Journal of African Studies and Sustainable Development

A PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE OF ISAIAH BERLIN’S POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE DIMENSION OF LIBERTY

Orji, Chidi Paul, Ph.D. — 2024-02-18

Man's existence and, in some ways, his nature depend on his ability to exercise his right to liberty. This inalienability was succinctly encapsulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted. However, Isaiah Berlin distinguished between positive and negative liberty in his 1958 lectures, which form the core of this work, and offered a full assessment of this essential function of liberty. Isaiah Berlin's beliefs on liberty are subjected to an explanatory approach and a critical analysis in this essay. The results of the study demonstrate how a democratic government's laws and policies define and safeguard an individual's civil liberties. Prerogative orders allow anyone to seek redress when their rights are violated resulting from this. In this way, a media organization assists and counsels those whose rights have been violated on how to pursue the proper legal action and seek redress. All of these actions uphold, defend, and ensure the security of fundamental human rights, which are the methods by which liberty or freedom are eaten. Human liberty shouldn't be mistakenly seen as working against the rule of law, but rather as a supplement to it, according to the text, because a democratic society promotes the welfare of its inhabitants. According to Isaiah Berlin, it would be erroneous to isolate human liberty from law and the constitution in this manner.

A CRITIQUE OF THOMAS AQUINAS’S NOTION ON CONSCIENCE AS A GUIDE TO ETHICAL DECISION MAKING

Orji, Chidi Paul, Ph.D. — 2024-02-18

Conscience has always been seen as the cornerstone of an action's goodness in the study of morality. The Notion of Conscience, a work by Thomas Aquinas, was crucial in establishing the concept of conscience and the related theoretical concerns. Synderesis, largely a cognitive role, is assigned to Aquinas. He insisted that people had a fundamentally firm understanding of what is ethically good and bad. Aquinas connected synderesis and natural law by equating synderesis, which is the habit, with the earliest practical principles and the fundamental tenants of natural law. This study tries to demonstrate the essential role of conscience as a motivational force in order to build a society that is balanced and encourages ethical living. Since conscience is bound, whether one is right or wrong, in accordance with Aquinas, acting against it is always wrongdoing.

ACTING PERSON AND THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL ETHICS OF OTHERNESS

ISANBOR, Philip Osarobu — 2024-04-11

In Wojtylan Existential Personalism (WEP), the human person is known by and with the actions expressed and choices made. That is, the individual is his or her actions and choices as a person in a community of different interests and values for the institutionalization of the factors of Integral Human Development (IHD). The paper recognised, following the philosophical analysis of the placement of the individual as an Acting Person in Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II)’s phenomenology of the person as the ontologised ethics of living, the contemporary developmental problems are as result of dehumanization of the human person by others’ actions and choices, resulting to the increasing trend of the Culture of War as against the institutionalization of the Culture of Peace which the society so desired. Such philosophy recognises that both Culture of Peace and Culture of War are solely products of human actions dependably on the valuation of lived experiences, and it is regarded as the core of WEP. It is about the culture of peace through the actions the human person expressed and choices made. For WEP, if lived experiences are properly interpreted, employed and managed, necessarily shape the present and then, more importantly, the future of the human person, as an active agent of development. Adopting a phenomenological method of analysis, the paper concludes that if the acting person as a subject of lived experiences recognises the values of the other persons in the choices and executions of his or her actions, as an ethics of authentic living, then the realization of Culture of Peace as a factor of IHD and its sustainability remains strongly inevitable and indispensable.

FALLEN AND FORGOTTEN? MEMORIALIZATION PROCESS AND THE AFRICAN UNION HUMAN RIGHTS MEMORIAL

Philip Chika Omenukwa — 2024-04-11

The task of ensuring that the atrocious events of the past shape and determine the better ordering of contemporary society seems to be a lesson that is lost on many African nations. This explains why violent conflict and the flagrant abuse of human rights persist. Interestingly, the African Union seems to have responded to this problem by the establishment of the Human Rights Memorial (AUHRM) project. Unfortunately, this project is yet to be fully implemented continentally and appropriated by many member states, most of which are still complicit in the escalation of violence and various forms of abuses. It becomes expedient to respond to this challenge. Hence, this essay makes a case for the necessity of memorialization and suggests ways of bypassing the ‘power’ obstacles in order to promote the process of memorialization in today’s Africa. Quite interestingly, it argues that the African worldview of communitycenteredness provides a philosophical foundation for the reasoning and implementation of the AU project of memorialization

MARKETING IN PANDEMIC: THE LIVED EXPERIENCES OF SMALL BUSINESSES IN COVID 19 AND LESSONS LEARNED

Catherine Chiugo Kanu, Ph.D — 2024-04-11

This study investigates the experiences of Nigerian small businesses in marketing the goods at the peak of COVID-19 and the lessons learned. The sample consisted of 21 marketers selling in an open street market in South east Nigeria. An ethnographic approach was used to gather data from the perspective of the cultural insider. With respect to the experiences of the marketers at the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, data analysis revealed four categories that included communication, social responsibility, distribution, ethics and purchasing. For the lessons learned five categories also emerged namely: Market intelligence, succession planning, digitalization of communication and distribution, and resources. Findings suggest that small businesses need to make the improvements they need to succeed in their marketing roles. Business educators, consultants, and small business coordinating organsisations should provide Educational programmes to equip small business marketers with the competencies they need to survive the pandemic and cope with the new normal.