Love as the foundation of Ubuntu

Abstract

Ubuntu is widely understood as a moral theory with a scope that is wide enough to explain what counts as the right kind of human behaviour as well as what it means to be a person. Understood in its basic form, Ubuntu is a relational theory about human interaction wherein its main focus could be argued to be a matter of living with raw awareness of the interdependence necessary among people – a kind of interdependence that enables communities to remain united. Herein I want to turn the attention to the meta-ethical analysis of Ubuntu, wherein I explore the possibility of love as a foundation for Ubuntu. What is interesting about Ubuntu in this meta-ethical sense is not the kind of behaviour it inspires in people, but the kind of virtue that sits at its very foundation.