Personhood at the Limits of Justice: Property, Relationality, and African Conceptions of Dignity // Unofficial Undergraduate Philosophy Thesis
- Andrew Shaw
- May 20
- 4 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
I had always had the idea of writing an undergraduate philosophy thesis about African philosophy throughout my early undergraduate years (see my earlier reflections to learn more about my interest in African philosophy), so I was disappointed when I found out that 1) the philosophy department did not have a thesis program, and 2) the philosophy department did not offer classes in African philosophy (or so I thought at the time). After presenting my paper on African philosophy at an undergraduate philosophy conference, an idea started to form in my mind to write and submit a philosophy paper to an undergraduate philosophy journal as a sort of "unofficial undergraduate philosophy thesis." At the time, I intended to pursue this project as more or less a revision of my conference paper, so I shelved it for a while.
Towards the end of spring quarter in my junior year, I came back to this idea and began to do some research to see if there was any newer literature I might want to use in writing a paper. I was delighted to find a paper titled "African Ethics, Respect for Persons, and Moral Dissent," and even more delighted when I saw University of Washington on the author affiliation. The paper was written by Dr. Nancy Jecker, a professor in the Bioethics and Humanities Department at UW, which explained why I had missed her name for the past three years while was browsing through philosophy department faculty. I reached out to her and learned that she even taught some African philosophy in her course B H 402/PHIL 412 (Ethical Theory). (As a side note, Dr. Jecker's class was full by the time I learned about it. It was pretty difficult to get a seat in the class, though I eventually succeeded!)
After signing up for Dr. Jecker's class, however, I learned that she only assigned a paper assignment to graduate students, not undergraduate students. Given my lingering desire to write an "unofficial thesis" in my senior year, I asked Dr. Jecker whether I could write the paper anyways--and earned ad hoc Interdisciplinary Honors credit in the process! Over the course the quarter and several meetings with Dr. Jecker, I learned so much more about ongoing scholarship on African conceptions of personhood, inspiring me to write an entirely new paper rather than revising my old one. After hastily writing my paper during finals and receiving comments from Dr. Jecker, I revised it before submitting it to Logos, Cornell University's undergraduate philosophy journal. At the time of submission, I was relatively unsatisfied by my paper and fully expected the journal to reject it, but knew that I had tried my best in what was an overwhelmingly busy quarter. You can read this first version of this paper, along with Dr. Jecker's comments, here:
(A quick aside on why I chose to submit to Logos: my connection to Logos goes all the way back to my participation in high school debate. Megan Wu, the captain of the Lincoln-Douglass debate squad at my high school in my first year of debate, engaged heavily with analytic philosophy during her debate career and was a large reason for my own interest in analytic philosophy. Having graduated high school a few years before me, she published a paper in Logos as a philosophy student at Swarthmore, and is now a PhD student in philosophy at UC Berkeley. It was through her work that I found out about Logos, so I thought it would be fitting for me to also submit to the same journal.)
In many ways, this paper is a culmination of 7 years of philosophical learning. It builds on the themes I had explored in my last two papers about African philosophy, but also reflects growth in the following ways:
It is more well-grounded in revelant academic scholarship about African philosophy, thanks to Dr. Jecker's expertise and support.
It draws on a critique of "personhood as property" put forward by Alexander Weheliye in his book Habeas Viscus, which I read in my sophomore year college as part of my time in college debate.
It compares the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission with the Reconstruction Amendments and other notable historical events in American history, a decision that was indirectly inspired by the feedback I received at the Puget Sound Undergraduate Philosophy Conference.
It defends African personhood against the critique that it devalues individual rights, a motivation inspired by my conversations with Dr. Chike Jeffers, whom I also met through the Puget Sound Undergraduate Philosophy Conference.
It draws from literature about racial reparations that I learned about in PHIL 405 (Political Philosophy of Race) and literature on the American criminal justice system that I learned about in PHIL 514 (Graduate Seminar on Philosophy of Policing), both in my senior year.
The paper has also been shaped by numerous other conversations I've had with philosophy professors at UW, including Dr. José Jorge Mendoza, Dr. Amelia Wirts, and Dr. Carina Fourie.
Finally, in April, I received an email notifying me that my paper had made it into the final round of consideration and requesting further edits. After making more edits, I was then notified that my paper was awarded the First Prize (along with a cash prize of $300)! As of writing this reflection, I have just finished final edits on my paper (my 8th draft in total) am waiting for it to be published in the Spring 2025 issue of Logos. I'm incredibly grateful to everyone who has supported me in this project--many of whom are named in my three reflections on this journey, but too many of whom I'm sure I left out--and particularly to Dr. Jecker for all her help on this essay. I could have never expected when I started college that I would end up publishing an award-winning philosophy paper, and I think this achievement is not only a testament to how much I've learned at UW, but also to the excellent philosophy community here.
If you're interested in reading my philosophy paper, I've attached a preprint here:
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