The Nexus between Personhood and Development

Abstract

The link between the concept of personhood and development has become contentious in philosophical discourse. The non-connectivists’ perspective on the link is that personhood as a concept is too metaphysical to appropriately address social issues like development. However, there are two major and opposing positions, the western liberal view and African communitarian view, which constitute the connectivists’ perspective establishing the nexus between personhood and development. Each of the connectivists’ perspectives explains personhood and its attendant values from different cultural standpoints. The values of the human person hence contribute immensely to whatever kind of development that comes to a people. Using the method of analysis, we argued that while appreciating the relevance of cross-cultural values to development, the peculiarities of the values of the culture of a people emanating from their views of the human person are foundational to the successes of any development programme or policies. We therefore concluded that the values of the human person are fundamental in development and as such, there should not be any form of suppression or imposition of values alien to a people so that development activities can become more participatory.

Keywords: Personhood, Development, Communitarianism, African Cultural Values, Connectivists’ Perspective