William Schweiker's Christian Ethics of Responsibility In

TOWARDS AN AFRICAN CHRISTIAN ETHICS FOR THE TECHNOLOGICAL AGE: WILLIAM SCHWEIKER’S CHRISTIAN ETHICS OF RESPONSIBILITY IN DIALOGUE WITH AFRICAN ETHICS BY REV. CANON GEORGE KOTEI NEEQUAYE SUPERVISOR: PROF DAWID ETIENNE DE VILLIERS Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria August, 2013 © University of Pretoria TOWARDS AN AFRICAN CHRISTIAN ETHICS FOR THE TECHNOLOGICAL AGE: WILLIAM SCHWEIKER’S CHRISTIAN ETHICS OF RESPONSIBILITY IN DIALOGUE WITH AFRICAN ETHICS BY REV. CANON GEORGE KOTEI NEEQUAYE SUPERVISOR: PROF DAWID ETIENNE DE VILLIERS Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria August, 2013 i © University of Pretoria DECLARATION I declare that the thesis, which I hereby submit for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Pretoria, is my own work and has not previously been submitted by me for a degree at this or any other tertiary institution. Signed ____________________ ii © University of Pretoria ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Firstly, I want to thank the Almighty God for enabling me to complete this course successfully. Secondly, I am most grateful to my wife, Esther Naa Norchoe Neequaye and my two boys, George and Alan for their patience and encouragement during the writing of this thesis. My wife deserves a big applause for the period of time she spent alone at home because I was away writing this thesis. My special debt of gratitude goes to my Supervisor, Prof. Dawid Etienne de Villiers for his immense contribution and advice to make this thesis a reality. He was the one who suggested the topic to me in the first place, championed the change of my status from MA to PhD degree course, and even though he gave me great freedom to pursue independent work, he made sure he walked me through the thesis chapter by chapter to enable me to produce this finished product. I therefore want to thank him most sincerely for the time he put into this thesis to make this research a reality. Special thanks also go to Mr and Mrs Edward Essilfie-Mensah, Mr Pak Wo Shum, Dr Kobby Quansah and Dr E. L. Quartey Jnr for their financial contributions and encouragement. My gratitude also goes to Mr and Mrs Adjaye for opening their home to me each time I went to South Africa and for all the support they gave me to make this research a reality. Trinity Theological Seminary, Legon, where I lecture, also deserves my sincerest appreciation for allowing me to go to Pretoria a whole year in 2012 to enable me to iii © University of Pretoria concentrate on my research. In my absence, the Seminary also made sure my salary is paid to take care of my family. In this regard, my special thanks go to Rev Dr. Cyril Fayose and Rev Dr Joseph O. Y. Mante for their support and kindness. I will also like to thank the University of Pretoria for approving a Research Support Fund for me. The support the University gave me helped a great deal to bring me this far. Finally, I will like to dedicate this work to my late grandmother, Emily Bercy Awaa Hanson for the immense love she showed me, and for teaching me by praxis how to believe and trust in God. iv © University of Pretoria Summary of PhD Research Technology has several advantages, but the growing fear is that the power of human beings over nature through technology is growing in an alarming rate so that, if not checked with a new ethics of responsibility, we may be heading to the destruction of nature and the annihilation of humanity. In response to this fear, Hans Jonas set a whole new debate into motion, both in Germany and America, when he argues (in his book entitled, The imperative of responsibility: In search of ethics for the technological age (1984) that the existing approaches to philosophical ethics, including theological ethics, are inadequate since they do not tackle the serious issues produced by the rapid expansion of modern technology. He then asserts that we must make a concerted effort to develop a theory of responsibility, so that humanity could be salvaged from future extinction. Whereas Jonas denies that religion could form the basis of a universal ethics of responsibility, Schweiker strives to prove him wrong by producing a Christian version of an ethics of responsibility from that of Jonas. Using Schweiker’s formulation of a Christian ethics of responsibility, this researcher aims at taking the debate to another level by engaging his Christian ethics of responsibility with African ethics to come out with an African Christian ethics of responsibility. The reason why we are formulating an African Christian ethics of responsibility is that if Africa is seen as the fastest growing Christian continent in the world, then formulating an African Christian ethics of responsibility is worthwhile since such an ethics addressing the negative impact of modern technology will be available and accessible to a substantial part of the world population. Although African and Christian in its point of departure, this ethics of responsibility claims to be universal in a normative sense of the word. It strives to provide moral guidance that should be heeded by everyone. This is because in our formulation, we will call Christians and non-Christians alike to emulate the altruistic love of Christ for the world as the core of an ethics of responsibility that is future- oriented. KEYWORDS Ethics of responsibility, African ethics, Christian ethics, technology, communalism, Ubuntu, Hans Jonas, William Schweiker v © University of Pretoria CONTENTS Title page i Declaration ii Acknowledgement iii Summary v Key words v CHAPTER 1 1 Research Proposal 1 1.1 Introduction 1 1.2 Research questions/problems 9 1.3 Research objectives 10 1.4 Relevance of the study 11 1.5 Research methodology 12 1.6 Review of relevant literature 20 1.7 Academic contribution 52 1.8 Limitation of the research 53 1.9 Organization and plan 54 1.10 Conclusion 57 CHAPTER 2 58 Hans Jonas 58 2.1 His life and work in brief 58 2.2 The imperative of responsibility 64 2.3 Jonas’s criticism of traditional ethical systems 73 vi © University of Pretoria 2.4 Foundations of the new ethics of responsibility 76 2.5 Theory of responsibility 79 CHAPTER 3 98 William Schweiker 98 3.1 A brief summary of his life and work 98 3.2 The dangers of technology and scientific development to future human existence 99 3.3 The dimensions of ethics 103 3.4 The nature and meaning of integrity 105 3.5 The meaning of responsibility 107 3.6 The identity of a person 109 3.7 The traditional idea of responsibility 111 3.8 Responsibility and Christian inwardness 113 3.9 Theories of responsibility 114 3.10 The source of morality 136 3.11 The Christian faith and the imperative of responsibility 141 3.12 Responsibility and Christian ethics 146 CHAPTER 4 150 A critical analysis of the views of Hans Jonas and William Schweiker on the ethics of responsibility 150 4.1 Introduction 150 4.2 An evaluation of the ethics of responsibility of Jonas and Schweiker 150 vii © University of Pretoria CHATPER 5 176 Towards an African ethics of responsibility for the technological age 176 5.1 Introduction 176 5.2 The nature and characteristics of African communalism 177 5.3 Is African ethics of responsibility adequate for a future-oriented ethics? 208 5.4 An African theory of responsibility 213 5.5 A global ethics of responsibility for the technological age grounded on African communal ethics 227 CHAPTER 6 Proposal for an African Christian ethics of responsibility for the technological age 239 6.1 Introduction 239 6.2 The nature of global ethics of responsibility 239 6.3 Christ as the paradigm of responsibility 244 6.4 An African Christian ethics of responsibility for the technological age 255 Summary and Conclusions 272 Bibliography 282 General References 286 viii © University of Pretoria CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction We live in a world in which the rapid expansion of technology is threatening the very basis of life. Technology is everywhere in modern society. Technology is so important for life that we find it in the computers we use, the televisions we watch, the cars we drive, the implements and gadgets in our hospitals, and in our farms, in the aircrafts we travel in across the continents, space crafts, the clothes we wear, the microwaves we use, weapons of our warfare, in our kitchens, in our bathrooms, etc. Quite recently in Ghana, there was a fault with our national computer grid for only half a day and it managed to create panic and brought most of the cities in Ghana almost to a standstill. Whenever there is an electricity outage in Accra and Kumasi and the traffic lights go off, there is always chaos on our roads as nobody wants to wait for the other vehicles to go first at our crossroads. In fact, without technology, human beings would have died in their millions from various types of diseases, hunger and accidents. Without technology, we would still be using old and difficult ways of farming - without implements and tractors; rivers and oceans would have been difficult to cross, etc. We live in a technological environment; once technology is taken away from our societies, the human culture may collapse (Schuurman 2010: 109). Don Ihde puts the importance of technology this way: One of the most obvious positive results arising out of modern technologies relates to much of what we take for granted with respect to a 1 © University of Pretoria standard of health which is relatively disease-free.

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