Desmond Tutu
1931-2021 · African Philosophy · Prominent
Tutu was a South African Anglican archbishop who preached against apartheid while it still stood, calling for sanctions on his own country's economy. He then chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which traded amnesty for the full story of what a man had done, told in front of the families. His theology of ubuntu holds that a person is a person through other people, which puts repair of a community ahead of punishment.
Signature
The position Tutu is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Meaning
- leans Inherent
- Highest Good
- Love / Service
Positions on the 5 axes the sources answer
- Society
- leans Collectivism (12 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (75 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Horizontal (72 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
15 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Tutu refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Representative Democracy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Love / Service
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Good Real, Evil Privative
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Knowledge
- Grounded in God
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Relational / Divine Command
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Divine Providence
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Time
- Ancestral Time
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Divine Revelation / Benevolence
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Law
- Restorative Justice
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Unconditional Salvation
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- Imago Dei / Socially Constructed
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine / Humanity
What is your primary bond and loyalty?