many of the contemporary socio-political problems besetting current democratic experiences in Africa. (shrink)

Although many bioethicists have given attention to the special health issues of Africa and to the ethics of research on the continent, only a handful have considered these issues through the lens of African moral thought. The question has been for the most part neglected as to what a distinctively African moral perspective would be for the analysis and teaching of bioethics issues. To address the oversight, the authors of this paper describe embarking on a project aimed at (...) incorporating African moral perspective, values and philosophy into a teaching curriculum. The authors clarify the rationale for the project and discuss the strategies employed in Africanizing the bioethics curriculum. (shrink)

This study examines the issues of indigenous philosophies, which are embedded in different aspects of socialization process among the Akan of Ghana. The research explores the possibility of forging a new future that builds on the positive aspects of their past and present and on carefully chosen ideas, methods and technology from abroad.

Contemporary philosophy of religion and analytic theology has recently experienced a revival regarding the nature of the Christian Atonement. The Kaleidoscope theory of the atonement says that the major theories such as Christus Victor, Satisfaction, Penal Substitution, and Moral Exemplar each capture an important aspect of the significance of the atonement. When taken together, they offer a fuller picture of the atonement than they do as individual theories. My goal is to add to the Kaleidoscope theory by drawing on insights (...) from the African philosophical tradition. I argue that there are ideas to be found in the African communitarian ethic of ubuntu that can be mined to help deepen our understanding of the atonement. I thus seek to widen the kaleidoscope theory of the atonement to include important African perspectives. (shrink)

Here I introduce the symposium issue of the South African Journal of Philosophy that is devoted to critically analysing my article “Toward an AfricanMoral Theory.” In that article, I use the techniques of analytic moral philosophy to articulate and defend a moral theory that both is grounded on the values of peoples living in sub-Saharan Africa and differs from what is influential in contemporary Western ethics. Here, I not only present a précis of the article, but also provide (...) a sketch of why I have undertaken the sort of project begun there, what I hope it will help to achieve, and how the contributors to the symposium principally question it. (shrink)

This essay is a critical theological and pastoral study of the Working Document of the Second African Synod. The article engages the articles in the document which deal with the theme of reconciliation. This essay begins by exploring the Christological and ecclesiological foundations for an African theology of reconciliation as found in the working document. While engaging the significant aspects of the working document which relate to articulating an African theology of reconciliation, this essay shows the limitations (...) of the document in its historical and cultural analysis of the situation in Africa. Drawing from a phenomenological hermeneutical engagement with African history, cultural grammar, and Christ‐centered African Christian imagination, the essay widens the scope of theological engagement with the task of reconciliation in Africa. It does a theological aesthetics of reconciliation in Africa, by integrating diverse cultural, ontological, and Christological symbols within the African world on vital participation and vital union. Through the inculturation of vital participation as analogous to Trinitarian Communion, the essay shows how the Church in Africa can deal with the ever‐revolving cycle of violence, conflicts, and divisions in the churches and political institutions which have all hampered the mission of building relationship and God's kingdom in Africa. The essay concludes by recommending four pastoral approaches through which the Catholic Church in Africa can be both a reconciled community and an instrument for reconciliation in Africa. (shrink)

In current discussions on African epistemology, the issue of justification of beliefs has mainly been considered from an externalist perspective, such that justification is described as achievable merely through the means of empirical verification and social context of discourse. However, this results in a knowledge-gap since both internalist and externalist perspectives are needed to arrive at a holistic notion of epistemic justification. Consequently, the objective of this article is to fill this gap by employing the methods of conceptual and (...) critical analysis to attempt an internalist interpretation of epistemic justification in the quest for a more balanced view of African epistemology. (shrink)

In the introduction to his book, African Art, Pierre Meauze refers to carving as a dialogue between man and matter. He does not specify what he means by this statement but if it is his intention to let African sculpture speak for itself he is to be credited for his accomplishment, for the book contains beautiful pictures of some of the most well known pieces of African sculpture. However, as the following inquiry seeks to indicate, it is (...) not possible to fully understand the sense in which carving is a dialogue between man and matter without an initiation into the world of African art. It is therefore the aim of the following inquiry to reveal the sense in which Meauze's statement accurately reflects African sculpture in particular and African art in general. It is necessary, at the outset, to point out that an initiation into the world of African art is not simply an intellectual process. As is the case with other African initiations, it is a process that involves the entire being of man. (shrink)

My remarks on Metz's project will focus on another angle than the one Metz uses. I am more interested in thinking about whether and how far ethical standards from different cultures really differ, how to understand those differences, and how to relate them to what is objectively good, independently of people's opinions on the matter. Of course one widely circulating opinion on the topic is that cross-cultural differences somehow demonstrate that there is no such thing as objective good at all (...) – that each culture has its own conception of what is good, right, permitted, forbidden, and so on, and the differences are so wide that anyone at all familiar with this, can no longer take seriously the idea that there could be any “objective” values underlying such varied systems. South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 26 2007: pp. 336-346. (shrink)

It speaks to the illogic of our public life that the slogan “All Lives Matter” has come to stand directly against “Black Lives Matter” within contemporary discourse on race. Carol Wayne White’s Black Lives and Sacred Humanity, among its other achievements, confirms the absurdity of such an opposition. White shows how historic efforts to defend and define the humanity of African Americans offer a vision in which all human lives do not simply matter but are in fact sacred within (...) nature. White’s effort to marshal elements within the black tradition to develop her notion of sacred humanity succeeds; in fact, the entailments of her arguments go further still. In addition to undermining the binary of black lives/all... (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has provoked new interest in the notion of vulnerability and in identifying alternative approaches for responding to vulnerable patients and populations during health emergencies. In this paper, I argue that the autonomy-based approach (the most dominant approach in bioethics) to responding to vulnerability during health emergencies is deficient because it focuses only on the interests, values, and decisions of the individual patient. It overly emphasizes respect for autonomy and not respect for the patient as it does not (...) consider the patient as a social and relational agent. Indeed, relational approaches to autonomy like the feminist and indigenous sub-Saharan African ethical approaches are promising alternatives. In this essay, I use the indigenous African relational approach to autonomy as an example of an alternative method which can be used to respond to vulnerability during a global health emergency like COVID-19. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the extent to which it is feasible to talk of a black Brazilian literary tradition that is somehow cohesive, conscious of itself and self-reflective. In looking at works by black fiction writers during the second half of the twentieth century, such as Romeu Crusoé, Oswaldo de Camargo, Cuti, Geni Guimarães, Marilene Felinto and Muniz Sodré, it suggests that writers of African descent who self-identify as black Brazilians are to a large extent bound by identification with region (...) as much as they are with skin colour, in a similar way to other ‘ethnic’ writers in Brazil. (shrink)

Numbers 25 presents a human crisis requiring swift leadership interventions to curb the plague. Leadership failure plays out on a number of levels before decisive and resolute interventions are taken. This passage shows a human-created crisis that somewhat parallels the coronavirus disease 2019 outbreak and offers reflective pragmatic approaches taken to ensure immediate arresting of the pandemic and perhaps future curbing of a similar instigation.CONTRIBUTION: Africa has always been known to respond rather belatedly to crises that cost human lives and (...) also for waiting for solutions to come from elsewhere. How do we change that paradigm going forward and what does it mean for the analysis of biblical texts? African hermeneutical readings that take contextual issues rather seriously are utilised in this study. (shrink)

I seek to advance enquiry into the point of a public higher education institution by drawing on ideals salient in the sub-Saharan African philosophical tradition. There are relational, and specifically communal, values prominently held by African thinkers that I use to ground a promising rival to the dominant contemporary Western, and especially Anglo-American, accounts of what a university ultimately ought to strive to achieve, which focus mainly on autonomy, truth, and citizenship. My aims are not merely comparative, contrasting (...) an Afro-communal approach with other ones that have been more globally influential, but also substantive. Although the theory of a university’s point that I articulate and defend has an African pedigree, I work to show that it should be taken seriously by a global audience, for plausibly capturing a variety of intuitions and claims that are widely shared. (shrink)

Influential moral theories in the contemporary West face problems making sense of the conflict between the interests of animals and people’s interests in culture. They have trouble explaining either the existence of strong direct duties to animals or the importance of people’s right to culture (and frequently both). In this chapter I aim to advance a relational ethic, grounded on the African philosophical tradition, that offers a promising alternative. I contend that duties toward animals and rights to culture (...) are potentially conflicting normative branches springing from the common root of a demand to prize communal relationship. In addition to showing that communion makes good sense of the strength of some direct duties to animals and the moral significance of culture, I argue that it accounts well for how to understand the way in which they can clash and how to address it practically. (shrink)

I seek to advance enquiry into the point of a public higher education institution by drawing on ideals salient in the sub-Saharan African philosophical tradition. There are relational, and specifically communal, values prominently held by African thinkers that I use to ground a promising rival to the dominant contemporary Western, and especially Anglo-American, accounts of what a university ultimately ought to strive to achieve, which focus mainly on autonomy, truth, and citizenship. My aims are not merely comparative, contrasting (...) an Afro-communal approach with other ones that have been more globally influential, but also substantive. Although the theory of a university’s point that I articulate and defend has an African pedigree, I work to show that it should be taken seriously by a global audience, for plausibly capturing a variety of intuitions and claims that are widely shared. (shrink)

Studies that investigate cognitive ability in African children and estimate the general cognitive abilities of African adults tend to work with existing models of intelligence. However, African philosophy and empirical studies in cross-cultural psychology have demonstrated that conceptualizations of human cognitive ability vary with location. This paper begins with the assumption that the existing Anglo-American models of cognitive abilities are valuable but limited in their capacity to account for the various conceptualizations of valued cognitive abilities in different (...) human societies. On the basis of this assumption, I employ extant empirical evidence generated through ethnographic studies across Africa to formulate what an African model of valued human cognitive ability ought to be. The output of this formulation has been so christened a model of valued cognitive ability in order to draw attention to the fact that models of cognitive abilities have currency and values in each human society. This value allocation is expected to influence which elements of cognitive ability each human society will promote and develop. In addition, implications for theory, research and praxes are discussed. (shrink)

In this paper, I make a case for an intercultural philosophy of religion from an African perspective. I focus on the philosophical underpinnings of the various meaningful religious practices and beliefs that give rise to the concepts of God, death and the problem of evil. A philosophical study of African traditional religions, based on anthropological findings across African cultural orientations, gives us a good starting point in understanding African worldviews and religious experiences. It also reveals that (...) the various world religions may all be seen as offering different perspectives on the same reality. Specifically, I argue that traditional African conceptions of God, death and the problem of evil could make significant contributions to global discourses in the philosophy of religion. First, I articulate points of convergence and divergence between African traditional religions with Saint Aquinas’ proofs for God’s existence; Second, I question the phenomenon of death and one’s life’s meaning. And third, I approach the problem of evil and attempt an African solution to the Epicurean dilemma. (shrink)

In this article I spell out a conception of dignity grounded in African moral thinking that provides a plausible philosophical foundation for human rights, focusing on the particular human right not to be executed by the state. I first demonstrate that the South African Constitutional Court’s sub-Saharan explanations of why the death penalty is degrading all counterintuitively entail that using deadly force against aggressors is degrading as well. Then, I draw on one major strand of Afro-communitarian thought to (...) develop a novel conception of dignity as the view that what is special and inviolable about human nature is our capacity for harmonious relationships. I argue that a principle of respect for the dignity of such a capacity entails that the death penalty is an indignity but that deadly force in self- or other-defense need not be, and I contend that this African- inspired principle promises to do no worse than the more Western, Kantian principle of respect for autonomy at accounting for a broad range of human rights. (shrink)

Reprint of a chapter that first appeared in Contemporary Philosophical Proposals for the University: Toward a Philosophy of Higher Education (Palgrave 2018).

Bioethics is gradually becoming an important part of the drive to increase quality healthcare delivery in sub‐Saharan African countries. Yet many healthcare service‐users in Africa are familiar with incidences of questionable health policies and poor healthcare delivery, leading to severe consequences for patients. We argue that the overarching rights‐based ethical administrative framework recently employed by healthcare authorities contributes to the poor uptake and enforcement of current normative tools. Taking Ghana as a case study, we focus on the cultural ethical (...) context and we tease out the concepts of the good and the ethical among the Akan and Bulsa ethnic groups. We point out three tenets towards building a normative framework that can resonate with service‐users and practitioners: ontological communitarianism; empathic humanism; and virtuous character. Finally, we indicate how these core tenets can be dovetailed into building an effective normative framework and into the training of healthcare providers. (shrink)

African philosophy of higher education and its concomitant link to teaching and learning on the continent, is a concept that remains contestable, as much about African thought and practice is presumed to exist in narrative form. However, even if African thought and practice were to have existed in narrative form only, it would not necessarily be justifiable to dismiss an idea of African philosophy of higher education as seminal works by leading African scholars over the (...) last few decades corroborate the significance of higher education in Africa. In this article, I attempt to offer an account of African philosophy of higher education, in particular teaching and learning, underscored by a notion of ubuntu—human interdependence and humaneness—on the grounds that such a view of African thought and practice is constituted by meanings that could engender a credible defense of higher education in Africa. From my analysis of the concept ubuntu, practices such as social responsibility, deliberative engagement, and an attentiveness to others and otherness seem to be most salient in enacting a reconsidered view of African higher education. (shrink)

If it can be argued that companies should engage with social justice advocacy, what factors might deter them from doing so? This question is pursued in a qualitative research study with participants from corporate and social justice organisations. Six inhibiting factors are identified: a lack of understanding of social justice concepts; fear of reputational risk; short-term profit orientation; a compliance mindset; disconnectedness from operating environment; and recognition that business purpose will determine its societal engagement. This research extends the theoretical and (...) practice boundaries of corporate social responsibility, while also advocating for an intensified engagement of management education with social justice in practice. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, Volume 32, Issue 1, Page 164-178, January 2023.

This review examines issues relating to biomedical ethics and literature in the African drama The President’s Physician by Emmanuel Babatunde Omobowale. The play investigates the psychological dilemma of Doctor Bituki Warunga, a personal physician to General Kalunga Ntibantunganyah who brutally and inhumanely rules Wavaria, a fictional African country. The doctor is faced with deciding to uphold the ethics of his profession versus terminating the tyrant’s life to set the nation free. The play aims to help budding medical doctors (...) rightly inculcate the principles of medical ethics—autonomy, beneficence, competence, and power—by providing a fictional platform to investigate difficult issues that can arise in clinical practice. The play highlights Warunga’s complex dilemma as he struggles to uphold the Hippocratic Oath and at the same time satisfy his conscience towards his contribution to his country’s freedom. This review explores the difficulties in decision-making when professional duties not only clash with personal preferences but also with the well-being of an entire nation. This discussion is done alongside the ethical concept of utilitarianism and also highlights significant literary concepts such as satire, symbolism, intertextuality, utopian aesthetics, and authorial vision as conveyed in the text. (shrink)

The turn to optimism makes figures of progress, consumption, self-making and empowerment appear in various genres of chick-lit. These narratives, however, are often still shaped by a depressive tone that is distinct from one that says that women have more options than happy-ever-after, even while heterosexual romance remains a structuring force. This article takes the Ghanaian web-series An African City as its example to explore this ambivalence. An African City offered its first season in 2014 and was immediately (...) received as ‘Africa’s own Sex and the City’, praised for challenging the image of a backward Africa, while criticised for offering an unrealistic account of life for urban African women. The series is set around the lives of five women, one of whom plays the leading role as narrator. The ‘African city’ serves as another character, rather than a mere backdrop for the action to unfold. I argue that the various characters perform an ongoing ambivalence towards progress, always stuck in a look backward. It is not simply that the quest for romance fails as part of the drama, but that the drama of failure itself folds onto both the African city and African women as figures that remain eternally stuck in their relation to the temporalities that accrue around modernity. (shrink)

The idea of moral status has been examined in various applied ethical discourses such as medical ethics and environmental ethics. However, little has so far been done in terms of appraising these fundamental disciplines from an African philosophical perspective. I venture into this fairly novel area of African environmental ethics as I seek to examine an African understanding of the moral status of nature. As I take a pluralist approach to the idea of moral status of nature (...) in African environmental philosophy, I seek to argue that both living and non-living beings in the environment ought to be granted moral status. I make use of the teleological view of existence to provide various reasons why nature should be considered as having moral or ethical standing such that human beings should have ethical obligations that are independent of their duties and obligations towards fellow human beings. Overall, I seek to espouse a uniquely African view of the moral status on nature, one that fundamentally differs from other views dominant much of Western philosophical thinking. (shrink)

The past two decades has witnessed the mushrooming of Islamic schools in Europe, the United States and South Africa. Initially these schools were concerned essentially with providing an Islamic ethos for learners. More recently, however, they have begun to focus on the process of Islamization. The Islamization project was initiated in the United States by Muslim academics including Isma’il al‐Faruqi, Syed Husain Nasr and Fazlur Rahman as a response to the secularisation of Muslim society, including its educational insitutions. In essence (...) Islamization means including Islamic disciplines in the curriculum, providing an Islamic perspective on issues in the syllabi and locating, where possible, secularized disciplines within the Islamic weltanschauung. Six international conferences have been held to date at different locations in the Muslim World. The first five generated conceptual papers on the Islamic approach to knowledge and education and inspired academics to write research papers on their disciplines from an Islamic perspective. Most of these have been published in the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences. The three universities which were established to drive the process have had varying degrees of success. The sixth conference which was held in South Africa took the form of workshops where South African teachers and international academics were brought together to generate Islamised syllabi for the major school disciplines. This article attempts to explain the rationale for Islamic schools and their attempts at Islamization of disciplines. In my view, this is an important development in the context of demands for the revival of indigenous knowledge systems. (shrink)

South Africa is one of the most unequal societies in the world. This article is a literature study on the role of theology and the African philosophy of botho or ubuntu trying to address this social inequality. It is this situation that has led to poor (if not the absence of) cohesion in society. It shows how theology through its constructive nature has for years shifted from dogmatism to interdisciplinary dialogue with other sciences and philosophies in order to arrive (...) at facts that are helpful to building harmonious societies. Dialogue is a vehicle that makes this interaction possible. It is pointed out that dogmas, creeds, symbolics, apologetics, etc., all emanated from dialogical deliberations. Botho as life practice of humanity to others is a philosophy that emphasises togetherness or communality. It is a philosophy that puts an individual at the centre of a community. No individual can be contextually rooted without other human beings. It is the people in context that give individuals the meaning and the essence of life. The goal of this dialogue is social cohesion, which is defined as strong relationships enhanced by a sense of solidarity amongst members of a community. It is when botho is socially situated, resulting in theology constructed through dialogue towards desired social cohesion, in order to address the cosmic imbalances that threaten humans' quality of life. It can be presented in a formula: theology + botho or ubuntu = cohesive society. CONTRIBUTION: This article contributes towards the importance of dialogue between theology and the African philosophy of botho. The dialogue leads to social cohesion which is needed for harmonious co-existence in unequal society of South Africa. (shrink)