University of Nigeria, Nsukka, University Of Calabar, Calabar.
The advent of digital technologies has fundamentally transformed conceptions of personhood, agency, and legal subjectivity. Autonomous systems, algorithmic platforms, and virtual entities increasingly operate as normative actors, challenging classical jurisprudential frameworks grounded in anthropocentric notions of autonomy and responsibility. Drawing upon Luciano Floridi’s philosophy of the infosphere and the African ethical paradigm of Ubuntu, this paper advances a Neo-African jurisprudence of dignity. Ubuntu, expressed in the maxim umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, “a person is a person through other persons”, emphasizes relationality, communal interdependence, and moral personhood as realized through social engagement (Metz, “Ubuntu as a Moral Theory and Human Rights” 534). Integrating Floridi’s ontology of the infosphere with Ubuntu-inspired relational ethics, the proposed framework reconceptualizes legal personhood, agency, and accountability in mixed human-digital networks. It contends that digital agency necessitates a recalibration of jurisprudential categories while preserving human dignity through participatory governance, ethical stewardship, and relational recognition. The Neo-African jurisprudence of dignity thus offers a culturally grounded, philosophically rigorous, and normatively coherent model for addressing contemporary challenges in digital law, AI governance, and ethical regulation, situating African philosophical insights within global debates on personhood and the infosphere. By foregrounding relational ethics alongside technological realities, the framework provides a robust lens for examining the evolving moral, legal, and social landscapes of the digital age.
