What is the Akan ethics focused on?

In practice, this means that Akan morality places a great deal of emphasis on the set of obligations, responsibilities, rights, and privileges that comes from being born into a particular community. Failure to live up to those responsibilities involves a failure of personhood.

What are the three elements of personhood for the Akan people?

Among those contrasts are four on which we focus below: (1) the continuous nature of personhood, (2) the means by which individuals achieve full personhood, and the implications of this conception of personhood for (3) the relationship between individuals and the community and (4) the Akan understanding of …

What is philosophy Kwame gyekye?

Philosophical work Gyekye challenges the view that in African thought, community confers personhood on the individual and thus the individual’s identity is merely derivative of the community.

What are 3 central concepts in African ethics?

The concepts of good, bad (or, evil), right and wrong feature prominently in African moral thought, as they do in the moral systems of other peoples and cultures.

What is Akan culture?

Akan culture is one of the traditional matrilineal cultures of Africa. Akan art is wide-ranging and renowned, especially for the tradition of crafting bronze gold weights, using the lost-wax casting method. The Akan culture reached South America, the Caribbean, and North America.

What is personhood in African philosophy?

The communitarian conception of person is the dominant view of personhood in African philosophy. This view centrally holds that personhood is something that is attained in direct proportion to one’s moral worth and one’s relations with her surrounding community.

How would you describe African philosophy?

Like Western philosophy, African philosophy contemplates the perceptions of time, personhood, space and other subjects. Africana philosophy can be formally defined as a critical thinking by Africans and people of African descent on their experiences of reality.

What are traditional African values?

In African society, there are a set of values that guide the behavior of every member. Specific mention could be made of values such as hospitality, chastity before marriage, truth, respect for old age, covenant keeping, hard work and good character.

What is the food of the Akans?

Yams are the staple food crop in the Akan economy, but plantains and taro also are important; cocoa and palm oil are major commercial resources.

What language do Akans speak?

Akan refers to the language of the Akan ethnic group of Ghana. It is also spoken in the central and eastern part of Cote d’Ivoire. Akan comprises three main mutually intelligible dialects: Fante, Asante Twi and Akwapim Twi. Asante Twi is the widely used.

Who is man in ethics?

Man is a social being, who has his origins and his thrust in natural evolution. Early in his development, he realized that the price of survival was co-operation. He began to devise rules of behavior, taboos, ethics. At times the rules were too restrictive, and rebellion fol- lowed.