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Sudanese Ethics TORE NORDENSTAM Sudanese Ethics ~"lI"'J'II\L'Wr\.n AFRIKAINSTITUTET SUDANESE ETHICS TORE NORDENSTAM The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies UPPSALA 1968 The Scandinavian IllStitute of African Studies has served at Uppsala since I962 as a Scandinavian documentatian and research centre on African affairs. The views expressed in its publicatians are entirely those qf the authors and do not necessarily riflect the views of the Institute. © Nordiska Afrikainstitutet All rights reserved Printed in Sweden by Almqvist & WikseIls Boktryckeri Aktiebolag U ppsala 1968 Contents PREFACE 9 Part 1. Methods in Descriptive Ethics CHAPTER I. THE FIELD OF ETHICS I. Ethics and ideology ........ 13 2. Demands on the definition of 'ethics' 16 3. Definition of 'ethics' ........ 18 4. The special authority of ethics 20 5. Comparison with some other definitions of ethics 21 6. Ethical relevance and ethical adequacy CHAPTER 2. THE DEDUCTIVE IDEAL I. The subsumption model .. 27 2. The open texture of ethics 29 3. Methodological implications 3 1 4. Note on the teleological-deontological distinction 33 CHAPTER 3. THE STUllY OF IDEOLOGIES I. Describing an ideal of life 36 2. Three types of ideological research 40 3. Ideals and behaviour ..... 42 4. Verbal and non-verbal evidence . 43 CHAPTER 4. THE ETHICS OF VlRTUE I. Ideal rules and rules of duty 46 2. The inward-oriented and the outward-oriented conception of a virtue ................... 48 3. Agent-centered and action-centered systems of ethics ... 50 4. Self-determined and other-determined systems of ethics .. 52 5. Heuristical advantages of an agent-centered approach to ethics ..................... .. 54 5 CHAPTER 5. THE ANALYSIS OF VIRTUES I. The notion of a virtue .... 56 2. "A virtue is a trait of character" 58 3. Ideological research and psychology 59 4. The language of virtues and vices 61 5. Practical implications ..... 63 Part II. The Traditional Sudanese Virtues: Same Case-Studies CHAPTER 6. SURVEY OF THE INVESTIGATION I. Introduction . 67 2. The informants ... 68 3. The interviews ... 70 4. Aim and methodology 71 5. Survey of the informants' ethics of virtue 74 CHAPTER 7. COURAGE, GENEROSITY AND HOSPITALITY I. Courage as self-contral. ....... 77 2. The reasonableness criterion of courage 81 3. Moral courage ..... 83 4. Generosity and hospitality 85 CHAPTER 8. HONOUR AND DIGNITY I. Introduction . 92 2. Honour (sIlaraf) . 93 3· Decency ('in!) 95 4. Dignity (karäma) . 98 5. Karärna and dignitas 103 6. The rale of karärna 105 CH WTER 9. THE ETHICS OF RESPECT AND SELF-RESPECT I. Respect and self-respect ........ 106 2. Self-determination and other-determination. 109 3. Conformity and tolerance ........ III 4. Inward-orientation and outwa'rd-orientation I 13 5. Concluding remarks on the informants' ethics of virtue 115 CHAPTER 10. FURTHER PROBLEMS I. Morphological and functional problems 117 2. The problem of representativity ... 119 3. Historical and comparative problems 123 6 Part III. The Interviews I. Interview with AH and Ibrahim, Dec. 4, 1963 129 2. Interview with Ali and Osman, Dec. II, 1963 137 3. Interview with Ali, Dec. 16, 1963 . 143 4. Interview with Osman, Dec. 23, 1963 158 5. Interview with AH, Ibrahim and Osman, Feb. 7, 1964 179 6. Interview with AH, Feb. 9, 1964 ..... 181 7. Interview with Osman, Feb. I I, 1964 192 8. Interview with Ali and Osman, Feb. 19, 1964 213 Notes . 222 Note on the transliteration of Arabic words and names References Index 235 7 Preface This is a study in descriptive ethics, based upon interviews with Sudanese university students. The first part of the book outlines a framework and methodol­ ogy for research into ethical systems, with particular attention to those aspects which have to do with personality ideals. In the second part, this theoretical framework is applied in a study of how some well-educated young Sudanese conceive of the virtues which are traditionally highly valued in their own society: courage, generosity and hospitality, honour, dignity and self­ respect. The third part of the book contains the transcripts of the interviews. Intercultural research into moral ideologies can be expected to prove significant for moral theory, which has hitherto been con­ cerned almost exclusively with European moral thinking. From the practical point of view, studies of moral ideologies can be seen as one aspect of the mapping of human resources which might be expected to contribute both to more rational develop­ ment planning and to the successful implementation of develop­ ment programmes. There are reasons to pay special attention to the educated elites when planning for development, since it is the educated elite which has got the task of initiating and directing the development of a country. The book is a revised version of a University of Khartoum doctorai thesis. A report on a further study of moral concepts among Sudanese university students is in preparation. I am deeply grateful to all those students, collegues and friencls who have assistecl in the project. In particular, I should like to thank the three main informants for their invaluable coopera­ tion; Prof. A. P. Cavenclish and Prof. Håkan Törnebohm for their constructive criticism ancl constant encouragement; and the Scandinavian Institute of African Stuclies for practical assistance. I shoulcl also like to take the opportunity to express my gratitude 9 to Profs. E. E. Evans-Pritchard, lC-G. Izikowitz, Sven Krohn, Arne Na:ss, K. E. Tran0Y and G. H. von 'I\Tright for valuable comments on the first version of this book. Publicatian grants from the Swedish Research Council for the Social Sciences and the Nath­ horst Faundatian are gratefully acknowledged. 10 Part I Methods in Descriptive Ethics Chapter I The Field ofEthics A person's ethics can be regarded as part of his ideology, but there is no general agreement on how much of a person's ideo­ logy should be regarded as belonging to his ethics. This problem about the size of the field of ethics can be seen as a definition problem. In this chapter Ishall survey different approaches to the problem of the definition of 'ethics' and state and defend my own views on the subject. There are two related reasons why it will be convenient to open a discussion of ethical methodol­ ogy by a consideration of the problem of the scope of ethics: (1) because this will provide the general setting for the ensuing methodological discussion, (2) because one's methodology is ob­ viously dependent upon how one conceives of the field of ethics. r. Ethics and ideology 'Ideology', like 'ethics', has got a number of different uses. The Concise Oxfoul Dictiolla1Y gives the following explanation of the meaning of 'ideology': "Science of ideas; visionary specula­ tion; manner of thinking characteristic of a class or individua1, ideas at the basis of some economic or political theoryor system, as Fascist, Nazi."l Of these three meanings, the second is irrelevant in the present context, the first is too vague as it stands, and the third is too narrow. Statements about the ideologies of classes, groups, societies, and cultures are, I take it, somehow based upon findings about individual persons' ideologies. The relations between higher-order statements about group ideologies and lower-order statements about individual ideologies present many theoretical and metho­ dological problems of their own which will, however, not be dealt with here. In this book we are only going to be concerned with the fundamental questions about individual persons' ideolo­ gies. An individuaI's ideology can roughly but not quite clearly be said to be "the manner of thinking characteristic of him", but for the present purposes it would be inconvenient to restrict the use of the term 'ideology' to his thinking about political and economic subjects. We therefore propose the following definition of 'ideology': by an individual's 'ideology' shall in this book be meant the same as 'the whole of that individual's beliefs, con­ victions, ideals, standards and values'. This definition is not very precise: it partakes of all the indeterminateness of the terms 'belief', 'conviction', 'ideal', etc. which are used in the definition. The impreciseness of the definition is, however, no disadvantage, since the purpose of the definition is merely to stake out the field of ideological research, and one would be ill advised to draw sharp boundaries in the beginning.2 This kind of definition which is intended to give a rough indication of the field one is concerned with is quite common; examples can be found in the beginning of almost any university text-book. Yet, it has been oddly neglected by logicians who have dealt with the theory of definition. I propose to refer to such definitions as "programmatic definitions."3 Ideological science can now be said to comprise any kind of research into the ideologies of individuals and groups. As 'ide­ ology' has been defined above, it is clear that an individual's ethics will belong to his ideology, on any normal interpretation of the word 'ethics', and that descriptive ethics - the discipline which describes and analyses the ethical norms, values and ideals of individuals and groups - is part of ideological science. There is, however, no general agreement on how big a part of a per­ son's ideology should be referred to as his 'ethics'. '!\That ideals, norms and values are ethical ideals, ethical norms and ethical values? The remainder of this chapter will be devoted to a dis­ cussion of this question. Blit first a digression in order to forestall some possible mis­ interpretations. vVhen there is no indication to the contrary, the word 'ethics' is used in this book in the way in which it is nor­ mally used outside philosophy, viz. to refer to a certain kind of system of norms, values and ideals.
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