MORALITY AS A CATALYST FOR FUNCTIONAL SOCIETY: IN AND BEYOND AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY

Abstract

Africa’s problems are based on the inability to harness her natural and human resources. This is as a result of lack of moral rebirth, maladministration, poverty, hunger, corruption, socio-political and economic woes. The logic of African morality is built on principles of reciprocity, cohabitation, solidarity, love, sense of belongingness, empathy, sympathy, brotherhood and collective human existence. The problem of African morality is the major constraints of African development and the full realization of African potentials in this new millennium. African morality is the basis and the search for the radical transformation of African society and functional society. The objective of this paper is to analyze the role of African morality in a functional society. Any society without any moral fibre is at the brink of total collapse. A functional society is that society that is governed by practical moral end. African morality becomes the only solid bedrock for African development and African freedom. Morality has become the only viable alternative for African development. Morality and law are the only bases of African social order. Ethics and morality are fundamental elements for unveiling African potentials in the new millennium. This paper adopts the method of analysis in examining the conceptualization and the contextualization of morality within the ambit of African society. This paper, therefore, concludes that morality is the basis of normative ideal social order and the bedrock for functional society and African development. African society must be built on the solid bedrock of morality, law and order; it must be anchored on the sacredness of our humanity. African leaders in their quest for effective leadership structure and good governance must be governed by a viable alternative of leadership structure that is deeply rooted in moral imperative, acuteness and soundness. Any society that is not governed by morality is ready for doom and such a society is at a brink of total collapse. African morality is simply based on practical moral end.