RELEVANCE OF IGWEBUIKE ETHICAL THEORY FOR AFRICA

Ethical theories are attempts by individuals or schools of thought to provide clear and unified accounts of what our ethical responsibilities are or what we are obliged to do. They help to create the fundamentals of obligation suitable and applicable to professional and personal conduct of a person in his or her everyday life. Ethical theories also help in understanding moral dilemmas, in terms of making moral decision at certain points, justifying obligations and ideas, relating morality and also explaining the difference in terms of responsibility. This work focuses on the relevance of Igwebuike ethical theory for Africa. Igwebuike is understood as the modality of being in African philosophy. It is an Igbo word, which is a combination of three words: Igwe is a noun which means 'number' or 'population', usually a huge number or population. Bu is a verb, which means is. Ike is another verb, which means strength or power. Put together, it means 'number is strength' or 'number is power'. Beyond the literal sense, Igwebuike provides an ontological horizon that presents being as that which possesses a relational character of mutual relations, and rests on the African principles of solidarity and complementarity. It argues that 'to be' is to live in solidarity and complementarity, and to live outside the parameters of solidarity and complementarity is to suffer alienation. Igwebuike as a complementary philosophy understands life as a shared reality, and this complementarity, solidarity, relationality, communality, etc., are the principles that shape the African ethical theory. This relational character that considers the human action in relation to the impact it has on the life of the other rather than on oneself is the major contribution that Igwebuike ethical theory makes to the discourse on African ethical theories. In the course of this research, the phenomenological and hermeneutical methods of inquiry were employed. It discovers that the distinctive character of Igwebuike ethical theory is its communal and relational character, which is relevant to African ethics.

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