SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF AFRICAN ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

Good ethical norm is an indispensable tool in the quest for sustainable environment. In the face of glaring distrust of current the dominant anthropocentric environmental ethics and clarion calls for more humane and eco-friendly alternative ethics, the present paper undertakes an analysis and reconstruction of African morality in view of x-raying how it structures human relationship with nature or the non-human world. It focuses on the core characteristics of the African environmental ethics. Shaped by pluralistic and inclusive worldview, with communalistic ontology as its background, African environmental ethics, the present paper argues, is an onto-ethical communal norm that anchors on the multiple factors of vitality and sense of duty. Its futuristic referentiality predisposes for trans-generational obligation. Though African environmental ethics cannot be said to be religious ethics, it is not ascetically devoid of religious elements. The transcendent or supernatural elements therein point to anthropocosmic dimension of African environmental ethics. The religious aura or the pansychic animism that pervades the life-ways in Africa further strengthens this ethical norm and commands reverence for nature. The communal nature makes it contextual thus impairing its universal application. This notwithstanding, a good appreciation of the above submission could facilitate better human relationship with the natural world.