We continue our reading of Professor Godwin Sogolo’s rich thoughts on the values of morality that we need in the land.

Role of moral values in defining social change
Moral values play a critical role in defining social change. They serve as a guiding force in determining the trajectory of cohesion and development in any society. Among the categories of human values, morality stands out as the most encompassing and therefore, the best mark of identifying the essence of humanity.

This has been well articulated by Immanuel Kant, the German Philosopher, in his “Categorical Imperative” in which he classifies the conjoined elements of reason, universality and goodwill as the main criteria of morality. What it means, in plain language, is that a moral act must be the product of rational judgement; must be indiscriminately applicable to all persons and groups and must have been done unconditionally.

For the purpose of this discussion, the point to emphasis in Kant’s notion of universality is that “we act according to that maxim whereby we can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”

Commonly referred to as the “Golden Rule”, moral universality enjoins you to do unto others as you would want them do unto you. Of course, there are other nuances to this idea, including the interpretation that all human beings and all human societies, irrespective of race, time and place, are naturally endowed with the capacity for entertaining moral sympathies and for appreciating what is morally good and what is morally bad; what is right and what is wrong.

The same element of universality runs through the utilitarian doctrines of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill who believe that the morally right action is that which, in the overall, brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people. And, as Aristotle explains, once the potentialities for morality are developed and internalised in the individual, they become an integral part of his social identity, automatically expressed and acted upon, without the individual going through the routine processes of ratiocination or piecemeal calculations.

More important, morality is an indispensable and dominant factor in social life, embedded in every aspect of human endeavour: in religion, law, politics, economic and other areas of social interaction.

In spiritual matters, for instance, any committed religious practitioner would tell you that good conduct and nothing else will open the way to heaven. While the law courts are known for their habit of quibbling over legalities, the underlying issues, in most cases, revolve around intent – whether or not an action was intentionally committed, done in good or bad faith.

And in politics – with the very exceptional cases of men like Niccolo Machiaveli who would insist that the political leader does not need to be morally good or that all he needs are manipulative skills, ingenuity and craftiness – the orthodox and dominant view is that the politician must be of noble and sincere character.

Furthermore, it is a natural preoccupation for human beings everywhere to moralise, praise, blame and pass moral judgement on one another. And, it is almost an impulsive desire –some would say a social craving – in every human being, to want to be known as a morally good person. (You hardly come across a man or woman who does not want to be described as a good person – and nobody likes to be called a bad or wicked human being). Note that most social institutions are intertwined in structure and function. For instance, a very thin line separates law from morality, apart from the fact that law is normally written while morality is not.

The point relevant to our discussion here is that a lack of faith in the legal system or failure of the law to sanction human conduct weakens society’s moral grip on the individual. Similarly, religion is also inseparable from morality. In fact, some religious believers hold the view that religion is the foundation of morality and that there can be no morality without religion. The critical issue is whether religious practitioners – no matter how ardent, priests and imams – are better behaved human beings than the rest of us!

Without morality, any human society would ultimately go into extinction as a result of its failure to sustain cooperative living, and as the individuals become incapable of competing peacefully and undertaking mutual exchange of goods and services, without rancour.

Moral education
When Aristotle, in his days, spoke of human nature as the intrinsic principles of motion, not permanent in an entity, what he had in mind was the set of inherent tendencies of the human being to act and react in certain ways. It was this idea of “tendencies” or “potentialities” that led to his doctrine that “at birth the human mind is a tubula rasa” waiting for all kinds of imprint – intellectual, moral, spiritual, etc. In the Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle talks of the capacities we have by nature as well as the passive impulses and feelings that form our habits, which themselves do not go deep into us. Goodness, he says, is never in the action but only in the actor.

Before Aristotle, some of the most profound theories on the evolution of man and society had been formulated in the works of the other Greek Philosophers, prominent among whom was Plato who believed that social life was key to all human aspirations and hence the need for a harmonious and peaceful society. For Plato, knowledge is a necessary ingredient of moral virtue as mankind needs to be taught morality.

Plato believes that moral education is a pivotal element of building and strengthening the institutions of society and, therefore, promoting liberal democracy. To educate, says Plato, is to facilitate common values among people, promote mutual understanding and minimise social conflict. Indeed, education is the foundation of a just moral society.

In ‘The Republic’, which remains one of the most seminal works ever published in philosophy, Plato uses another philosophy legend, Socrates, as a mouthpiece and expresses the view that no human being can live a fulfilled life unless he is morally tutored. According to Plato, a just society can only be upheld when the individuals are morally educated.

Describing an ideal system of moral education, he says that the approach should be that of question and answer – the Socratic Method. That process should continue until the child reaches adulthood. For Plato, moral virtues must be explicitly taught, discussed and practiced so as to get them ingrained in the individual for life.

The central point of Plato’s doctrine is that the values instituted in the individual strengthen his capacity as well as the capacity of society to survive. He believes that in all human societies, internalised social considerations and institutionalised pressures are the determining forces of human moral actions. In other words, culture and all forms of institutional arrangements are social devices for taming human nature and curbing the excesses of man. What society does, from cradle up, is to mold the individual by inculcating in him standardised norms of behaviour which have already been embodied in social institutions.

The question to ask is whether the doctrines of Plato, Aristotle and other Greek Philosophers on morality and moral education are still tenable in today’s modern world. The immediate past Vice-Chancellor of NOUN, Professor Abdalla Uba Adamu, has always taunted me and my colleagues in philosophy that all we do is to study the ideas of dead white men! And, I have always insisted he was wrong.

It is true that since the days of the Greek philosophers, mankind has undergone series of civilisations; that science and technology has introduced new methods, new social and political institutions, norms, new ways of thinking, and conducting inter-personal and group relationships.

Yet, in spite of these changes, human nature has remained basically the same. Take it for instance that: we are born into the world, we grow and we continue to live a life of passion; we love and hate, switch moods from anger-sadness to happiness, and do almost everything that defines the human person, as conceived in the distant past and as understood across the world.

Furthermore, we have applied our creative ingenuity in inventing tools, from the crudest implements to the most sophisticated machines and technological devices such as robotics and Artificial Intelligence. Yet, to-date, no inventor has been able to transform himself into a machine. And, in the end, we die, without resolving the greatest puzzle in life: What is the purpose of life? So, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, we are still the same human beings that Plato and Aristotle talked about.

To be continued.

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.