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The Educational Review, USA

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Article Open Access http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/er.2018.07.005

Questioning Morality and Religion in African Thought

Ephraim U. Ibekwe

Department of Philosophy, Imo State University, Owerri, Nigeria.

*Corresponding author: Ephraim U. Ibekwe

Published: June 28,2018

Abstract

The article centers on current discourses on Morality and Religion in African thought. These discourses replicate the ambivalence between those scholars seeking to define African morality within the parameters of a conventionalized, Western, religious episteme, and those pursuing an “Africanist” (Afrocentric) explanation which embraces an authentic mode of African knowledge construction within indigenous communities. The assumption that faith or religion is the foundation of African morality does not hold water. However it can be partially endorsed when one grants space for hybrid moral constructions between Christianity and indigenous religion. This particular endeavour is problematic because of the complicated nature of African traditional religion System. However, there is a hope in this struggle for the redefinition of the constituents of African Morality issue as the concept “African morality” is not necessarily based on religion or faith, but on the beneficiary values of collective family and community well-being, without dissolving the individual's character. In African thought, the “best” rational justification of the moral imperative is less of an issue than in current moral discourse. This article points out distinctly that there is little or no demarcation between Morality and Religion in African thought as the two are closely related. It also argues for the continuity of African Religion.

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How to cite this paper

Questioning Morality and Religion in African Thought

How to cite this paper: Ibekwe, E. U. (2018). Questioning Morality and Religion in African Thought. The Educational Review, USA, 2(7), 397-409.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/er.2018.07.005