Ethics and the New Environmental Order in Africa
p. 31-39
Texte intégral
1Humanity is presently at the crossroads and faced with the option of choosing between the prevailing environmental situation and its transformation. Although some analysts still regard the warnings by the environmentalists as a pessimistic ruse to divert us from the path of economic growth, there is a growing consensus that environmental problems are grave and should be addressed. The desire for a new environmental order is shared by virtually all constituent groups of the global community. The idea of sustainable development recognizes the need to preserve and replenish nature in order not to exterminate the present and future generations of the species that occupy the globe.
2The new environmental order must manifest an ethical dimension to the solution of the crisis for two reasons. The first is that, in the first place, the crisis is a reflection of the failure to give moral consideration to the natural environment. Jonathan Porritt (1991: 36) aptly expresses it thus, ‘What looks at first sight like a crisis of finite biological systems exposed to infinite human demands, is in reality, a crisis of human values.’
3The other reason why the new environmental order must recognize and give serious expression to the ethical angle is the moral crisis of legitimacy and the loss of a moral basis for survival by the old social paradigm (Engel, 1990: 5). A social system is replaced when it is incapable of morally justifying its usefulness and in the same vein a new paradigm or social system is entrenched by its capacity to justify its moral basis for acceptance. In essence, the new environmental order, if it fails to present itself as possessing an adequate moral foundation stands to be identified as being similiar to its predecessors.
4Every society within the global community must dip into its value system to construct an environmental ethic that will usher in a new environmental order. An indigenous moral norm derived from the traditional culture of the people will appeal more to the community than an imported norm. This position is also informed by the knowledge that every society has its own culture of reacting to the environment. Since environmental problems vary from one society to the next, it is therefore logical that every society should approach those problems according to the way they manifest. Despite the integrative tendency of the environmental crisis, the diversities within the global community in problems, and attitudes to the environment can only be neglected at our own peril.
5What then should be the characteristics of the new environmental order? The new environmental order should recognize the moral dimension to the problem. This position needs further amplification. One of the fundamental arguments defended in this essay is that the prevailing environmental abuse is a product of anthropocentric principles of values and ethics. Anthropocentric ideas of value and ethics reduce morality to the mere satisfaction of human interests alone, so that only humans possess intrinsic value. The new environmental order, therefore, in recognizing its own genesis, must transcend anthropocentrism which is not favourable to a good relationship between humans and nature, and embrace an ecocentric ethic and value system.
6The ecocentric principle recognizes that the ecocommunity is a holistic community. Value is, therefore, given to the ecosystem as a whole rather than to human beings who are. merely constituent members. Ecocentrism regards members of the system as interdependent, every member has intrinsic value. In the same vein, morality is determined, not by the interests of a constituent unit, but rather by the way it can promote the common good of the ecosystem.
7In Africa, the new environmental order requires a reawakening of communal responsibility that was a feature of the ’traditional African society. The new community must recognize, as in traditional Africa, that those inanimate resources of nature have their own functions and possess their own spirituality which must be respected because of the role they play in the survival of humans. In the past, the respect that traditional Africans gave to inanimate objects was regarded as superstitious and devoid of scientific explanation; but in the new dispensation, Africans can now begin to give a scientific explanation for the reverence with which they treat inanimate objects. Rather than use taboos and myths to maintain the interdependency of all the species of nature, the new environmental order demands that they should be respected and treated with moral consideration. Inasmuch as we need the earthworm and the forests for our health, welfare and the survival of future generations, it is imperative for human beings to revere and treat them with a sense of moral responsibility. The appreciation that ultimately the welfare of all humans can be affected by the cutting down of trees, the use of pesticides and the careless destruction of animals and plants will go a long way to make humans realize that moral responsibility to nature is as important as moral consideration for other humans.
8Much still needs to be borrowed from the communalism of traditional Africa for a new environmental order to be established in the continent. Our discussion so far has confirmed that ethics, whether for human relations or for the sustenance of the natural environment demand a strong sense of community and the idea of common interests. This sense of common interests has been eroded by modernity. But without the restoration of the idea of common interests and sense of community, it will be very difficult to make human beings behave towards the natural resources with moral restraint and responsibility. In a recent essay entitled: Communalism: The moral factor in African development, ’ Omo-Fadaka has emphasized the need to revive the communal spirit of the traditional African society in order to achieve the goal of a sustainable environment. As mentioned earlier, the fact that within the communal society of traditional Africa, the unborn, the living and the dead are recognized as members will make it easy to maintain the principle of intergenerational equity. If the new environmental order in Africa operates within the concept of community that includes ancestors and descendants, people will be conscious of the need to preserve and use the environment with consideration.
9One of the fundamental reasons for the present African multidimensional crises – including the environmental crisis – is the privatization of the public space by the few members of the ruling class. This privatization has led to the lack of public morality and the erosion of any idea of common interests. The loss of the idea of common interests accounts for the immorality that pervades present African society. One aspect of this immorality is responsible for the gross misuse of the environment in the continent. Therefore, the political situation has to change. Unless we give expression to the yearnings of the people for popular participation and official accountability, we cannot restore a sense of community and an idea of common interests. What we are saying essentially is that the quest for a new environmental order must not be seen in isolation from the present political and economic crises in Africa. Demand for a new environmental order is essentially a desire for a new social system. The environmental problem cannot be solved unless the whole society is purged of its present problems. Only when public morality and the idea of justice in all its ramifications are restored can members of the society decide to follow suit by acting in defence of common interests and establishing a new social, political and economic order. Before ordinary people can act with moral responsibility to the objects of nature, their own rights must be restored. Human rights abuses is one of the consequences of the political malaise in Africa. People must feel that if they act with a sense of morality they will be compensated by a corresponding moral regard for them. The political situation cannot change unless there is a conscious effort to transform the material conditions of the African people. It is a common occurrence in Africa to talk of human rights only within a political context. This is a serious mistake. The desire to change the environmental condition of African society must be preceded by a restoration of the economic rights of the people. The World Commission Report on Environment and Development acknowledges that the poor cannot have any sense of morality: ‘Poverty itself pollutes the environment creating environmental stress in a different way. Those who are hungry will often destroy their immediate environment in order to survive’ (World Commission, 1978: 28). The appropriate starting point of a new environmental order with moral consideration for natural resources in Africa must be the mission to emancipate and rehabilitate the majority who are in want.
10The next feature of the new environmental order which relates to all the topics discussed in this section is the need to integrate all ideas relating to human development such that there is no conflict. It has, in fact, been suggested that the goal of development which is always seen as the fundamental human project should always be discussed and pursued in a holistic manner (Kothari, 1990: 34). What this implies is that the development of humanity in all its facets must be related and coordinated. The reason why this integration is necessary for a new world order is because the environmental crisis is primarily a result of scientific development without the moral wisdom necessary for its management. In this respect, therefore, development must not be seen in isolation as a purely economic, or scientific project. The new environmental order and the goal of a sustainable environment requires that even scientific activities should take into consideration the moral or the human angle, if the essence of human development in its multidimensional form is to achieve the goal of the good life for the individual. Scientific development that is not moderated by moral considerations for humans and nature will eventually defeat its purpose.
11 The new environmental order and the objectives of sustainable development demand the integration of ideas and cultures. They can only be successful if there is cross-pollination of ideas such that the scientists, the technologists and the economists interact with the philosophers, the anthropologists and the political scientists. A sustainable environment will only become a reality if the scientific-oriented scholars investigate the moral implications of their actions, inventions and theories; and the philosophers are made to know and understand the implications of scientific feats and technological innovations in ordinary terms. The totality of the knowledge produced needs to filter down to ordinary people to give them basic knowledge about the new science and the effects it will have on other members of the ecosystem. Knowledge plays an important role in shaping the ethical sense of human beings; Socrates said that ‘knowledge is virtue’. An awareness of the negative moral implications of our actions can restrain us from behaving unethically.
12From our discussion so far we can see that the new environmental order presents us with a paradox. Paradox in the sense that the environmental crisis has brought us together and yet each society is expected to generate its own way of coping with it. What we are saying in essence is that environment by its very nature confronts humanity with a kind of parodox in the sense that it has a dual facet. Environment can mean the immediate setting, space which an individual or group occupies – that is in the sense of the wilderness or water resources of a particular society or the animals that inhabit a particular geographical space. This demands a commitment to the local and contextual realities. In another sense the environment means a common property – the round object on which we all live and pursue our daily activities. This demands from us a spirit of integration and unity. But the essential message of the environmental discourse is that we are all interdependent. Ecocentrism, as a metaphysical and ethical principle, has established that all creatures great and small need one another to survive. So, when Antony Appiah was talking of the global culture and the way we contaminate ourselves (Appiah, 1992), the contamination is not limited to culture but it is also ecological. The interrelationship, interdependency and the daily contamination of one specie by another, must be important themes in the new environmental order. If the essence of ethics is to maintain social stability and the good life of the people, then we ought to recognize that it is not only human beings that have the capacity to frustrate our desire for social stability and the good life but also other species, including microorganisms. Our new ethics of the environment should therefore take cognisance of this.
13What are the implications of the present desire for a new environmental order for politics and policy making in Africa? The answer is very clear. First, the crisis of survival that confronts the African social being (as a result of environmental depletion) and the necessity to adopt a favourable moral position, requires that politics should be carried out with more concern for morality. Politics in Africa have been an essentially amoral affair concerned with the maximization and privatization of power. Such an idea of politics is misplaced. The real essence of politics is to establish a mode of controlling affairs in the state such that rulers will perform their legitimate duties and the ruled will always have their rights and interests protected.
14Political leaders and policy makers as the vanguard of this new movement must be bastions of the moral order. Our policies should therefore reflect the various principles that we have argued for here, in the bid to maintain a stable environment. In essence, policy makers must redirect their orientation and their policies to be consistent with ecocentric metaphysics rather than with the anthropocentric metaphysics that dominates virtually all the nations of the modem world. Policies in Africa must give expression to the need to conserve the resources of nature and to act on them with moral responsibility; but such a policy cannot be encouraged by a government or a regime whose own foundation is full of immoral dealings and whose legitimacy is questionable. Only a government that is responsible to the masses can do their bidding and protect their interests, including their environmental interests.
15Related to this is the tendency of many states in Africa to rely on laws and legislative measures to achieve a sustainable environment. Such an approach to environmental problems fails to recognize that morality, by its very nature, is fundamental to law and that law comes into operation when morality does not achieve total acceptance. With regard to the problem of environmental depletion, therefore, an appeal ought first to be made to the sense of morality of the people before resorting to the coercive measures of law. Law is for the defiant minority while morality should be enough for the majority. The situation in Africa concerning the environment is that we are putting the cart before the horse. In the new environmental order the moral appeal must be the major means of mobilizing the people. It is only when this fails that we should resort to the type of multiple legislation that is presently being introduced.
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Licence OpenEdition Books. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
Transfrontier Regionalism. The Revival of Regional Integration in Africa
A.I. Asiwaju et Daniel C. Bach
1999
Trans-Border Studies
The Motivation and Integration of Immigrations in the Nigeria-Niger Border Area/ Transborder Movement and Trading. A Case Study of a Borderland in Southwestern
Labo Abdulahi et Afolayan A.A.
2000
Postcolonial or Not?
West Africa in the Pre-Atlantic and Atlantic Worlds
Christopher R. DeCorse
2013
The national conference as a model for democratic transition : Benin and Nigeria
Wuyi Omitoogun et Kenneth Onigu-Otite
1996
Because of our future : the imperative for an environmental ethic for Africa
Kolawole A. Owolabi
1996