end of course Flashcards
According to Wingo, what are fellowship associations, and how do these associations figure in at least two (of the three we discussed) preconditions for a liberal democracy?
fellowship associations are a voluntary social organization that are part of civil society. These are “pre-modern” affiliations that persist after colonization.
civic education- fellowship associations are values as places to build trust and cooperation, and they train citizens to conduct their lives effectively within an in support of their polity
Active participation- the greatest danger to a liberal democracy is a “do-nothing” sedentary citizen. fellowship associations encourage activity.
How does Wiredu respond to the objection that consensual democracy requires an exaggerated view of harmony, and thus, multi-party majoritarian democracy is better?
Wiredu says that even so, the multi-party view is a non sequitur. you can have pluralism of expressed values and interests without parties, and removes party considerations as a factor apart from people’s interests.
Describe one objection that Eze offers against Wiredu’s view of consensual democracy. How does Matolino respond to Eze’s objection?
Eze gives an objection from political legitimacy: Basically, the legitimacy of the Ashanti chief depends on religious factors, one can’t claim that the chief legitimacy reasons with council, if reasoning presupposes a recognition of the chief as spiritually special.
Matolino Replies by stating that there is no tension, because religious commitments exist alongside authority, but they are not constitutive of it. He says that there’s a difference between procedural and substantive requirements for governance.
We discussed three challenges that Ani raises for Wiredu’s conensual democracy. Describe two of these problems.
Complacency: wiredu suggests that we’re supposed to suspend disagreement, but that might foster an undesirable complacency- it is hard to see how suspending disagreement yields progress. If anything it seems less critical and more conformist.
Public Acquiescence: Representatives give in while in the public sphere, but dissent in private. This seems problematic, even though it satisfies Wiredu’s “substantive” requirement because they’re still representing their constituents in practice.
Diagne and Wingo offer different interpretations of the Manden Charter. What are their respective interpretations of the Manden Charter? (In your response, you should clearly identify what claim Diagne and Wingo agree on, and what principal claim they disagree upon, and why.)
Diagne thinks that the oath of the Manden clearly articulates an individualistic, rather than communal ideal- the rights attached to a human life is the prerogative of no particular civilization, the oath does not encumber itself with considerations of the value of the community and the duties of the individual toward it.
Wingo sees the interpretation of human rights as episodic and contingent. He thinks that the authors of the charters were not writing a universal human rights charter, but creating positive rights. Both think that an African philosophy of what it means to be human and have rights does not necessarily have to be caught up in a communitarian approach. They disagree about the extent to which community influences the conception of rights. WIngo thinks that there are certain contingent circumstances that make individuals rights more salient, while Diagne thinks that rights are universal independent of circumstance.
We discussed several points that Wingo makes in defense of relational freedom. What is relational freedom, and two points that Wingo makes to illustrate and defend it?
Relational freedom is an episodic freedom of the individual; the thicker the network of affectual dispositions available to an individual, the more opportunities there are for the exercise of relational freedom.
certain contingent circumstances make individual rights salient: “change the circumstance, and you change the conception”, impersonal public institutions make freedom possible.
personal, non-relational freedom is inconsistent: if personal freedom is the absence of interference, and human rights are enablers of personal freedom, then it is possible to “force people to be free”. this seems absurd. The better alternative, according to Wingo, is that people themselves are the creators of rights.
briefly explain how Ani’s view of rational deliberation differs from Wiredu and Matolino on the one hand, and Eze on the other.
Wiredu and Matolino think that deliberation is a purely rational activity and Eze thinks that you cannot operate the deliberation “cleanly” from the religious and spiritual beliefs. On the other hand Ani thinks that non-rational factors do play a role in deliberation, but that Eze assigns them too much weight and that the persuasion of some person is a matter of scientific discovery, not some a priori speculation. Ani thinks that consensus is probably not superior to majority in epistemic or moral value, but is psychologically superior. Furthermore Ani thinks that id traditional deliberation ere a purely rational activity, then nothing, including colonialism, could have disrupted it.
