PERSPECTIVA DOCTRINAL

183 permanence and change as a predominant feature of the scientific universe, it will need to ask:

which system of modern science is being referred to?

Hence everything as contained in force is „what is‟ whether it is interpreted as change or permanence. How do all these have a bearing with social values, norms and behavior?

184 Social values are human constructs which reveals the ideal way of thinking and acting within a society in other to achieve the “good society”. One of the constitutive elements of a good society is the norms it holds. Norms are discussed within the branch of philosophy known as ethics. The term ethics is etymologically connected with the Greek ethos, meaning custom or conduct. It is equivalent in meaning to moral philosophy, which is similarly connected with the Latin mores, meaning customs or behavior.¹⁰¹ Ethics can then be seen as the philosophical study of voluntary human action, with the purpose of determining what types of activities are good, right, and to be done, or bad, wrong and not to be done so that man may live well in the society.

Personal or moral norms are believed to originate in social norms or group norms, but they have become internalized and as such influences individual thoughts, feelings and behavior independently from the social context. This means that the society decides on what is best for everybody and this cannot be done outside a people‟s conviction for what beliefs matters most, hence morality is also a subset of a worldview occasioned by a thought system. Today as it were, the fascination and novelty of the force in the universe has made people to wonder if there is a divine providence behind it. Others have dismissed providence as responsible for the world.

While some humans may act in a moral manner because of a consciousness of a Supreme Being that man is answerable to, others have taken to secular humanism with the argument that man naturally has empathy in his heart and therefore, he needs no God to be moral. These are the kind of issues that the reality of force can kick start and how we attend to them will determine the ontological leanings we are resting on. The study further moves to consolidate on the issue of whom or what decides societal norms and values.

185 4.6.1 Who or what determines what is Moral or Immoral?

From the inquiry of science, morality can only make sense if the universe has a purpose.

This is because man is seen as a chemical and mechanical being that is made of material atoms, something in the region of Leibniz monads but without an eternal soul or purpose whatsoever.

The same purported fact applies to “society” as well. The talk about moral code of action for man will be meaningless since man is one huge lump of matter or bundle of energy coming from the point of view of modern science. Thus “when we probe beyond a certain degree of depth and dilution, the familiar properties of our bodies certain degree of depth and dilution, the familiar properties of our bodies light, colour, warmth, impenetrability etc lose their meaning”.¹⁰²

Man creating a society and its rules following modern science is just out of his whims and caprices in order to live peaceable with other men and to preserve man‟s property as some of the social contractarians will advocate. Ethical decisions can be made by the individual but from the authoritarian and autonomous basis with the former emanating from a laid down rule “a given” while the latter arising from inside oneself. So an authority such as a deity or society can spell out rules for what is right from what is wrong¹⁰³ as well as the individual‟s trained conscience.

African system of thought holds that the Supreme Being who is the highest force makes known what is moral or immoral, right or wrong to humans. Hence man is not the ultimate judge of his deeds. He does not find the justification of his acts and omissions in himself.

Transcending the free will of man is a higher force that knows, assesses and judges human acts”.¹⁰⁴ Since man is a spiritual force on whom death is not an end but a beginning of a spiritual life, how he lives his life in this material universe will determine whether he will be granted entrance into the spiritual universe of the living-dead. Africans therefore by this worldview ought to be moral in a society that embraces morality as part of its makeup. For the scientific

186 system, if humans can accept empathy, compassion, love and kindness as fundamental to societal good in their relationship, then metaphysical issues can be ignored since what is given in science are factual and demonstrable realities. The challenge here nevertheless will be how science can demonstrate such metaphysical concepts as empathy and compassion.

4.6.2 How do we reckon Societal Values or Norms as Right?

The study has established the point that the scientific notion of force and by extension the universe and that of traditional Africa as a thought system can determine societal values and actions. This is grounded especially in the belief in the transcendental or the immanent. How then can it be reckoned which societal values or norms are right and which is wrong? The question can be answered from the formalist, the relativists and the contextualists point of view.

For the formalist, the criteria to be used in making ethical decisions are universal laws that apply to all people. For the relativist, there are so many systems of customs and codes to be found in various societies, thus „within any particular society, its own set of customs and codes is right for it since they perform the very pragmatic function of enabling the society to operate with a greater degree of internal harmony”.¹⁰⁵

The contextualists believe first that, moral laws of the kind held by the formalist do not exist; they also discountenance the relativist view. They hold that relevant criteria for making a meaningful ethical decision can be found only within the context of each concrete ethical problem. The three criteria may have their limitations, but if one were to select the good from each, it can give us a comprehensive whole. However, the values and norms society hold will to a large extent defines their most basic institutions. It will touch on their educational process, laws, religion, politics, customs, tradition and so on. At the end, it will determine if such a society is making moral progress or not despite its seeming material/economic progress. As the study moves into the concluding chapter, it shall tie all the discoveries made together so far as

187 expressed and examine how the preference for either the material or immaterial aspect of force from traditional Africa and modern science can lead to new knowledge.