Normative Justification of a Global Ethic: A Perspective from African Philosophy

The focus of this book is the normativity of global ethic. Over the years, different cultures and civilizations have been brought closer than never before by globalization. This trend has both its negative and positive dimensions. Overall, the main problem of this present trend of societal organization and human interaction called globalization is a moral issue, namely, the question: how should we treat one another? Okeja's global ethic seeks to answer this question. It underscores that we should treat one another in our current age of globalization in accordance with the Golden Rule principle. The suggestion of this ethic is therefore that we should not treat others the way we would not want to be treated. This sounds simple enough. The problem, however, is that it is not exactly clear what this principle of moral conduct would suggest in both simple and complex moral situations. Most importantly, it is not clear why it is reasonable to treat people the way we would not want to be treated. Why, in other words, should we act in accordance with the Golden Rule principle? What is the justification of the demand the Golden Rule makes on us? This book answers these and other questions about the normative plausibility of the Golden Rule, and thus global ethic, from the comparative perspective of ethics in African philosophy. It analyzes three stages of the possible normative justification of the moral imperative of global ethic and proposes a deliberative form of justification.

Uchenna Okeja was educated in Nigeria and Germany. He has undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in both philosophy and theology. He also received a master degree in management. He was awarded his PhD in philosophy by Goethe University in Frankfurt in 2011. Currently, he teaches courses in philosophy, business ethics and corporate governance at the Goethe University Frankfurt and the University of Applied Sciences in Fulda, Germany. For his PhD dissertation, he was awarded a gifted students' fellowship by the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation. Though primarily interdisciplinary in his research, he mainly works in the areas of political and social philosophy, epistemology of religious beliefs, postcolonial philosophy and applied (especially business) ethics.