Moral Concept of Common Good in African Humanistic Heritage

Abstract

African moral humanism advances a morality of human integration that is determined towards the full realization and development of the African human personality for the purpose of achieving common good of individuals in a given African society. Many African communities today have drifted from the moral norms that have kept them together for a long period of time. This has brought untold hardships on the different African societies resulting to wars, killings, cheatings, corruption and malicious injustices of various kinds. These all stem on the level of moral decay in our society today, thereby, eroding the long held view of common good among the African peoples. The paper aims at bringing to bare the doctrine of African morality as founded on humanism; the doctrine that considers human interests and welfare as basic to the thought and action of African
people. In so doing, the researchers adopted the critical analytical method of research. It submits that understanding this doctrine in African moral thought gave rise to the cherished communitarian ethos of the African society. Therefore, since social life, which follows upon our natural sociality, implicates the individual in a web of moral obligations, commitments and duties to fulfill in pursuit of the common good and the general welfare, the paper recommends, that morality and common good should remain our humanistic heritage as African people.