Ubuntu Philosophy

Ubuntu is an African idea about what it means to be a person. It comes from Southern Africa. The saying behind it is umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu. It means “a person is a person through other persons.”

The idea has other names in other languages. In Shona it is hunhu. In Tswana it is muthu. The names differ. The core idea is the same.

Why does the saying matter?

You do not become fully human alone. Your humanity grows through your bonds with other people. So how you treat others also shapes who you are.

What is the memory hook?

Ubuntu: a person is a person through persons.

In Ubuntu thinking, personhood is not just given at birth. It is something you grow into. The community helps you do that.

The community also sets the moral standards. Elders hold and pass on those standards. A person who lives by them earns the full name of person.

How is the starting point different?

Many Western theories begin with one thinker reasoning alone. Ubuntu begins with the person inside a group.

What follows from this?

African ethics puts duties to others first. One summary says duties trump rights, not the other way around.

What is the memory hook?

Personhood is attained, with elders as guides.

One philosopher put the difference in two short phrases. Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” The scholar Pobee said, “I am related by blood, therefore I exist.”

Western moral theories such as Kant’s are built around a single person. That person reasons about duty. Ubuntu is built around relations instead.

What does Kant ask?

Kant asks what duty a rational person owes. The test is made by one thinker alone.

What does Ubuntu ask?

Ubuntu asks who is affected, and how a choice touches the bonds of the group.

What is the memory hook?

Cogito: I think. Cognatus: I am related.

Ubuntu is often seen in how guests are welcomed. Among the Korekore-Nyombwe people, a stranger was first offered water. Water stands for life and welfare. Only then came directions or a place to stay.

Shona and Ndebele custom also gave travellers food, shelter and warm clothing for a day or two.

What does a Shona proverb say?

Muenzi haapedzi dura means “a visitor does not finish the food.” Giving to a guest was not seen as a loss.

How does this differ from privacy norms?

In some Western settings, a stranger who enters a home may be treated as a trespasser. Ubuntu custom starts from welcome.

What is the memory hook?

Guest first: water, food, shelter.

South Africa’s apartheid ended in the 1990s. The country then had to decide how to face its past. It set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or TRC. Parliament created it by an Act that was signed on 19 July 1995.

The Act looked at gross human rights violations from 1 March 1960 onward. It let people apply for amnesty. Amnesty means freedom from prosecution. But a person had to make full disclosure of the facts first.

Where does Ubuntu appear?

The Act’s preamble speaks of “a need for ubuntu but not for victimization.” So the idea sits in the law behind the TRC.

What was Tutu’s role?

Archbishop Desmond Tutu chaired the TRC. He later said that Ubuntu was the main ingredient behind its achievements. He saw it as the reason people could choose forgiveness over revenge.

What is the memory hook?

TRC 1995: truth for amnesty, Ubuntu in the preamble.

Nelson Mandela spent 27 years behind bars before leading South Africa. Many people point to him as a living example of Ubuntu.

He took the oath as president in Pretoria on 10 May 1994. He had invited three white prison warders to the inauguration. They had become his friends in jail.

Why is this a good example?

He had been held by guards under apartheid. Yet he treated some of them as friends. He chose to heal bonds, not settle old scores.

What is the memory hook?

Mandela: 27 years inside, three warders invited.

Yes, in more than one country. In Zimbabwe, the 1987 Unity Accord between ZANU PF and PF ZAPU was said to be made “in the spirit of Ubuntu.”

In 2008, Zimbabwe’s Global Political Agreement and the Government of National Unity again drew on the idea. The phrase used was “I am because we are, since we are therefore I am.”

What does this show?

Leaders used Ubuntu to argue for unity after conflict. But critics say using it in politics has risks. Their view comes next.

What is the memory hook?

Zimbabwe 1987 and 2008: unity in Ubuntu’s name.

Scholars praise Ubuntu, but they also raise doubts. Onyebuchi Eze says some writers romanticise a past in which everyone agreed. He asks whether that picture still fits today.

Eze also warns about the TRC. He argues that it used Ubuntu “as an ideology to achieve political ends.”

Is the idea too vague?

The scholar Gade notes that older texts call Ubuntu “African humanism” without saying what they mean.

Does it crush the individual?

If personhood means following communal standards, where does dissent fit? The question is open. Eze says the individual and community shape each other at the same time.

What is the memory hook?

Praise, but ask: vague, romantic, political?