Kwasi Wiredu’s Moral and Social Philosophy: Community and the Birth of Personhood.

This article explores Kwasi Wiredu’s argument that personhood is a status to be obtained through one’s community instead of being given on account of being born a human. Therefore, a person becomes (or loses) their personhood through communal engagement. This makes personhood a moral and political concept with massive implications for how Western philosophy perceives the self and the other. I argue that these moral and political implications are much stronger than many want to realize. Wiredu’s account, if accepted, compels one to reconceive the notion of personal development, worldhood, and what decolonization entails. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]