TITLE:
Re-Examination of Igbo Values System, and the Igbo Personality: A Kantian and African Comparative Perspective
AUTHORS:
K. C. Ani Casmir, Emmanuel Ome, Ambrose Nwankwo
KEYWORDS:
Kant, Human Dignity, Communalism, Human Values, Ethics
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Philosophy,
Vol.4 No.3,
August
19,
2014
ABSTRACT: The primordial Igbo
personality is subsumed in a world view of metaphysical reality in which God,
as the Supreme Being, plays a central role. The construction of the model Igbo
personality starts with an adequate appreciation of the communal role of the
individual in maintaining societal balance, peace, prosperity and moral
transparency. It is impossible to think of the individual as different from the
community. There is a pre-existing metaphysical and social bond that
inextricably links one to the other. The interests of the individual are
concomitant with that of community. His aspirations, dreams and hopes for a
better future and a fulfilled life are dialectically tied to the communal apron
strings of what is good for the community. Thus it is “alu”, “nso ani” and “ajoomume”
(evil and evil conduct in the Igbo moral sphere) for the individual to even
think or act against the metaphysical and cosmological position of his
indigenous Igbo community. With this attunement between the individual and his
community, it becomes easier to build personalities who see themselves as
members of the community. Most importantly, these personalities do exhibit
values and virtues which strengthen the spiritual, ethical, social and economic
heritage and resources in the Igbo communities. The conception of the Igbo
personality, primordially speaking, is a conception in which the individual
radiates, as it were, communal values. These communal values are the structural
principles and powers that define the identity, integrity and inner self of the
Igbo person. When an Igbo man reflects a personal behavior pattern filled with
these action-values he is seen to be on the path of a dignified existence. He
becomes, as it were, the embodiment of the universal merited dignity of
humanity as we say in Igbo lore—“Onyenkabummadu” (this person has human dignity
and lives it in his conduct). We can then re-examine to what extent the
Igbo communal values are in attunement with the Kantian
concept of human dignity. This paper posits that the Igbo communal system has
the best indigenous ethical and environmental structure for the restoration of
man’s dignity as posited by Kant and, has, for ages before Kant, been at the
forefront of this restoration, ethicalization and construction of values for
human dignity.