Human dignity : a socialist conception of God's image in Ujamaa philosophy
Date
2024-12
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Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
Abstract
Discourse on human dignity intensified in legal, ethical, and political charters after the Second World War and one aspect of the debate concerned the ambiguities of whether dignity is inherently permanent or destructible. This study addresses this lacuna and, in agreement with David Kirchhoffer and Augustine Onwubiko, differentiates inherent dignity from acquired dignity and avoids the impasse of a reductionist approach in support of Nyerere’s description of dignity as humanness or personhood. The argument develops through the analysis of dignity in previous legal and religious discourses, traditional practices of Ujamaa dignity, Ujamaa dignity in theology and philosophy, and the practices of dignity in the policies of Ujamaa socialism. The section on legal and religious discourse addresses human dignity and God’s image as descriptors of humanness and as violable and in need of human rights protection. The section on traditional Ujamaa noted the roots of homogeneous ancestries, as illustrated by Chief Nyerere’s own household, which Mwalimu Nyerere emphasized as roots for the type of intertribal Ujamaa that respected the community’s common need and common duty to prove the common dignity, common good, and common equality of all members of the community. The section on Ujamaa theology and anthropology focuses primarily on the creation model that delineates the intertribal and interracial dignity and equality of the human species irrespective of their nonessential differences and the realm that the Creator and the created share without distinctions of sacred and profane. The section on Ujamaa socialism focuses on the dignity of national freedom, the restoration of Ujamaa attitudes, and the dignity of human and economic development. It became evident that dignity and image function as descriptor of humanness and personhood from creation and through
procreation, a personhood that God and humanity share unequally but uniquely as members of God’s clan and will provide a clarification on the nature of divine and human personhood.
Description
Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2024.