The traditional Yorùbá conception of a meaningful life

Abstract

This article examines the question of the meaningfulness of life in traditional African thought with a focus on the Yorùbá. It discovers that the dominant Yorùbá conception of a meaningful life among the Yorùbá is the manifestation of some relational valuable ends: material comfort symbolised with monetary possession; a long healthy life; children; a peaceful spouse; and victory over life’s vicissitudes. The Yorùbá account considers a positive realisation of the quintuple ends as sufficient conditions of a meaningful life worth pursuing by an individual. This article argues that the Yorùbá conception of life’s meaningfulness is neither supernaturalistic nor nihilistic in motivation and orientation. Rather, it is holistic, and rationally and relationally embedded in ways that reveal the communal structure of traditional Yorùbá society. This article critically exposes the problems and limitations of such an account with some suggestions for future research in the African philosophy of life.