This book educates whilst also challenging the contemporary schools of thought within philosophical and religious ethics. In addition, it underlines the fact that the substance of ethics in general and bioethics/healthcare ethics specifically, is much more expansive and inclusive than is usually thought. Bioethics is a relatively new academic discipline. However, ethics has existed informally since before the time of Hippocrates. The indigenous culture of African peoples has an ethical worldview which predates the western discourse. This indigenous ethical worldview has been orally transmitted over centuries. The earliest known written African text containing some concepts and content of ethics is the “Declaration of Innocence” written in 1500 B.C., found in an Egyptian text. Ubuntu is an example of African culture that presents an ethical worldview. This work interprets the culture of Ubuntu to explain the contribution of a representative indigenous African ethics to global bioethics. Many modern scholars have written about the meaning of Ubuntu for African societies over centuries. Some scholars have viewed Ubuntu as the greatest contribution of African cultures to other world cultures. None of the scholars, however has explored the culture of Ubuntu as providing a representative indigenous ethics that can contribute to global bioethics as discussed in this book.​

This book educates whilst also challenging the contemporary schools of thought within philosophical and religious ethics. In addition, it underlines the fact that the substance of ethics in general and bioethics/healthcare ethics specifically, is much more expansive and inclusive than is usually thought. Bioethics is a relatively new academic discipline. However, ethics has existed informally since before the time of Hippocrates. The indigenous culture of African peoples has an ethical worldview which predates the western discourse. This indigenous ethical worldview has been orally transmitted over centuries. The earliest known written African text containing some concepts and content of ethics is the “Declaration of Innocence” written in 1500 B.C., found in an Egyptian text. Ubuntu is an example of African culture that presents an ethical worldview. This work interprets the culture of Ubuntu to explain the contribution of a representative indigenous African ethics to global bioethics. Many modern scholars have written about the meaning of Ubuntu for African societies over centuries. Some scholars have viewed Ubuntu as the greatest contribution of African cultures to other world cultures. None of the scholars, however has explored the culture of Ubuntu as providing a representative indigenous ethics that can contribute to global bioethics as discussed in this book.​

Bioethics urges us to question and debate fundamental moral issues that arise in health-related sciences. However, as a result of Western dominance and globalization, bioethical thinking and practice has inevitably been shaped and defined by Western theories. With recent discussions centering on the relationship between culture and bioethics, it is important to consider how and to what extent can bioethics reflect and accommodate non-Western values and beliefs? Debatably, many scholars working in the field of ‘African bioethics’ seek to construct a bioethical practice that is grounded in indigenous African values. Yet, how relevant are ancient African cultural norms to the lives and realities of the 21st century Sub-Saharan-Africans? This edited volume explores bioethics in Africa from pluralistic and inter-cultural perspectives. The selected papers offer diverse theoretical and practical perspectives on the bioethical challenges that are common and specific to the lives of Sub-Sahara Africans. The contributors define bioethics broadly (beyond ethical issues relating to biomedical and biotechnological science) to include applied ethics that concern all aspects of life. Multidisciplinary in approach, the contributions to this book consider bioethics in relation to philosophy, social work, psychiatry, African studies, religious studies, psychology, and medicine. The broad scope of this volume means it will be of interest to those studying and working in bioethics as well as the fields mentioned above.

This book focuses on ethical issues faced by a variety of healthcare practitioners across the Anglophone African continent. This important resource contains in-depth discussions of the most salient current ethical issues by experts in various healthcare fields. Each profession is described from both an African and a South African perspective, and thus contributes to dialogue and critical thinking around African ethics and decision-making. In this way the book provides readers with an understanding of the ethical issues at hand in various professions, including the practical implications of the ethical issues and how to address those effectively. This is a beneficial resource for all those involved in the various healthcare professions addressed in this book, including undergraduate students, lecturers, researchers and practitioners across the continent. Simply put, with the dynamic changes and challenges in healthcare across the globe and in Africa, this is an indispensable resource for healthcare practitioners.

This is the first comprehensive volume on African ethics, centered on Ubuntu and its relevance today. Important contemporary issues are explored, such as African bioethics, business ethics, traditional African attitudes to the environment, and the possible development of a new form of democracy based on indigenous African political systems. In a world that has become interconnected, this anthology demonstrates that African ethics can make valuable contributions to global ethics. It is not only African academics, students, organizations, or those individuals committed to ethics that are envisaged as the beneficiaries of this book, but all humankind. A number of topics presented here were inspired by a Shona proverb that says, Ndarira imwe hairiri (One brass wire cannot produce a sound). The chorus of voices in African Ethics demonstrates this proverbial truism.

This book charts technological developments from an African ethical perspective. It explores the idea that while certain technologies have benefited Africans, the fact that these technologies were designed and produced in and for a different setting leads to conflicts with African ethical values. Written in a simple and engaging style, the authors apply an African ethical lens to themes such as: The Fourth Industrial Revolution, the moral status of technology, technology and sexual relations, and bioethics and technology.

For millennia, Africans have lived on the African continent, in close contact with the diversities of nature: floral, faunal and human; and in so doing they have developed cultures, values, attitudes and perspectives to the problems, ethical and otherwise, that have arisen from the existential pressures of their situation. The problem, however, is that such values and perspectives do not necessarily form coherent ethical theories. Theory-making is a second order activity requiring a certain amount of leisure and comfort which the existential conditions of life on the African continent have not easily permitted in the retrospect-able past. The elements of African bioethics are to be found in its cultural values, traditions, customs and practices. These are research-able, highlight-able and usable by those who would. The bioethical problems of our current global existential situation are such that all possible solutions, no matter their provenance, ought to be tried. Western culturehas far too loud a voice combined with deaf ears in contemporary ethical discourse. But it should never be forgotten that other cultureshave their own word to say and that alternative values, ways of thinking and practices exist, and attempt should always be made to bring these out and to highlight them, if they could possibly contribute to the satisfactory solution of a global problem. This book brings together various papers on bioethical issues and problems, written at different times, some previously published, each of which attempts to bring out some Africanelements, perspective or concern. The African narrative style predominates through these essays but their framing conforms, more or less, to the Western paradigm for presenting academic issues.