How to Do African Ethics: Reply to Six Critics

Abstract

This essay is a lengthy response to six contributors to a special issue edited by Adeshina Afolayan and devoted to critical discussions of _A Relational Moral Theory: African Ethics in and Beyond the Continent_. Key topics include: the proper role of metaphysics when doing moral philosophy; the appropriate aims of moral philosophy in the light of relational values and properties; the ir/relevance of imperceptible agents for an African ethic; the un/attractiveness of the principle that one morally should promote the common good; the nature of virtue (vice) and its relation to rightness (wrongness); and how to capture self-regarding virtues and duties to oneself theoretically.