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1

Benedict de Spinoza’s Virtue: Springboard for Modern Valorization of Ethical Relativism

100%

Ogbujah C. N.

Dialogue and Universalism

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2021

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nr 2

107-122

EN

Benedict de Spinoza (1632–1677) was about the most radical of the early modern philosophers who developed a unique metaphysics that inspired an intriguing moral philosophy, fusing insights from ancient Stoicism, Cartesian metaphysics, Hobbes and medieval Jewish rationalism. While helping to ground the Enlightenment, Spinoza’s thoughts, against the intellectual mood of the time, divorced transcendence from divinity, equating God with nature. His extremely naturalistic views of reality constructed an ethical structure that links the control of human passion to virtue and happiness. By denying objective significance to things aside from human desires and beliefs, he is considered an anti-realist; and by endorsing a vision of reality according to which everyone ought to seek their own advantage, he is branded ethical egoist. This essay identified the varying influences of Spinoza’s moral anti-realism and ethical egoism on post-modernist thinkers who decried the “naïve faith” in objective and absolute truth, but rather propagated perspective relativity of reality. It recognized that modern valorization of ethical relativism, which in certain respects, detracts from the core values of the Enlightenment, has its seminal roots in his works.

2

EDITORIAL Ethics in Business, in Search of Wholesome Health for Human Society

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Ogbujah C. N.

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nr 1

5-6

EN

One sociological scheme that aided human survival from the Stone Age is the instinct for self-preservation. Humans, as Sigmund Freud notes, are “creatures among whose instinctual endowments are to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness.” When combined with deceit, aggression becomes a potent tool both for survival and for conquest/expansion into new territories. Given, as Thomas Hobbes alluded that in the state of nature, life was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, and owing to the Darwinian evolutionary historiology, which claims that only the fittest survived, the exhibition of brute force and crude acquisitive tendencies became salutary enterprises. Not surprisingly the acuity of the Latin maxim Homo homini lupus (Man is a wolf to man), is not contested in many quarters of intellectual scrutiny. Objectionable as this is, as a guiding principle, instances of man being a wolf to man are rife in every age and culture. Now and again, this proverb manifests not only in the commodification of others (slavery) by seeing them as potential helpers or sexual objects, but also in exploiting their capacity for work without adequate compensation, in sexually abusing them, in forcefully seizing their possessions, political power or territories, in swindling them, in humiliating them, in causing them pain, and in torturing and killing them. All of these occur in spite of robust positive laws of nation-states and multiple international charters. Following the realist conflict theory, this natural proclivity for individual self-preservation and the pursuit of self-interest always drives humans to subvert rules and promote self-goals. We can easily relate these to most of the world’s crises: the shipment of black Africans to the West Indies and Europe for slavery, the inordinate ambition of Adolf Hitler for race purification that led to the extermination of millions of people during World War II, the insider trading at the Wall Street that led to the collapse of the world economy, the unsustainable exploitation of nature and industrial pollutions by corporations that have caused unprecedented natural disasters and sufferings, unconscionable proselytizing techniques that have led to religious intolerance, terrorism, and wars, the partisan manipulations and election rigging, especially in developing nations— leading to political crises, and the systemic disenfranchising of whole groups based on race, colour or gender in scientific and technological knowledge productions, etc. In all these, there is a palpable lack of ethics in the conduct of human affairs, and humans seem to revel in being wolves to each other. Although ethics in business (business ethics) is relatively new as a specialized philosophical discipline, it has, since antiquity, been the bedrock of flourishing humane societies. Due primarily to the postmodernist hedonistic penchant for profit maximization, and buoyed by a vigorous exploitation of Milton Friedman’s argument that the ethical duty of business people is nothing but to maximize profit within the law, some scholars and entrepreneurs tend to be suspicious of this merger. Nonetheless, studies abound that show the criticality of ethics to individual and corporate integrity, national harmony, and global peace which are indispensable ingredients for growth. In contradistinction to the animalistic depiction of humans, Seneca avers: “Homo, sacra res homini”— “Man is an object of reverence in the eyes of man.” Seeing each other as “objects of reverence” is the goal of ethics in business. It engenders respect, trust, loyalty, love, and care beyond legalism. Ethics in business thus, provides the opportunity for the diffusion of these inimitable values for social relationships and survival in human interaction. We live in a world broken by selfishness and greed, and history has shown that despite fleeting benefits to those who operate businesses without integrity, the enduring effects of unethical business practices can potentially destroy the entire fabric of the human race. Hence, despite its rejection in some quarters, the call for the injection of ethics into business is a call for collective responsibility; it is a call that harps on the need for cooperation and unity of all humans for survival. In this monothematic issue of Dialogue and Universalism, these scholars have diversely explored the centrality of ethics in businesses for a truly “healthy” life-style and a genuinely prosperous society. I enjoin you to savor the courses in this “menu,” and give us your feedback to enrich our intellectual culture.

3

Colourism, Ethnicism and the Logic of Domination in 21st Century Nigeria

100%

Ogbujah C. N.

Dialogue and Universalism

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2021

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nr 1

23-39

EN

The 2016 launch of the courier giant—Dalsey, Hillblom, and Lynn’s (DHL) Advanced Regional Centre (ARC) in Singapore—was significant not just for the scale of the facility and its impressive level of innovation, but for the visual identity and branding of DHL’s red and yellow corporate colours. These colours, as is evident in all branding, set it out from the rest, and have become a symbol of power and domination. This resonates with the use of colour categories to isolate human beings into unjust classes that manifest divisive social and racial hierarchies. The symbolism of colourism and ethnicism viewed either plainly or as metaphors, lies in the “othering” of fellow human beings for discrimination and scapegoating. The markers are the same, whether in the case of George Floyd or the victims of discrimination and/or recurrent massacres in Nigeria. This essay explores how, by creating a visible barge of “otherness,” the current political leadership either shirked responsibility in the face of discriminations, or contrived excuses for the endless massacre of minorities in Nigeria.

4

The Responsibility of Social Media to Truth, Reason and Democracy

51%

Ogbujah C. N. , Berebon C. , Nkama N.

Dialogue and Universalism

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2022

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nr 3

177-190

EN

The rise of social media has given a significant boost to the information and communication industry. Prior to now, the common news outlets were the mainstream print and electronic media, domiciled in specific locations, and guided by particular laws of nation states. These laws, for the most part, regulated and enforced decency, compelling practitioners to adhere to the ethics of truth, reason and democracy. But with the rise of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc., that are used by enormous number of people to communicate, network, and advertise their businesses, the determination of information to be released to the public is no longer under the monopoly of a select few technocrats and entrepreneurs. Once the immediate access to these facile communication channels of social media is set in place, everyone with a basic social skill becomes a communicator of news. This phenomenon has revolutionized the media industry, giving everyone opportunity to have information at the snap of their fingers. But by the same token, and leveraging on the complexity of formulating regulating laws, the social media circumvents most existing norms, leading to abuse of public trust, credibility deficit and crisis of confidence. This essay makes a foray into the responsibility of social media in what concerns truth, reason and democracy. Using the analytic method, it gauges the current social media practice vis-à-vis the traditional media, and highlights the gray areas that precipitate abuse. The essay concludes by advocating for strict adherence to media ethics that will promote the values of responsibility, fairness, truthfulness, accountability and universal democratic ideals.

5

Values and Educational Growth: the Tragedy of an Emasculated Nation

51%

Ogbujah C. N. , Amadi C. C. , Berebon C. B.

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nr 1

159-171

EN

Values―the individual’s or group’s general tastes regarding results or courses of actions deemed appropriate or otherwise, have a synergetic relationship with educational growth. Ordinarily, the values espoused by individuals or groups engender specific types of attitudes that elicit precise sorts of behaviours that open the horizon for definite sorts of educational growth. Conversely, the quality and quantity of educational growth of a nation influence the behaviours of the citizens which generate attitudes that ultimately create values. This rectangular-like bidirectional correlation has a very strong causational angle to it: right values lead to positive educational growth; wrong ones elicit growth deficits in education, and vice versa. This essay establishes the correlation between values and educational growth using Nigeria as a case study. Through textual criticisms, it highlights the causative influence of bad values on the poor educational outcomes in the country and recommends value reorientation to reverse the ugly tide.