Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies

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Academic Integrity: the imperative of probity in African development research." Plenary paper delieverd 16th November, 2018. First Annual UDSM Two Day International Conference Enhancing Strategic Research For Inclusive Industrial Development In Tanzania SIDA-UDSM
(2018-11-16) Lauer, Helen
The international community refers to this as the era of post-truth. But for African scientific researchers investigating and theorizing African realities, there is nothing new about this era of relying upon stereotypes rather than evidence-based hypotheses to spin familiar falsehoods promulgated in the guise of scientific consensus. The global arena is rife with misrepresentations that sustain the bizarre yet incorrigible conviction that Africans require foreign expertise to direct research agendas and to move development policy in a sustainable direction. This is why academic integrity is so important to uphold particularly as individual researchers and knowledge producers representing academic excellence and proximity with facts on the ground, through your expertise and proximity to indigenous knowledge custodians in this part of the world. By academic integrity here I refer narrowly to truthfulness and rigour in the production of knowledge outputs and in the critical assessment, dissemination or rejection of products already in circulation. Key to this notion of integrity is the avoidance of plagiarism. But in the research sciences integrity entails sustaining the confidence to speak facts to fiction, to resist the overwhelming power of knowledge monopolies, where one’s access to research funding and potential career opportunities rest on one’s capitulating to profit-driven research agendas. This begins by correcting the widespread ignorance that passes as received knowledge and theoretical advice sustained by consensus in the global arena about Africans and the interpretation of long term implications of global capital expansion and resource extraction on the Two Thirds World. But the opportunity to forward such corrections will not be offered; it has to be seized, demanded, fought for. That is a struggle that requires courage and tenacity, it requires defiance and commitment and professional risk-taking.
African Philosophy and the Challenge of Science and Technology,” in Handbook of African Philosophy eds.
(ToyinFalola&AdeshinaAfolayan, Palgrave-Macmillan in press., 2017) Laure, helen
Unregulated knowledge markets have yielded the tragedy of the global commons, trading in profitable, high-tech commodities—from genetically modified seeds to electronically transferred ‘bit’ coinage. These quick-fix responses to basic human needs exacerbate the very distributive injustices that ostensibly they were intended to correct. The challenge faced by contemporary African philosophers is to defeat the tyranny of foreign expertise which undermines our biosphere and therefore threatens human survival, as it commands the pursuit of science-for-profit in the twenty-first century. African professional intellectuals can meet this challenge as philosophers without borders, utilizing their competitive advantage in defying the disciplinary boundaries that retard researchers and developers in G8 countries in their effort to grapple with egregious human distress. African intellectuals in all fields working as philosophers without borders are well-positioned to infiltrate the global division of intellectual labour, while amplifying otherwise suppressed critical voices of indigenous authority and of Western-trained African specialists—whose testimonies are disregarded if they threaten a lucrative agenda. The world’s ‘remote’ regions afford the best location for recognizing the shortfalls of profit-driven initiatives in pursuit of post-2015 UN sustainable development goals. Working in the poorest economies, African professionals are the best suited to study and reflect upon local conditions, and from there to extrapolate internationally, speaking on behalf of populations throughout the Two Thirds World who have the most to gain by radical transformation of the global knowledge economy.
Anti-Corruption Struggle in Post-Reform Mass Media
(DUP, Dar es Salaam, 2010) TumainMungu, Peter
"The Concept of Human Dignity in German and Kenyan Constitutional Law,” Thought and Practice:
(A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya, 2012) Rainer, Ebert; Reginald, Oduor MJ
This paper is a historical, legal and philosophical analysis of the concept of human dignity in German and Kenyan constitutional law. We base our analysis on decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, in particular its take on life imprisonment and its 2006 decision concerning the shooting of hijacked airplanes, and on a close reading of the Constitution of Kenya. We also present a dialogue between us in which we offer some critical remarks on the concept of human dignity in the two constitutions, each one of us from his own philosophical perspective.
DASEIN'S TRANSCENDENCE, INTERPRETATION AND FREEDOM: An Engagement in dialogue with Martin Heidegger i the concept of Truth.
(facultate philosophiae apud pontificiam universitatem S. thomae in urbe, 2010) Muhoza, Josephat,C
Heidegger’s philosophy is the philosophy of Being, a notion he accuses philosophers before him of having obscured and pushed into foggottenness. Since for him being and truth are identical, we can rightly call his philosophy of truth. His ontology as outlined in Sein und Zeit emphasizes the importance of understanding the nature of one who asks the question of Being, in order to be able to penetrate the nature of Being. For Heidegger the study of what makes human beings what they are, or the study of what each of us is Dasein is the door for reaching the understanding of being. According to Martin Heidegger therefore Ontology is the hermeneutics of Facticity. It is by understanding what facticity means that we can grasp what Heidegger proposes to us as his ontology. “The concept of “facticity” implies that an entity “within –the- world” has Being – in-the- world in such a way that it can understand itself as bound up in its “Destin” with the Being of those entities which it encounters within its own world. “ here one has to understand what Heidegger means by two terms, which he connects to make the expression “Being –in-the - world” Here one has to understand what Heidegger means by two terms, which he connects to make the expression “Being –in-the-world” ( in-der-Weld-sein) “being- in “ and “world”. “Being –in” means “to reisde alongside…” in the meaning of “being familiar with …” “world “- …….. menas “the how “ (condition, state) of being and not the being itseld. This “how” is the way in which Dasein comports itself in relation to other beings that are not of the nature of Dasein-a relation of being aware and understanding, which is what Heidegger calls Beings –in the- world or transcendence. Facticity in this meaning therefore is the comportment of Dasein, which differentiates it from other entities, and hence it is called existential to differentiate it from categories, which are traits of entities different from Dasein. “Being-in”-world as its essential state.” Daseing therefore is familiar with the environment in which it lives and is aware of things it encounters, or in other worlds, Dasein has a world, hence encounters other beings giving them meaning and defining them in the process. Other entities (which Heidegger calls entities present-at-hand), which are “worldless” in themselves…. Can never touch each other, nor can either of them “be alongside the other.” Thus Heidegger shows how Dasein behaves in relation to other entities, which is encounters giving them meaning. The special character which enables Dasein to encounter other entities is that of care (sorge) Care is proposed as a replacement of the traditional understanding of man as a spiritual being located in space because of its bodily nature. Apart from expressing this view as naïve Heidegger does not tell us why an is not a spiritual being located inspace by its bodily nature. Neither does he tell us what comes of the obvious spiritual – body nature of man. For Heidegger Dasein is identified through its activities, such as: Having to do with something, producing something, attending to something and looking after it, making use of something, giving something up and letting it go, undertaking, accomplish, evincing, interrogating, considering, discussing, determining ….. all these ways of Being- in have concern as their kind of being. Hence Heidegger’s human being is defined by what proceeds from his actions, not what he really himself. Putting activity as the definition of human being makes it difficult to include in human group, not only bodily and intellectually disabled people, but also children, disabled persons, very old people as well as anyone may define as inactive, depending on the meaning one gives to activity and productivity. It is true that care makes part of human existence, but it is not the definng factor of human beings. Rejection of Aristotelian definition of man as ……………….and insisting that this “never meant “rationality”, but talking speech; hence man is a being which has its world in type of the spoken.” Which this Heidegger also sidelines the importance of Aristotelian- thomistic basic principles of reality, namely, the principles of non- contradiction, principle of identity, principle of excluding the middle, principle of analogy, participation and that of sufficient reason. These are principles, which necessarily accompany any understanding of reality and which are discovered, not made, by human intellect. This oversight comes up also when Heidegger makes Being and time identical, or rather when replaces Being with time. His interpretation of these two key Greek words,………. And ………. And ……… as to mean speech and time ontology and differentiates him from what he constantly calls “tradional philosophy”. The concept of substance, as that which persists in existence and remains intact through changes or motions, as treated in the seventh book of metaphysics of Aristotle, eludes heidgger completely and with it the world outside human consciousness. the ability to speack is the assence of Dasein and ontology becomes the analysis of Dasein’s states of mind or moods (Befinlichkeiten) Since Heidegger does not want to see the notion of substance, he cannot follow the reasoning of Christian philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas in putting God as the absolute subsistent Being at the origin of reality. As long as the principle of causality remains meaningless to him, Hiedgger can only see the talk of Christian philosophy as a reference to “Wooden iron”. His definition of metaphysics as the subject where the question “why is there at all something rather than nothing?” becomes a very important question but in a misplace context. this question cannot be asked, neither can there be any attempt to answer it if we remain in the subject asking the question and pay no attention to principles that lead to possibility of replying to this basic question. In ontology without the concept of substance the “something” is not there; hence the question itself cannot begin to be asked. It is in this understanding of man and reality Heidegger situates his concept of truth. Since Dasein is a special kind of monad – mundus concentrates, with neither inside nor outside, Heidegger cannot but localize truth into Dasein. Having rejected the need to prove the existence of the world external to Dasein, Heidegger cannot but define every reality departing from Dasein. And since Heidegger’s ontology has no regard to first principles, like that of causality and non-contradiction, he proposes a mysterious nihil originarium as the foundation of everything that exists. Section 43 of Sein und Zeit makes us rightly suspects that, Heidegger losses the concept of substance and the world external to man, and proposes time and Dasein as the only reality that remains. This makes us ask some questions about the results of this omission. With Aristotle’s understanding that every understanding must of something, (every symbol)) we cannot see Heidegger’s suggestion of analytical of dasein as ontology being a valid philosophical proceedings. The concept of substance, in the sense of what persists in all charges, with all principles that accompany the concept of substance, are absent completely Heidegger’s ontology. Time, which replaces substance also is subjected to dependence on dasein, hence enclosing the whole reality into the understanding of doorless and windowless dasein. But we cannot talk of change or existence without talking about that on which change happens or what persists in existence dispite all changes, just as Aristotle states: However true it may be that all generation and destruction proceed from someone or more elements, why does this happen and what is the cause? For at least the substratum itself does not make itself change; … men were again forced by the truth itself, … to inquire into the next kind of cause … when one man said, then, that reason was present-as in animals, so throughout nature-as the cause of the world and all of its order, he seemed like a sober man in contrast with the random talk of his predecessors For this reason Aristotle considers metaphysics to be the study of causes of reality and principles of change or motion. By identifying Being and time and locating them into Dasein, Heidegger looses trace of the outside world and cannot explain the fact that every knowledge is intentional. In the heideggerian ontology (symbol), in the meaning of speech dominates (symbol) (substance) and hence ontology becomes the analysis of Dasein’s ability to speak, in Aristotelian without paying attention to what is spoken about substance, in Aristotelian meaning of what persists in existence. This is an ontology which we name in this work as existential solipsism, following Heidegger’s insistence that there exists no world outside Dasein. Heidegger’s rejection of the need for the proofs of the outside world, and his definition of Dasein as monad having neither outside nor inside, justifies our charge, can be grasped only by the intellect and functions as reference for any knowledge. The way intellect graspes reality is outlined in the above mentioned principles of reality. This reference of the intellect is what Aristotle calls the “what”, and puts as the foundation of his Metaphysics, as he tells us: While Being has all these senses, obviously that which is primarily is the “what”, which indicates the substance of thing…. Now these are seen to be more real because t here is something definite which underlies them; and this si the substance or individual, which is implied in such a predicate; for “good” or “sitting” are not used without this. It is because of neglect of the concept of substance that we find Heidegger ignoring also concepts that make clear the different modes of Being of substance. Among the most important concept ignored by Heidegger with devastating outcomes are the concepts of analogy and participation. Without the concept of analogy it is difficult to talk of the ontological differences; the difference between Being and beings. Heidegger’s talk of artistic objects being more real than natural things is another result of mixing up Plato’s concept of participation. We can talk of the ontological difference only when we have some beings, or at least one being, that possesses Being in full or in higher degree than others. Because of lack of clear understanding of the concept of analogy Hiedegger does not accept traditional definition of a human being as an individual substance of rational nature. Also the word oʋσία is taken equivocally to mean time and Being, recover the concept of time, but lose the concept of substance, and hence find it difficult to talk of the world outside of Dasein. In the Hedeggerian analysis of Dasein transcendent attributes, which are traditionally attributes of Being, are located into Dasein and termed freedom. The notion of freedom is also understood as something enclosed into Dasein’s individualism. St. Thomas’ concept of freedom as freedom of exercise and freedom of determination of human acts would be a foregn concept in the Heideggerian ontology. It is because of the not well understood nature of man that Heidegger finds himself identifying his ontology of Dasein with the political movement of the National Socialim of Adolf Hitler. This inadequate definition of human beings as beings living in an instrumental world, existing only to realize what benefits them, is what we also find in William James pragmatism as well as the today’s political economic talk of globalization. In this kind of thought truth becomes identical with usefulness and the profitableness. All attention is payed to the end without regard to means used to achieve the end. Justice becomes the wish of the strong ; international law becomes binding only to the poor and serves the interest of the rich individuals or nations. In short what one achieves, not what one is , defines his nature. It is only when we accept that a human being is an individual substance of a rational nature, that we rediscover moral values, see the meaning of social justice, be it in business or in the so-called international law. Here truth becomes an ideal reference recognizable by everyone with the human nature, that is, with rationality. Under this understanding, the world market where the same nations decide the value of money, arrange selling and buying prices of articles will show its unjust face clearly. Here truth becomes an independent concept, having things themselves as reference and discovered by the intellect. This needs a bipolar reality with human intellect and the entities outside the intellect intactly existing, without reducing one to the other as Heidegger attempts. The correctly understood nature of human being leads to correct concept of reality. Ontology cannot in any way be only the analysis of Dasein, if Dasein is also to be taken as one of entities to be understood.
The Development Activities of Faith-based Organizations in Tanzania” IN Amos Mhina (ed), Religions and Development in Tanzania: Preliminary Literature Review, Working Paper 11-2007
(Religions and Development, International Development Department, University of Birmingham, 2007) TumainMungu, Peter
Discrimination in Plain Sight
(Dhaka - Tribune. Bangladesh, 2018) Rainer, Elbert
Discrimination in plain sight
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF COMPLAINTS MECHANISM IN EMPOWERING PATIENTS IN TANZANIA: A Case Study of Three Selected District Hospitals in the Coast Religion.
(university of Dar es Salaam, 2017) Mgalula, Eric Clement
This dissertation is about the effectiveness of complaints mechanism in empowering patients in Tanzania. The study was carried out in Coast region, involving Rufiji district hospital, Bagamoyo district hospital and Mkuranga district hospital. Specific objectives for this work intended: to compare the number of patients who experienced unethical conducts from healthcare workers against the number of reported complaints, from January to June this year (2017); to find out whether the existing complaints mechanisms are visible, confidential, impartial, integrated and responsive; to determine patients’ perception about the existing complaints mechanisms and to assess the methods for raising patients’ awareness and confidence about the existing complaints mechanism. The study involved a total of 135 respondents, which included patients, healthcare workers and administrative staffs who deal with handling patients’ complaints. Questionnaires, semi structured interviews, observation and documentary evidences were employed to facilitate data collection, discussion and interpretation. Findings of this study showed that, there is a large number of patients who lack enough confidence to channel their complaints through the available complaints mechanisms. This situation occurs due to lack of impartiality, confidentiality and poor response shown by the existing complaints mechanisms. Internal moral composure of always trying to maintain harmony with authorities while those in authorities look at themselves free from criticism, is an African mindset built in the concept of vital force, this has also contributed to the ineffectiveness of the complaints mechanism in empowering patients in Tanzania. It is suggested in the study that complaint mechanisms should be improved in terms of their visibility, integration, impartiality, confidentiality, and responsiveness. Profound effort should be taken by the government to improve critical thinking mindset among Tanzanians.
). FALSAFA NA UFUNUO WA MAARIFA: KIPINDI CHA KATI, USASA, NAMAPAMBANO YA UJENZI WAMIHIMILI YA HOJA ZA MAADILI, DINI,SAYANSI NA SHERIA
(Salvatorian Institute of Philosophy and Theology. Morogoro-Tanzania, 2010) Mihanjo, Adolf
Kwa umakini wa hali ya juu docta Mihanjo anaonyesha namna gani akili na upevu wa Binadamu wa kuelewa mambo na uwezo wa kujenga hoja chini ya misingi ya nadharia maalum ulikuwa unakua kutoka hatua moja hadi nyingine. Anaonesha pia, namna gani nadharia za kifalsafa zilikuw zinazukanakutoa maelekeo ya kijamii kisiasa, kiuchumi na kimaadili katika vipindi na nyakati tofauti.
FALSAFA NA USANIFU WA HOJA- KUTOKA WAYUNANI HADI WATANZANIA(WAAFRICA): Na hoja je, kuna falsafa ya mwafrika? Jenga hoja zako kwa kujua falsafa.
(Salvatorian Institute of Philosophy and Theology, 2004-01-07) Mihanjo, Adolf
Kwa umakini wa hali ya juu docta Mihanjo anaonyesha namna gani akili na upevu wa Binadamu wa kuelewa mambo na uwezo wa kujenga hoja chini ya misingi ya nadharia maalum ulikuwa unakua kutoka hatua moja hadi nyingine. Anaonesha pia, namna gani nadharia za kifalsafa zilikuw zinazukanakutoa maelekeo ya kijamii kisiasa, kiuchumi na kimaadili katika vipindi na nyakati tofauti.
Global Justice as Process: Applying Normative Ideals of Indigenous African Governance, Philosophical Papers
(2017) Lauer, Helen
This contribution explores correctives to several errors that Thomas Nagel (2005) and others presuppose in defending scepticism about global justice. Depending upon conventions of reconciliation and arbitration that survive in West Africa, to define global justice as a work in progress—not a fixed univocal formula, but an on-going collaborative effort, a project in perpetual renovation and inter-cultural reconsideration, by successive generations which presupposes a diversity of values and ways of sanctifying human life.
Good to die
(2013) Rainer, ebert
Among those who reject the Epicurean claim that death is not bad for the one who dies, it is popularly held that death is bad for the one who dies, when it is bad for the one who dies, because it deprives the one who dies of the good things that otherwise would have fallen into her life. This view is known as the deprivation account of the value of death, and Fred Feldman is one of its most prominent defenders. In this paper, I explain why I believe that Feldman’s argument for the occasional badness of death fails. While staying within an Epicurean framework, I offer an alternative that adequately accounts for a significant range of widely held intuitions about prudential value. My account implies that death is almost always good for the one who dies, yet often less good than not dying. Finally, I discuss some puzzles that remain for my account and hint at possible ways to address them.
The Impact of Globalization on African Families
(Acton Publishers, Nairobi, Kenya, 2004) Magoti, Evarist
The chapter shows that the advent of globalization has had a negative effect on the integrity of African Extended families
Implicitly racist epistemology: recent philosophical appeals to the neurophysiology of tacit prejudice
(Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group., 2019) Lauer, Helen
This essay explores why examples of mainstream philosophy of cognition and applied phenomenology demonstrate the implicit bias that they treat as their subject matter, whether the authors of these works intend or approve of their doing so. It is shown why egalitarian intuitions, which form the basis for ideal models of justice appealing to elites in racially stratified societies, provide an inadequate framework for illuminating and dismantling the mechanics of racial discrimination. Recently developed results in social choice theory are applied here to cases where racial bias is perpetuated through institutionally orchestrated collective decision making. The “discursive dilemma” theorem suggests why the analysis of subliminal attitudes is irrelevant to correcting the racial injustices presumed to follow from implicit bias in societies where negative racial stereotypes, ostensibly and explicitly deplored, are covertly and illicitly reinforced. Keywords colour-blind racist ideology; implicit bias; laissez-faire racism; racial oppression; whiteness; black self-identity
The Importance of an African Social Epistemology to Improve Public Health and Increase Life Expectancy in Africa, in Method, Substance and the Future of African Philosophy
(2018) Lauer, Helen
In most nations of Africa today, epidemic control strategies are dominated by the way health care needs are understood and addressed in the global health arena. A causal connection is exposed here which links (i) the disinformation about African morbidity and mortality promulgated worldwide, (ii) the prejudicial dismissal of locally affiliated African-based expertise, and (iii) the perpetuation of the very conditions that worsen both the mortality and morbidity rates in Africa. The global emergency response to the West Africa Ebola crisis of 2014-2015 is the case detailed as an example.
“Innocent Threats and the Moral Problem of Carnivorous Animals
(2012) Rainer, Ebert and Tibor R. Machan.
The existence of predatory animals is a problem in animal ethics that is often not taken as seriously as it should be. We show that it reveals a weakness in Tom Regan's theory of animal rights that also becomes apparent in his treatment of innocent human threats. We show that there are cases in which Regan's justice‐prevails‐approach to morality implies a duty not to assist the jeopardized, contrary to his own moral beliefs. While a modified account of animal rights that recognizes the moral patient as a kind of entity that can violate moral rights avoids this counterintuitive conclusion, it makes non‐human predation a rights issue that morally ought to be subjected to human regulation. Jennifer Everett, Lori Gruen and other animal advocates base their treatment of predation in part on Regan's theory and run into similar problems, demonstrating the need to radically rethink the foundations of the animal rights movement. We suggest to those who, like us, find it less plausible to introduce morality to the wild than to reject the concept of rights that makes this move necessary to read our criticism either as a modus tollens argument and reject non‐human animal rights altogether or as motivating a libertarian‐ish theory of animal rights.
Inter-religious Relations in Sub-Saharan Africa
(Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, Scotland, 2016) Magoti, Evarist
The book is a collection of articles from outstanding scholars of religion in Africa who reflect on inter-religious relations in Sub Saharan Africa.
Mapping the Development Activities of Faith-based Organizations in Tanzania
(Religions and Development, International Development Department, University of Birmingham, 2011) TumainMungu, Peter
“Mental-Threshold Egalitarianism: How Not to Ground Full Moral Status,”
(Social Theory and Practice, 2018) Rainer, Ebert
Mental-threshold egalitarianism, well-known examples of which include Jeff McMahan’s two-tiered account of the wrongness of killing and Tom Regan’s theory of animal rights, divides morally considerable beings into equals and unequals on the basis of their individual mental capacities. In this paper, I argue that the line that separates equals from unequals is unavoidably arbitrary and implausibly associates an insignificant difference in empirical reality with a momentous difference in moral status. In response to these objections, McMahan has proposed the introduction of an intermediate moral status. I argue that this move ultimately fails to address the problem. I conclude that, if we are not prepared to give up moral equality, our full and equal moral status must be grounded in a binary property that is not a threshold property. I tentatively suggest that the capacity for phenomenal consciousness is such a property, and a plausible candidate.
Mipaka ya kijiografia isiwe chanzo cha ubaguzi ana udhalilishaji
(Mwananchi News Paper, 2018-11-30) Rainer, Elbert
mipaka ya kijiografia isiwe chanzo au sababu ya udhalilishaji

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