Publications

This chapter employs corpus-driven computational methods to examine the moral architecture of African folktales, demonstrating that animal agents systematically encode normative frameworks around reciprocity, collective obligation, and transgression. Using a purpose-built database of folktale texts, the analysis reveals cross-regional patterns that challenge individualist moral theories derived from Western analytic ethics.

This chapter situates Philip Kitcher's pragmatic naturalism within the broader debate on the evolution of morality, arguing that the capacity for human conversation—understood as normatively structured dialogue—is the primary mechanism through which ethical norms emerge, stabilize, and transform across generations. Drawing on Kitcher's account in The Ethical Project, the chapter challenges non-naturalist and divine-command alternatives while extending Kitcher's framework to address its reception in African philosophical traditions.