METAETHICAL ANALYSIS ON THE PEOPLE’S JUDGEMENT ON ACCUSATIONS
OF WITCHCRAFT IN THE CASE OF KAMPINGO SIBANDE
Christina Mphande, an elderly woman from the village of Mzimba under Traditional
Authority Kampingo Sibande was accused and assaulted on claims of killing her daughter in
law through acts of witchcraft. She was forced to dig up the grave all by herself. These
assaulters went to the extent of wanting to bury her alive, they also beat her up and she lost
two teeth in the process.
Witchcraft being the start of this gruesome act is simply an art formed to torment others, it
can be used with the help of charms provided by witchdoctors who guide you through how to
use them. It is said that others use witchcraft to travel but this can only happen at night, to be
more precise, it is more like teleportation. Most people involved with witchcraft are selfish
and jealous therefore, enjoy causing pain to people that are successful. Through this act,
people can murder and even torture others in their sleep. Moreover , they can eat dead bodies;
witchcraft is involved with cannibalism. After learning in more depth about what witchcraft
is, it makes sense why the men reacted in such a way after suspecting the woman of
witchcraft. However, was their judgment morally wrong?
In addition, this act of witchcraft led to the starting point of the accusations on Christina
Mphande. The assault is seen as the moral issue for this metaethical analysis. The men of the
village wanted to take things into their own hands thus they beat this old woman up and
called her a witch.
They lack morality and taking care of elderly people is something that is subjective and one
can not go by their own values but rather what is already set. These people went against the
order of nature because they had tortured the old woman on the basis of accusations of
witchcraft which were brought to light after her daughter in law had died.
There are three ways or three perspectives you can use in order to judge a moral issue:
Perspectivism, Naturalism and Emotivism. These perspectives are there to aid you into
concluding whether a certain moral issue is wrong or right. Below we will look at all three of
them in order to deeply analyse the moral issue at hand.
The first perspective, known as prescriptivism is whereby the judgement of a moral issue is
based on something that is prescribed or written. For instance, the ten commandments in the
Bible; one of them states that “Do not steal.” (Good News Bible, 1976, Exodus 20:15).
Therefore, stealing can be concluded to be morally wrong with the backing of this prescribed
text. We can apply this perspective to the case of the men who harassed the elderly women,
accusing her of witchcraft. However, the current laws of Malawi state that, not only does
witchcraft not exist but it is also a crime to accuse someone of witchcraft. Hence it can be
acknowledged that in accusing the woman of witchcraft, the men were wrong in their
judgement and even committed a crime.
Naturalism is the second perspective and can be used to judge a moral issue by assessing
whether it promotes the thriving of nature, if it does not do this then it is wrong. After accusing
the elderly woman of witchcraft, the men tried to bury the accused alive after attempting to
force her to dig up her daughter in laws grave. If the men were successful, they would have
stopped the woman from breathing properly, possibly even killing her in the process. Breathing
is a natural process for any living organism, so it can be settled that the men were wrong as
they were in no way promoting the thriving of nature.
The third and last perspective is known as emotivism. Emotivism is more of a subjective issue
as it depends on a personal reaction, emotion or feeling in response to a moral stimulus. For
instance, a majority of the world’s population would tell you that killing another human being
would feel wrong and is a heinous act, showing that they have negative feelings towards the
action. In the case of Kampingo Siwande, not only did the men accuse the woman of witchcraft
and force her to dig up the relative, but they went as far as trying to bury the woman alive.
Most people would not see this as a normal or decent thing to do and the average human does
not attempt to bury someone alive often. Based on these subjective emotions, we can conclude
that most people would have a negative reaction towards burying someone alive and would
consider it to be immoral hence they would highly unlikely participate in it, just like taking
another human beings life
From all the approaches or levels provided above we can conclusively say that the people’s
judgement of Christina Mphande is rightly considered to be a moral issue and that the people
who judged her in this way and even went as far as to take punishment in their own hands are
morally wrong.
REFERENCES
Good News Bible. (1976). Bible Societies, Harper Collins.
News24. (2022). Malawi's struggle with deadly witchcraft violence. Media 24.
https://www.news24.com/amp/news24/africa/news/malawis-struggle-with-deadly-witchcraftviolence-20220727