African cosmotheoandric world-view: basis in a quest for an african environmental ethics

Abstract

Every ethical rationality presupposes a foundational ontology i.e. the conception of reality on which such an ethical rationality is anchored. Likewise, an environmental ethics presupposes an ontological conception of the reality of the environment. There is increasingly an urgent call from the world political and religious entities, as well as global non-governmental organisations, for measures to mitigate the global environmental crisis. The summon to take urgent responsibility to conserve and care for the environment has placed environment ethics into focus. The largest segment of environmental ethics enshrines ethical reasoning for the care of the environment, argued from value of the environment to human existence. Such value of the environment is an attributed instrumental value i.e. in terms of the usefulness of the environment to humans. It is an ascription to the environment in which, the environment is viewed as natural resource to be exploited by humans for their existence, and hence humans ought to take care of it on that account. This kind of conception has led to manipulation and exploitation of the poor global south by the massively industrial and capitalist global north, that paradoxically is on the lead in the global campaign for mitigation of environmental crisis. There is another understanding of the value of the environment in intrinsic sense. It refers to the value of the environment in itself independent of any human ascription, but in reference to the good of the environment in itself, such that, the degradation of the environment by human activities implies the loss of or disrespect for the good of the environment in itself. An environmental ethics that is anchored on the intrinsic value of the environment requires an ontology that enshrines such conception of the value of the environment. This study presents the African 'cosmotheoandric' world view, as an ontology that implies intrinsic value of the environment. The main argument of the study is that, from the African worldview, we can have an African extraction of environment ethics, as a viable alternative for the care of the planet as the common home of humanity.