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Received: 24 April 2022    Accepted: 30 April 2023

DOI: 10.1111/phil.12338

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Practicing ubuntu

Olusegun Steven Samuel1,2

1
Eberhard Karls University of Tuebingen,
Tubingen, Germany Abstract
2
Centre for Research in Ethics/GREEA, This paper discusses one particular way we may put the
Department of Philosophy, University of idea of sharing in ubuntu philosophy into practice: mod-
Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
erate selflessness. Moderate selflessness is an important
Correspondence tool that might help us pursue other-­regarding behav-
Olusegun Steven Samuel, Eberhard Karls iour alongside the agent's genuine well-­being interests
University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen,
to help disrupt the antagonistic gap between humanity
Germany.
Email: samuelolusegunsteven@gmail. and nonhumanity. I suggest that, properly understood,
com; olusegun-­steven.samuel@fsci. moderate selflessness may provide conceptual resources
uni-­tuebingen.de and olusegun.steven.
samuel@umontreal.ca
to avoid antagonistic environmental practices, includ-
ing the concerns of poverty and biodiversity loss.

1  |   I N T RO DU CT ION
Naturally, we would expect of any society that there would be conflicts of interests among hu-
mans, and between individual humans and society at large when an individual places her self-­
interests over those of others with whom she shares the earth environment. The problem of
self-­interests has given rise to several challenges, including the concern of poverty and biodiver-
sity loss. Considering that individual humans and group share the earth environment with oth-
ers, it is imperative to address the challenges that acting selfishly poses to human and nonhuman
beings, especially to the latter who are mostly denied moral consideration. Selfishness poses a
danger to healthy socio-­ecological relationships.1
In addressing the problem of human selfishness as it impacts on humans and other be-
ings, this paper draws on and extends the idea of sharing in ubuntu philosophy. It discusses
one particular way we may put the idea of sharing in ubuntu philosophy into practice: mod-
erate selflessness. This discussion about the practicalities of moderate selflessness aims to
­contribute towards preventing and perhaps even repairing the fragmentation, especially of
human–­nonhuman relationships in environmental thinking and practices. I suggest that,
properly understood, moderate selflessness may provide conceptual resources for a healthy
environmental thinking.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use,
distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
© 2023 The Author. The Philosophical Forum published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.

Philos Forum. 2023;00:1–17.  wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/phil  |  1

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2      SAMUEL

This paper comprises seven sections. The first explores the idea of ubuntu that helps ground
our understanding of sharing. The second discusses the idea of active moral agency that is
central to our understanding of personhood in ubuntu philosophy to help emphasise and lay
the foundation for other-­regarding relationships. The third discusses and shows the challenges
in an influential proposal, Gyekye's moderate communitarianism, which argues for self-­and
other-­regarding moral commitments. I argue that Gyekye's proposal faces at least two difficult
problems: (1) sweeping generalisation of individual rights and (2) undermine proper-­self-­love.
The fourth proposes the idea of ‘moderate selflessness’, to emphasise the importance of ‘proper
self-­love’ within an ubuntu-­inspired ethics. I demonstrate why moderate selflessness is perti-
nent for commitments to others (i.e. to humans and nonhuman beings). The fifth establishes
the place of ‘proper-­self-­love’ in our moral life. The argument I present here is that building
healthy relationships with other humans and beings requires valuing the agent's genuine love
for herself (i.e. ‘proper self-­love’2) alongside the agent pursuing others' well-­being. Here, I am
looking at a person's virtue, and I argue that virtue consists in at least two elements: proper
self-­love and moderate selflessness. The sixth helps to push our vocabulary of sharing in ubuntu
philosophy through moderate selflessness, thereby calling into question the prevailing anthro-
pocentric view of the world. The last adapts the idea of moderate selflessness as an integrative
theme for the practice of sharing in the environmental context, helping to suggest solutions to
the concerns of poverty and biodiversity loss.

2  |  U B U NT U

I focus on ubuntu in this section to help grounds the idea of sharing. The notion of ubuntu
emerges from the language of the Bantu-­speaking people of Southern Africa. A famous for-
mulation of ubuntu is captured by the aphorism: ‘a person is a person through other persons’
(see Hoffmann & Metz, 2017; Mbiti,  1969). One interpretation of this aphorism is that a
person flourishes through a process of intersubjective and dialogical relationships with other
people (Eze,  2017, 101). In this case, ubuntu is understood to focus on human-­to-­human
relationships, where the group one belongs to play considerable roles in moulding her into
a (responsible) person.3 While this interpretation focuses on the interactions among humans
with the hope of transforming individuals into persons, a revised and more sustained in-
terpretation recognises the interconnectedness among humans, and between humans, ani-
mals and the environment (Behrens, 2014; Etieyibo, 2017; LenkaBula, 2008; Murove, 2014;
Ramose, 2015). It is not only that individuals interact with other humans, but they also re-
main a part of the web of life (LenkaBula, 2008, 378–­379). The latter understanding is accu-
rate and not reductionistic for at least one strong reason. It allows us to avoid the unsupported
assumption that interactions and relationships that matter for the concretisation of self and
her well-­being are merely human-­to-­human ones. Focusing merely on the human-­to-­human
interactions in understanding our moral life assumes that human actions and practices that
hinder the flourishing of nonhuman animals, for example, are unimportant in our moral
registers. For a person to be nourished (morally or otherwise), the interactions with other hu-
mans and beings, her connectedness to the environment and the relationships among them
are irreducible (Samuel, 2023a). As such, a more nuanced account of ubuntu philosophy
must understand the self as an interactive and located self. These are two irreducible elements
that ground sharing in ubuntu.
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WHY MODERATE SELFLESSNESS MATTERS FOR MORAL AGENCY |
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2.1  |  Sharing in Ubuntu as interactional

Central here is the idea that no individual is self-­contained at any single time (Letseka, 2013;
Praeg, 2014). One implication of this view is that an individual depends on others for sustenance,
moral support and socio-­ecological well-­being. The overarching goal here is for one to think and
act beyond her self-­interests while interacting with others, allowing for communal relationships
with others. Many scholars of African philosophy describe communal relationships in vari-
ous ways, including participating in the community (Masolo, 2010) and friendly relationships
(Metz, 2020). These ideas are not primarily about interactions per se. Instead, they emphasise
the quality of human interactions with others, which I call healthy relationships. Such a view
negates individual and group selfishness, regardless of who bears it. As Mogobe Ramose tells us,
ubuntu ontology aims at the complementarity between humans, animals and physical nature
(see Ramose, 2015, 70–­75), which involves a way of ‘looking at the universe from de-­centred self's
point of view’ (Ramose, 2015, 70–­75). To look at something from a decentred point of view is to
consider the interests of others in a non-­exclusive way (Ramose, 2003, 751). This decentralised
picture of our interactions with others is required to provide a more receptive environmental-­
ethical thinking and practices that ubuntu (as humanness) suggests. In this case, I argue (and
will later show) that ubuntu philosophy (as proposed here) resists moral partiality in its account
of how humans must relate with others. This is why the idea of person (or humanness) is re-
quired for practicing sharing.
There are two aspects of humanness: first, to be humane is to be ethically transformed in the
sense of possessing moral qualities that are significant for healthy relationships such as sympa-
thy, care, solidarity and proper-­self-­love4—­all things being equal. Second, to become humane cap-
tures the need for individuals to strive towards living a responsible life. Mogobe Ramose (2020)
speaks about this in terms of becoming (i.e. having the capacity to act humanely or responsibly).
Yet, what constitutes a responsible living is a serious matter that divides ubuntu philosophers,
including western philosophers. While I will return to this concern in Sections 3 and 4, the strik-
ing point here is for moral agents to cultivate character responsibly in their interactions with
others in the earth's environment. I will show that the relational facet of ubuntu philosophy
must be inter-­and-­intraspecies blind since we do interact with the more than human world, and
nonhuman beings also have something at stake qua habitats and when human actions impact
on them. Before turning to this issue in Section 4, consider the second facet of sharing in ubuntu
philosophy—­locatedness.

2.2  |  A second feature of sharing is locatedness

Not only does an individual interact with others as suggested in the ubuntu aphorism, but she
also does so within geographical locations and at a time. As a foremost scholar of African phi-
losophy, Dismas A. Masolo, points out, a moral person is a product of the environment (or soci-
ety) she is located within (Masolo, 2010, 154–­158). Locatedness turns attention to an individual
embeddedness within a site with other people and beings. Locatedness is fundamental to the idea
of relationality (see Samuel, 2023a, 2023b). Our understanding of a person, her well-­being and
moral status are incomplete without it. They are incomplete because relationships take place
(practically speaking) within a given historical context. Beings are not merely located in cities,
towns, villages but also in rivers, forests, mountains and soils. The concept of locatedness is
broader than the notion of place, since the latter only picks out the human environment. Yet,
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4      SAMUEL

this important feature of sharing is overlooked in the dominant accounts of moral status in
Western and African philosophy. Much of the discussions on moral status focused on individ-
ual capacities, including the capacities for: autonomy (see, Gyekye, 1997), virtues (Molefe, 2017)
and communionship (Metz, 2020), which are arbitrarily selected and problematic. For example,
Metz drew attention to human communion with nonhuman animals as a step towards building
healthy relationships between humans and animals. According to Metz, while humans can com-
mune with others as subjects of communion, nonhuman animals can only be communed with
as objects of communion. All other beings are directly outside the reach of our moral gaze: ‘We
can in principle commune with animals such as mice, dogs, and cows, but not with other ones
such as ameoba and probably insects. The latter beings simply cannot relate or be related to in
the morally relevant ways’ (Metz, 2020, 140). Inasmuch as a being meets either of these criteria
(subjects and objects of communion), it counts for Metz: ‘any being that can be communed with
by us should matter to us, where those beings with the greatest capacity to be party to communal
relationships should matter most’ (Metz, 2020, 140). There are many challenges in Metz's argu-
ments for moral status because he singles out two ways of relating—­solidarity (i.e. sympathy
and care for others) and shared-­identity (a way of life), utilising human and animal capacities to
relate in a specific way as the primarily and main criteria for moral consideration. The ways of
interacting described by Metz say nothing much at all about animal locatedness in the world and
their stake in the world qua their habitats (Samuel, 2023a). It is not clear whether dangerous an-
imals, including Deathstalker scorpions, Brown recluse spiders, African honeybees, Bull sharks,
hyenas, Black mamba snakes and even dangerous humans count morally in the way described
by Metz. If we agree with Metz, this puts the basis for moral status at the whims and fancies of
our preferred capacities (see Samuel & Fayemi, 2020). Reemphasising locatedness as a way of
animal belongingness in the world points us to another irreducible aspect of animal life that
should warrant attention.
From the above, relationality and locatedness underscore sharing in ubuntu philosophy. First,
both are irreducible aspects of human and nonhuman lives and well-­being. Second, emphasising
both draws attention to a decentralised viewing of our connectedness with others and to the en-
vironment, helping to turn our gaze to other beings that have a stake in the earth's environment.
Third, ubuntu philosophy helps redirect us to the possibility of living healthily, pointing us to
build active moral agency in our interactions with others.

3  |  ACT I V E M OR AL AG E N CY

As I shall argue in this section, active moral agency is important for building inter-­and-­
intraspecies healthy relationships. The idea of active moral agency is required in any plausible
account of moral personhood. The two fundamental concerns I discuss here is what it means to
say someone is an active moral agent and how we can bring it about.
What does it mean to say someone is an active moral agent? Before explaining my account of
active moral agency, it is important to note that I follow scholars in African philosophy such as
Kwame Gyekye (1997) and Motsamai Molefe (2018) in distinguishing the idea of persons from
humans, since this distinction impacts on how ubuntu scholars frame moral responsibility. More
than 20 years ago, Gyekye (1997) makes a pertinent distinction between the idea of a person and
that of an individual in order to establish the place of choice in acting responsibly. To be a per-
son here is for one to be capable of choosing her actions: ‘for the capacity to choose one's ends
is a fundamental feature of person’ (Gyekye, 1997, 55). According to this view, one is a person
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WHY MODERATE SELFLESSNESS MATTERS FOR MORAL AGENCY |
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inasmuch as she is autonomous, where autonomy means having the ability to ‘determine at
least some of one's own goal and to pursue them, and to control one's destiny’ (Gyekye, 1997,
54). For Gyekye, ‘it is an individual's moral achievement that earns him the status of a person’
(Gyekye, 1997, 51). Molefe expresses a similar view in his paper, ‘Personhood and (Rectification)
Justice in African Thought’, that: to say one is a person means that she is leading morally gen-
uine life (see Molefe,  2018, 254), which ‘is a moral achievement that depends on the agent's
performance’ (Molefe, 2018, 355). One striking point we can draw from both explanations is that
a person is first a human being, and second, a human being that can take up responsibilities.
This understanding of a person as a moral agent is important for healthy living. It is important
because the call for us to be or become humane suggests we have the capacities to do so. Since not
every human can take up responsibilities, only moral agents can practice ubuntu. The position
that only persons as moral agents can practice ubuntu, however, does not imply that other hu-
mans who lack agency do not count morally (I will return to this in Section 3).
While it is one thing for someone to have the capacities for autonomy as well as virtues, it is
another thing for one to put it into use. So, the question that should warrant our attention is how
a person can become not merely an agent but also an active moral one. By active moral agents, I
mean those beings who can evaluate the norms and values of a society. They can raise concerns
about the norms and values of their societies to improve them. This is a reflective view of moral
orientation. In particular, I am concerned with how we might make moral agents more active,
or perhaps embody virtues in practical terms. As we can tell, people sometimes harm others
even though they do not intend to. Sometimes, they do so deliberately at the expense of others'
well-­being. Sometimes people rule out moral consideration of others because of the problematic
criterion for determining moral status they affirm. All these are ways in which one might demon-
strate her agency (even though these acts threaten healthy living).
Some resources in Gyekye's proposal are useful for building active moral agency. As Gyekye
aptly argues, a person is not merely an agent, she is also a social being. He writes, ‘for the individ-
ual, community life is not optional—­an assertion that follows the natural sociality of the person
and from the fact that she is embedded in a set of necessary social relationships’ (Gyekye, 1997,
42). In this case, those with whom one relates also play a fundamental role in moulding one's
personhood. The cultural community that we are located within, for example, helps to nurture
and shape our sense of self. As he puts it: ‘Living in relation to others directly involves an individ-
ual in social and moral roles, obligations, commitments and responsibilities, which individuals
must fulfill’ (Gyekye, 1997, 67, emphasis mine). Gyekye adds that a person is idealistic, imagi-
native and inventive in ways that challenges and improve existing social relationships. I agree
with Gyekye that because the cultural community nurtures a person's capacities neither implies
the cultural community creates a person's mental faculty, nor does it suggest she is always pas-
sive. Otherwise, it would mean that all humans are persons, thereby overlooking that some are
endow with skills and talents to examine, critique, modify and extend existing values of societies.
However, Gyekye's remarks that ‘living in relations’ suggests that a person must fulfil moral re-
sponsibilities to such to ‘help others in distress’ might threaten the agent's personal integrity and
well-­being (as I will later show in Section 4).
As I am interested in how moral agents can become active moral beings in their interactions
with other people and beings where they are located, I argue that ubuntu philosophy urges us (per-
sons) to cultivate and embody virtues as bearers of responsibility. Ubuntu (defined as humanness)
concerns acting responsibly. This is why one of the fundamental principles of ubuntu philosophy is
to be ‘other-­regarding’ (see Metz, 2018; Mnyaka & Motlhabi, 2005). Thus, I take active moral agency
broadly to mean an individual's ability to behave in ways that require purposeful action, and that is
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6      SAMUEL

not entirely coerced or based on unreflective practice. This conception suggests the need not only
to weight one's action, but also to do so responsibly. While this definition helps remove moral non-­
agents, including nonhuman animals from taking up moral commitments, it does not exempt them
from being treated well by human agents by virtue of their locatedness within a given site. Yet, my
key point about agency is not about the possession of capabilities by some agents but how people
(who are morally upright or deficient) can become morally responsible.
Responsibility goes hand in hand with moral agency. Humans with capacities for more com-
plex reflective skills should bear a greater burden for assessing the impacts of their actions. In
this account, being an active moral agent suggests neither that one's decision about moral life is
entirely a product of group determination nor that one is self-­made. Both the self-­regulating and
the social dimensions are what provide the norms for responsible action. Active moral agency
involves independent decision-­making since merely interacting with other people or having the
capacities to do so does not automatically make us morally upright:

…agency is not some omnipotent mystical power allowing people to do whatever

they choose. Reflections on actions, reinterpretation of situations, and regrets for the
past all aid in planning anew the future, but even then, persons act in a world they
do not wholly determine and where their actions bring unexpected and sometimes
unintended consequences
(Sokol et al., 2015, 4).

My focus here is on the moral responsibility of persons because of their capacities. This is a differ-
ent question from that of (having) moral status, since the use of capacities for moral consideration is
flawed.5 Instead, it is essentially about how our moral capacities must be embodied, and embodied
responsibly. An American philosopher, Lawrence Becker, comes close to this point when he argues
that: ‘being an active, effective human agent is overwhelmingly more valuable than merely being a
human who is alive, or conscious or capable of agency’ (Becker, 2000, 55). Having explained how we
should understand active moral agency here, I now turn to discuss an influential attempt to promote
individual and other-­regarding moral commitments—­Gyekye's moderate communitarianism.

4  |  GYE K Y E'S M ODE R AT E COMMU​N IT​A RI​A NISM

Before showing how moderate selflessness is important to our moral commitments to human
and nonhuman beings, let me discuss Gyekye's moderate communitarianism since it is a
prominent theory in African philosophy that aims at promoting healthy relationships between
moral agents and the group they belong (i.e. cultural community or human society in gen-
eral). What is Gyekye suggesting through his moderate communitarianism? Recall that, for
Gyekye, the capacity for self-­assertion—­autonomy—­sets an agent apart from other humans.
For him, ‘Autonomy is…valuable in itself’ (Gyekye, 1997, 54). This capacity makes a person to
determine and pursue some personal goals and needs (Gyekye, 1997, 54). Gyekye argues that
exercising this capacity is the basis for realising the agent's dignity. This means that the moral
system must protect ‘the dignity or worth of individual’ (Gyekye, 1997, 62) unless the agent acts
against community well-­being. Gyekye, then, argues that to have a dignity qua autonomy is to
have rights and responsibilities. Gyekye describes his account as moderate because it affirms
‘individual rights’ on the one hand, and it also commits to ‘social responsibilities’ on the other
hand. He writes, ‘individual rights, the exercise of which is meaningful only within the context
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WHY MODERATE SELFLESSNESS MATTERS FOR MORAL AGENCY |
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of human society, must therefore be matched with social responsibilities’ (Gyekye, 1997, 7). The
central argument is: ‘moderate communitarianism’ helps to create room for individual rights,
making it possible for the group not to trump them, especially when individual welfare is at
stake. However, for Gyekye, if the agent fails to perform her social responsibilities, the collec-
tive welfare must prevail: ‘In the absence of the display of sensitivity to such responsibilities, the
community will have to take steps necessary to maintain its integrity and stability. The steps are
likely to involve abridging individual rights’ (Gyekye, 1997, 65). Two important claims deserve
attention in his account. I discuss them below.
From the standpoint of moderate communitarianism, ‘individual rights’ are fundamen-
tal. According to his words: ‘Rights belong primarily and irreducibly to the individual’
(Gyekye,  1997, 62). Given that only moral agents are autonomous in the way described by
Gyekye, it would logically imply that only moral agents have rights. Yet, he seems to extend
rights to all human beings, regardless of their capacities for autonomy. Nothing supports this
conclusion from his arguments. The only claim which he can make from his agent-­based view
is this: persons have rights. The claim to individual rights (if this applies to all humans) fails.
Otherwise, his distinction between a person and an individual is redundant. But it is a vital
distinction for emphasising active moral agency as I have shown. As Bernard Matolino (2013)
aptly argues, moderate communitarianism is not quite different from radical communitari-
anism, which places the community or group over the individual. Matolino raises a critical
concern that Gyekye fails to show the context where it might be possible to violate rights,
and how we might rank conflicting rights where this occurs (see Matolino, 2013, 169). I think
the problem is even deeper than this. We cannot even talk about individual rights unless all
humans are persons. I call this the sweeping generalisation problem.
Second, and very striking, the idea of responsibility is another facet of his moderate communi-
tarianism. For Gyekye, an agent has responsibilities to the communities, by which he means ‘a car-
ing attitude or conduct to the wellbeing of another person or other persons’ (Gyekye, 1997, 66). For
him, ‘Such responsibilities include the responsibility to help others in distress…’ (Gyekye, 1997,
66). Moderate communitarianism is not only suggesting that moral agents have moral commit-
ments to help others, but also that agents must not place limits on the form of their self-­sacrifice
and the extent of their moral responsibilities (Gyekye, 1997, 75). It is shocking that he sees no
contradiction in his claims that (1) agent's responsibilities ‘have no limit’ on the one hand and
his proposal that (2) agents can re-­evaluate received values of a community on the other hand
(Gyekye, 1997, 57). Re-­evaluating received values suggests to me that the agent is not totally bound
to all existing norms that the cultural community considers as the agent's responsibilities. Failing
to balance this tension hinders moderate communitarianism, thereby turning it to a kind of moral
totalitarianism. According to his view, there are no limits to what we can do in the moral sphere
(see Gyekye, 1997, 75). The implication of this view is that an agent cannot give any moral ground
whatsoever why she must not help someone in distress (see Gyekye,  1997, 75). This, however,
threatens an agent's proper-­self-­love, thereby might not encourage agential virtues development.
Let me now show how moderate selflessness could help us address the concerns I raise above.

5   |   M O DE R AT E SE LFLE SSN E SS AS A BASIS FOR

CO MM I T M E N T S TO SE LF AN D OTHERS

In this section, I propose a novel conception of selflessness—­moderate selflessness—­that, I believe,

is essential for reconciling the conflicts among humans, and between humanity and nonhumanity.
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8      SAMUEL

What do I mean by moderate selflessness? Moderate selflessness is a concept that advocates pursuit
of ‘proper self-­love’6 in a healthy way, a position I will elaborate in more details in Sections 5 and 6.
Why is there a need to address the issue of selflessness? First, I address the labels used some-
times to characterise moral life in terms of either self-­regarding or other-­regarding actions in the
discourse on human-­nature and dispel the simplistic dichotomy. Selflessness stands in contrast
not only to selfishness, but in particular to a person's self-­serving concerns. The latter, believed
to be ingrained in human motivation, is captured by Thomas Hobbes in the Leviathan (1651).
Hobbes writes, ‘But whatsoever is the object of any man's Appetite or Desire; that is it, which he
for his part calleth Good: And the object of his Hate, and Aversion, Evill; And of his Contempt,
Vile, and Inconsiderable. For these words of Good, Evill, and Contemptible, are ever used with
relation to the person that useth them: There being nothing simply and absolutely so; now any
common Rule of Good and Evill to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves; but from
the Person of the man…’ (Hobbes, ‘Of Man,’ 1651, 120). He adds, ‘These simple Passions Called
Appetite, Desire, Love, Aversion, Hate, Joy, and Griefe, have their names for divers' consider-
ations diversified. At first, when they one succeeds another, they are diversify called from the
opinion men have of the likelihood of attaining what they desire’ (ibid., 122). A competing view
to the Hobbesian picture of humankind might attempt to assert that humans are not naturally
other-­regarding. For emphasis, while challenging egoism, Caporael et al. (1989, 684), argue that
‘human nature is basically social rather than selfish.’ For them, ‘sociality was a primary factor
shaping the evolution of Homo sapiens’, which plays a considerable role in building human cog-
nitive and affective mechanisms underlying the choices people take (see Caporael et al., 1989,
683). Yet, both positions—­Hobbes', as well as the claim of other-­regardingness, continue to per-
petuate the dichotomy between a person's being self-­serving and other-­regarding (one that has
influenced how some contemporary ubuntu scholars evaluate the choice moral agents must take
to embody ubuntu).
We find such demandingness on some views that attempt to promote ethical behaviour. For
example, in his work on environmental ethics, Munyaradzu Felix Murove, a leading African
environmental thinker, maintains that ‘a person who has ubuntu is someone who puts the con-
cerns of others before his or her own’ (Murove, 2004, 206). This is problematic since it seems
to undermine the agent's ‘proper self-­love’. I call this a simplistic view of selflessness because
it seems to assume that we have moral commitments to others to the detriment of ourselves.
A more nuanced ubuntu thinking, as one finds in David W. Lutz's account, is that ‘the ethics
of a true community does not ask persons to sacrifice their own good in order to promote the
good of others, but instead invites them to recognise that they can attain their own true good
only by promoting the good of others’ (Lutz, 2009, 314). Workineh Kelbessa (2014), a prominent
scholar of African philosophy, shares a similar view when he notes that ‘the requirement for the
individual to conform to the social group does not undermine the ethical status of the individ-
ual’ (Kelbessa, 2014, 55). Instead, for Kelbessa, what is central to a communal understanding of
African environmental ethics is the claim that the well-­being of the individual and that of the
group depend on the interactions between them.
I challenge the simplistic dichotomy that human action should be characterised in terms of
the polarised (and impoverished) language of either ‘selfishness’ or ‘selflessness’. Regardless of
how we might theorise ‘original’ human nature, I have already emphasised that ubuntu philoso-
phy proposes that humans can be self-­and other-­regarding (see a similar position in Metz, 2017;
Heinz & Koessler, 2021). Therefore, second, I draw from the work of those who advocate ‘proper
self-­love’ as a basis for moderate selflessness in environmental ethics. But what is ‘proper self-­
love’ and why is it significant in building healthy inter-­and intraspecies relationships?
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WHY MODERATE SELFLESSNESS MATTERS FOR MORAL AGENCY |
     9

6  |  T H E P L ACE OF ‘PROPE R SELF- L

­ OV E’ IN MORAL LIFE

In this section, I describe a key feature of ‘proper self-­love’: proper self-­love as a condition of a
meaningful life and well-­being. The themes of a meaningful life and well-­being are human con-
structs, and, as such, are value-­laden. Thus, I distance myself from any attempt to offer a com-
plete account of these themes.7 Instead, here, I suggest that ‘proper self-­love’ is a condition of
well-­being and meaningful life. Before setting out this claim, it is significant to say more about
‘proper self-­love’ below.
Simply put, ‘proper self-­love’ implies that a person holds herself in appropriately high regard,
respectfully, and pursues her well-­being interests (Samuel, 2023b, 91). This does not necessarily
imply that she is looking only after her interests, in exclusion of others' interests (Shiao, 2018).
Why is this framing important for healthy inter-­and intraspecies relationships?
The idea of ‘proper self-­love’ underscores that each of us is an individual. It highlights the
individuality and separateness of the self from others. This separateness is a condition for expe-
riencing the world differently from others. More fundamentally, it highlights the capacity to love
oneself as a person deserving moral consideration. Thus, ‘proper self-­love’ involves understand-
ing a moral agent as a being with special feelings and interests, and who acts in ways that give
meaning and purpose to her life. More generally, it highlights that one needs to pay attention to
one's well-­being, interests, ends and projects (Abramson & Leite, 2014). We can then say that
‘proper self-­love’ is about valuing one's life.
To substantiate the above point, suppose an agent was to save other animals who are in a life-­
threatening situation, ‘proper self-­love’ requires the agent to consider her well-­being. In developing
this view, it is important to recall three positions I have made in Section 2 of this paper. These are:

1. active moral agency involves one's ability to behave in ways that require purposeful
actions,
2. an agent must embody virtues responsibly and
3. a morally deficient agent needs to cultivate virtues to lead a morally upright life.

Now, let us apply the above life-­threatening case to the above three conditions. In relation
to 1., an individual that recognises that saving the concerned animals might put her life at risk
could avoid taking the decision. Risking one's life might violate one's personal integrity, thereby
giving appropriate regard and meaning to one's existence is essential. Concerning 2., she would
not be other-­regarding if she does not assist. On 3., even if she cannot save others, an active moral
agent will try to help by calling for assistance (assuming she is the only one there). It is necessary
to call for help because (a) it is inappropriate to risk her life if doing so might threaten her well-­
being, and (b) not doing so indicates a lack of virtue (say, friendliness). To this end, we can see
that ‘proper self-­love’ is about an individual agent realising her true interests and doing things
that make her a morally upright person.
In an important essay, ‘Self-­hatred, self-­love and value’, Kate Abramson and Leite  (2014)
make a relevant point that ‘proper self-­love’ involves a person's ability ‘to recognise and respond
properly to one's failings and shortcomings’ (Abramson & Leite, 2014, 75). They argue that the
self makes mistakes, which she must redress by embodying virtues to be a better person. To
genuinely love oneself thus would involve working on defects in one's character. By implication,
‘proper self-­love’ concerns promoting actions that guarantee personal integrity and addressing
personal defects in one's life. These actions are crucial in how the reader should understand
‘proper self-­love’ here.8
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10      SAMUEL

What constitutes a meaningful life and how might we realise well-­being? Some have ar-
gued that life is meaningful when one attains happiness (or avoids harm) (see Bagozzi, 2020).
This means that meaning in life includes our happiness and safety. While happiness is a vital
aspect of human existence and contributes to human well-­being, there are widespread ar-
guments that happiness (whether conceived in terms of output from consumption or fulfil-
ment) is inadequate to account for well-­being and meaningful human life (see Gasper, 2010;
Molefe,  2020). The happiness argument overlooks other significant elements of well-­being,
including contentment, satisfaction, needs and achievements. Others believe one's life is
meaningful when she flourishes (see Cuomo, 1999; Jeppson, 2016). Regardless of the criteria,
we offer for a meaningful life, one can neither be happy (or fulfilled) nor flourish if she is un-
interested in her life. In my view, a meaningful life involves thriving across different levels of
existence where one inhabits.
‘Proper self-­love’ emphasises the need to thrive, genuinely. By this idea of genuineness, re-
call that ubuntu philosophy suggests we can thrive as a self-­in-­relationships and located being.
Since an agent is always a self-­in-­relationships at a given site, it is the quality of the interactions
with others where one is embedded that can truly determine whether she flourishes or not. A
plausible account of human well-­being must evaluate the basic needs and socio-­historical con-
ditions that will make a flourishing human life possible (Molefe, 2018, 360). For emphasis, in
his ubuntu-­inspired account of well-­being and meaningful life, Motsamai Molefe suggests that
‘a meaningful life is a function of achieving moral excellence’ (Molefe, 2020, 194). Virtues are
significant to a healthy living. Yet, one would not flourish merely by leading a virtuous life as
a virtuous act might also be antithetical to a flourishing life. Put differently, a virtuous person
might act in ways that might be against her well-­being interests.9
As the example discussed above suggests, risking one's life to save animals in distress qualifies
as a virtuous act. Yet, it might be against personal integrity. In this case, an agent who does not
risk her life but calls for help meets our requirement of ‘proper self-­love’ and a moral being in that
situation. There is nothing morally wrong with loving oneself and acting to protect one's well-­
being. A critic might argue against this view that suppose the being in life-­threatening situation
is one's child, would it be appropriate that the agent should not risk her well-­being? We can argue
persuasively that a parent who does not risk her life on the ground that doing so might undermine
her well-­being does nothing we can say is morally wrong. We must also admit that saving the
child is an other-­regarding act. People would naturally wish they save their child. Although risk-
ing one's life to save another person's life does not contradict proper-­self-­love. Saving the child at
the detriment of the agent's well-­being is discretional.
Any attempts to bring about changes in an individual's decisions, that ignores or fails to ac-
commodate an agent's ‘proper self-­love’, is not likely to yield substantial shifts in the agent's
behaviours. To underrate an agent's interest in her well-­being is to overlook an integral aspect of
a meaningful life and one of the core motivations for active moral agency. Recall that by ‘active
moral agency’ I mean an individual's ability to behave in ways that require purposeful action,
and that is not entirely coerced or based on unreflective practice. The view here is that it is futile
to require a person to look after others' well-­being if, at the same time, we deny her the opportu-
nity to secure her well-­being. In other words, ‘proper self-­love’ is required for a person, reason-
ably, to be expected to act selflessly towards others.
As argued above, ‘proper self-­love’ entails that a person holds herself in appropriately high
regard, thereby acknowledging and valuing her life. This understanding could help to open up
conversations about fruitful ways to address conflicting issues surrounding individual-­group and
self-­other well-­being in the socio-­ecological sphere.
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WHY MODERATE SELFLESSNESS MATTERS FOR MORAL AGENCY |
     11

Before fleshing out moderate selflessness further, let me summarise what I have demonstrated
so far. We have seen that we raise the bar too high if we disregard ‘proper self-­love’ in our attempt
to address human selfishness. That some moral agents might pursue their selfish interests with-
out regard for the well-­being of other members of the community, does not justify a solution that
being selfless must involve sacrificing one's well-­being as Gyekye seems to argue (see Section 3).
Pushing for change in the direction of a healthy environmental ethics requires that moral agents
embody healthy behaviours towards others. I emphasised the need for moderate selflessness as a
useful conceptual tool in effecting this change in environmental decision-­making. I turn now to
develop this conceptual tool further below.

7   |   P U S H I NG OU R VOCAB U LARY OF
S H A R I N G I N UBUNT U PH ILOSO PHY THROUGH
M O D E RAT E SE LFLE SSN E SS

In this subsection, I suggest that promoting ‘proper self-­love’ is a crucial requirement for active
moral agency—­that is, for living and acting well. In other words, I recommend that moderate
selflessness should be adopted—­including as part of our moral vocabulary—­to help expand our
environmental and moral accounting mechanisms, thereby calling into question the prevailing
anthropocentric view of the world.
Why is the above necessary? One reason is that a moral agent can hardly be other-­regarding
properly if her well-­being is threatened. I discuss two principles underlying moderate selfless-
ness to guide moral agent in pursuing proper-­self-­love and other-­regarding commitments: (1)
alternative possibility of flourishing (in the situation) and (2) flexibility.

7.1  |  The Principle of Alternative Possibility of Flourishing

First, moderate selflessness advances what I call the principle of alternative possibility of flourish-
ing. This principle stipulates we should not perform actions that negatively affect others if there
are alternative options of flourishing with little or no negative consequences for ourselves and
others. It is significant to weigh the options we face, including the actual or potential suffer-
ing, the scale of the harm, the effect on humanity and nonhumanity, the context, among other
conditions. In shorthand form: we must consider what is at stake in flourishing, regardless of the
beings involved. In this case, our actions and behaviours need both be self and other-­regarding
at the same time inasmuch as both choices are practically possible. The point will be that: it is
when the agent flourishes that we can make important progress in the socio-­ecological sphere.
Yet, we recognise that the self can hardly flourish alone as she is irreducibly connected to other
beings and located within the environment (Samuel, 2023a, 12). Environmental ethics can better
influence agent's conduct and thinking when human and nonhuman well-­being have primary
consideration. This view is essential because humans and nonhumans are interrelated and non-­
self-­sufficient. How then can this principle of moderate selflessness help to boost the idea of
sharing in ubuntu philosophy?
The idea of sharing is central to ubuntu philosophy (see Etieyibo,  2017; Metz,  2020;
Ramose,  2020). I have already shown in Section 1 that sharing highlights our interactions
with others, and that we, and other beings are located in the earth environment. We share
highways with other commuters in a way that we and others need to have access to such a
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12      SAMUEL

site. Likewise, we share a living space with other people and species, including with dogs, cats,
chickens, elephants, horses, snakes and lions. Humans and nonhuman animals share built
and natural habitats within which they do all kinds of activities: playing, exercising, develop-
ing capabilities and identity formation, flourishing and existing. Not only do they do the above
activities, but they also compete for resources and spaces within where they inhabit. It is not
only resources such as waters, golds and minerals underneath the earth that we share with
others, but also the earth's environment. A critical element of relational life involves what
may be captured by the term ‘sharing.’ The idea of sharing involves seeing inter-­and intraspe-
cies interactions as systems of support rather than as antagonistic competitions in which the
weaker ones do not count.
How do we realise sharing beyond the human sphere? I suggest moderate selflessness as a
tool that can help guide us. Recall that moderate selflessness upholds that we fulfil our well-­
being interests without damaging the environment where that can be reasonably avoided. In this
way, moderate selflessness is a strategy that demands we pay attention to our shared concerns.
Moderate selflessness helps to manifest the ubuntu conception of solidarity. Solidarity with the
other is important since it pertains to caring for others (Metz,  2017). Caring for other people
and animals is fundamental, especially when we understand solidarity not merely as a feeling
of compassion for the other but also as the commitment to help others acceptably and fairly
(Rauhut, 2017). However, solidarity with others must also aligns with our idea of proper-­self-­
love. Solidarity must be balanced with proper-­self-­love. As Molefe puts the same thing: solidarity
‘says nothing about my wellbeing and me’ (Molefe, 2022, 121).

7.2  |  The principle of flexibility

Moral evaluation is more about the moral problems we face and how best to address them
than about what kinds of species we and others are. No authentic criteria for ranking human
and nonhuman species are required in making an ethical choice. Moderate selflessness helps
to inject flexibility into our moral register in determining what we need to do in situations
that demands sound ethical decisions. One such situation is whether we are to allow a starv-
ing agent to realise her well-­being even when, for example, government prohibits the killing
of endangered animal. What is at stake should inform our judgement, whether to protect
human beings or other beings (or both). In which case, no real conflict exists between hu-
mans and animals, for example. If we assume a real conflict between them rather than inter-
dependences that ubuntu aphorism suggests, then we would always place human interests
over everything else, thereby promoting human selfishness. However, by emphasising shar-
ing, moderate selflessness helps to accommodate nonhuman beings in our moral register,
while promoting other-­regarding behaviour and action alongside the agent's genuine well-­
being interests.
So far, we have seen, first, that promoting ‘proper self-­love’ is important for living and acting
well and, second, that ‘proper self-­love’ is not necessarily antithetical to moral life. Thus, in my
discussion on selflessness, I have mapped out the distinctions among selflessness, selfishness,
‘proper self-­love’ and proposed a fresh, updated idea of moderate selflessness to help disrupt the
antagonistic gap among humans, and between human and nonhuman beings. I turn to discuss
how we might apply moderate selflessness to environmental problems.
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WHY MODERATE SELFLESSNESS MATTERS FOR MORAL AGENCY |
     13

8  |  MODERATE SELFLESSNESS AS AN INTEGRATIVE THEME

The section adapts the idea of moderate selflessness as a unifying theme for the practice of shar-
ing in the environmental sphere. It does this by suggesting solutions to the environment con-
cerns, particularly the concern of poverty and biodiversity loss.

8.1  |  Biodiversity loss

Moderate selflessness challenges us not to undermine the well-­being of others, insofar as that is
avoidable within reason. It means that we cannot rule out the genuine interests of moral agents
if we want the self to commit herself to environmental well-­being. In this way, moderate selfless-
ness addresses the antagonistic approach we might see in the way humans conceive of human
and environmental well-­being, or even perhaps in the way humans compete for resources.
Arguing against such antagonism, this paper urges environmental decision-­makers to factor in
the self-­preservation of the agents into the call to encourage ecological well-­being. Doing this can
go some way in promoting biodiversity conservation practices. One way to preserve biodiversity
is to preserve their locations. Turning attention to locatedness as an important facet of ubuntu
philosophy draws us to see it not merely as the place where human is, but also as the domain
and habitats of living beings. Preserving rivers, soils, landscapes, mountains, forests, cities and
villages, therefore, matter for the beings inhabiting there. This understanding of location helps to
push the literature of ubuntu philosophy farther since locatedness now constitutes an important
element of moral consideration. Dislocating animals from their habitats, for example, involves a
disregard for the other with which we share the earth's environment. These important points are
missing in Gyekye's moderate communitarianism as, in his account, the flourishing of human is
its chief concern (see Gyekye, 1997, 50).

8.2  |  On poverty

Let us dwell on the issue of poverty briefly. While several scholars such as Ramose (2020) and
James Mastaler (2019) have resisted economic domination of the environment, particularly the
environment of the developing countries and nature, Helen Kopnina and Washington  (2020)
also critique ‘endless economic growth’ as the cause of poverty. In Ill fares the land, written
more than 30 years ago, Susan George draws our attention to how hunger and poverty hinder the
poor from flourishing. She traces this to negative power-­relations ‘between the dominant and the
dominated classes’ (George, 1984, 61). Interestingly, she notes, ‘the worst-­off know very well why
they are poor, at least on the immediate local level, and this knowledge represents one starting
point for improving their status’ (George, 1984, 61). She suggests that being poor is not merely
a material deprivation but also social exclusion. Those who believe others are responsible for
their impoverishment would hardly cooperate with their exploiters on policy matters or perhaps
treat plants and animals well when their survival is at stake. Moreover, there is a strong case for
the argument that poverty is the worst enemy of the environment (see Hollander, 2003). We can
hardly resolve this without dismantling unhealthy power relations—­in which the powerful lord
over the weak and powerless, including how some humans lord over nonhuman beings and enti-
ties. The theme of moderate selflessness invites us to take the issue of proper-­self-­love seriously
since the poor matter themselves as moral agents. People need to feed well for them to act well.
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14      SAMUEL

Poverty is a killer of personhood. People need to feed well to contribute positively to our attempt
to address biodiversity loss. Those experiencing economic hardship and material poverty would
hardly seek to preserve threatened and rare species, which they consider the only source of food
for their survival.
We are aware that there is much to fix, and that there are complex issues in our treatment of
human and nonhuman others. For example, we do not only need to preserve biodiversity, but
we must also confront the problem of poverty, growing human population, exploitation of land
and resources in the developing countries by powerful multinational corporations, deforestation
and negative climate change. Given that moderate selflessness draws attention to active moral
agency as a condition of acting responsibility, it helps enrich our attempts to address biodiversity
loss and poverty in an environmentally illuminating way.

9  |   CO N C LUSION
This paper provided a conceptual tool that might encourage us to think inclusively of humanity
and nonhumanity in environmental discourse: moderate selflessness. The idea developed in this
paper prompts us to think about human and nonhuman beings not only in relational terms but
also emphasises their sharing of the earth environment. While the paper rejected human selfish-
ness as a critical environmental concern, it does not take genuine well-­being interests of the self
and those of human and nonhuman others for granted. It emphasised the need to accommodate
‘proper self-­love’ as integral to active moral agency. It demonstrates how moderate selflessness
contributes towards cultivating moral personhood. By comparing moderate selflessness with
Gyekye's moderate communitarianism, I argue that the former is a more plausible proposal that
can help ground healthy relationships among humans, and between humans and other beings.
Moderate selflessness prompts us to accommodate the agent's ‘proper self-­love’ in a way that
is both other-­regarding and practically possible for the agent to do. This, I believe, could help
address the problem of human selfishness, which has given rise to various socio-­ecological prob-
lems, including the concern of poverty and biodiversity loss.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.

CONFLICT OF I NTEREST STATEMENT

The author has no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

ORCID
Olusegun Steven Samuel  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8278-3509

ENDNOTES
1 A relationship is healthy when one does not make others worse-­off in a way that we cannot reasonably justify.
In this case, a healthy relationship requires that we treat others fairly. By contrast, relationships are unhealthy
when how we interact with the other is unfair.
2 Although the notion of ‘proper self-­love’ is not original to me, it is relevant for inclusive thinking in the socio-­
ecological spheres. ‘Proper self-­love’ involves the genuine love that one has for herself, including to flourish and
protect one's existence—­all things being equal.
3 I will return to the notion of person in the following section.
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WHY MODERATE SELFLESSNESS MATTERS FOR MORAL AGENCY |
     15

4 We rarely find the last in the ubuntu literature about moral status. However, where it has occurred, it is some-
times mistaken for moral partiality (see, e.g. Motsamai Molefe, 2022, 108).
5 As already emphasised, the capacity condition for moral consideration begs the question about agency, since
such capacity can be lost now or later. Inasmuch as infants and mentally incapacitated humans lacking these
capacities have moral status, it is unclear how the capacity for autonomy and virtues proposed by Gyekye (1997,
54–­57) and Molefe (2018, 355–­361) as conditions of moral status or dignity are plausible. The problem remains
that their proposals for moral status rest within a person-­centred account of agency, that immediately excludes
some humans from moral consideration. One must not be an agent to have a stake in something, including
having access to it and being treated well. For example, we treat children and mentally incapacitated humans
well even when we know they lack the capacity for autonomy and virtues.
6 I shall return to the notion of ‘proper self-­love’ in the following section.
7 I do not intend to provide all the criteria for a meaningful life and well-­being. It is also not my aim to discuss
which of the criteria (be it subjective or objective) is more important than the other. Instead, I want to argue that
‘proper self-­love’ is a condition of well-­being and meaningful human life.
8 ‘Proper self-­love’ involves valuing one's life from violation and moral defects that might hinder one's ability to
lead a good life.
9 Some of the earliest suggestions to the problem of life-­threatening conflict involving choosing between one's
child or a neighbour's child has prompted a call for agential moral partiality by scholars such as Motsamai
Molefe (2017). In a much recent paper, Molefe calls for the need to recognise ‘agent-­centred duties’, one which
may outweigh other-­regarding duties. Molefe's position is an important progress in ubuntu-­inspired ethics. Yet,
his account faces a serious problem. One of such is that he still grounds this important demand to recognise
agent-­centred duties using problematic phrases, including ‘agent-­related partiality’ (Molefe,  2022, 107), and
‘agent-­centred partiality’ (Molefe, 2022, 108). Describing agent's proper-­self-­love in terms of partiality trivialises
it as moral bias rather than a legitimate moral demand.

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How to cite this article: Samuel, O. S. (2023). Practicing ubuntu. The Philosophical
Forum, 00, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1111/phil.12338