A Defense of Kwame Gyekye’s Moderate Communitarianism

Abstract An avowed communitarian, Gyekye follows the lead of such African communitarians as Menkiti who believe that the community is ontologically prior to the individual. However, unlike Menkiti and other typical communitarians whom he describes as extreme communitarians, Gyekye rejects the moral subordination of the individual to the community. Describing his position as moderate communitarianism, Gyekye insists on ascribing to the individual and the community ‘the status of an equal moral standing’. I defend Gyekye’s moderate communitarianism against four of its leading contemporary African critiques: Matolino, Famakinwa, Metz, and Oyowe. I argue that the four critiques fail to dislodge it. In addition, I suggest two amendments to the theory which are intended to further entrench it and to increase its competitiveness against other contemporary African political theories with a sub-Saharan pedigree. As a first amendment, I suggest supplementing it with a theory of justice that is well-equipped with guidelines on how to handle clashes among Gyekye’s basic values. As a second amendment, I propose that Gyekye abandon his current stance of ontologically subordinating the individual to the community in favor of according both equal ontological standing.