HOBBES'S: MORALITY AS SYSTEMIC NOTE FOR ANTI-CORRUPTION WARFARE.
''Corruption is an improbity or decay in the decision-making process in which a decision-maker consents to deviate or demands deviation from the criterion which should rule his or her decision-making, in exchange for a reward or for the promise or expectation of a reward, while these motives influencing his or her decision-making cannot be part of the justification of the decision''.-Professor (emeritus) dr. Petrus van Duyne.
Morality can be a systemic note for anti-corruption warfare of the present administration if our traditional moral codifications are taking seriously and incorporated into the primary school curriculum in a process of ethical social engineering, reorientation of our people. We need to catch them young, so to speak.
I would like to conceptualise morality in a dualistic but coherent, consistent, eclectic paradigm to mean both descriptive and normative codes of conduct put forward by a society or groups given certain specified conditions would be meet based on rationalism of all persons.
If we say corruption globally defined is evil, bad, we are not only affirming the intrinsic evil of corruption but we are also saying that from experiences in the past, our epochal characterization of events and introspection on the impactness of the act of corruption on our lives have been negative. Therefore, corruption does not exist in vaccum as a particularistic monad hibernating only in our imagination.
The historiograpy of corruption in our geopolitical landscape can be seen from the perspective of what Thomas Hobbes in his famous masterwork (Leviathan) called The state of nature on the basis of which Hobbes developed his “social contract theory”.
In my opinion Nigeria is in a state of nature as regards corruption and all other things mentioned by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan.
''In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently, not culture of the earth, no navigation, nor the use of commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.- Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan).
Some people might say this description of Nigeria given by me using Hobbesian state of nature as a pedestal is over-exaggerated because we have a democratic administration in place about the time under review but my own counter argument to that is to say having a democratic government in place or perpetually might be necessary but not sufficient and adequate to negate the description given earlier based on the fact that what we witnessed then was anarchy, infact we had a failed state that was brutish encompassing everything that Thomas Hobbes mentioned in his masterwork (Leviathan).
Therefore, we need a re-establishment of civilize government and institutions in Nigeria not necessarily Hobbesian form of administration which in my own analysis is feudalistic and dictatorial in nature, nevertheless Thomas Hobbes had laid a solid foundation upon which we can look with critical mindset at our human society and in this case at the goepolitical entity called Nigeria as it was governed in the last 16years of PDP administration as our starting point because I do not have the liberty to look farther backward historically speaking due to time constraints.
There is no overflogging the fact that the previous administration was characterised by corruption, profligacy, perfidy and maladministration; unimaginable in the annals of public administration in Nigeria given the mind boggling revelations of malfeasance and treasonable felonious activities published daily on the pages of newspapers and online. Of note is the realization that all these criminalities perpetrated by people in the position of authority and trust cannot be viewed in isolation rather there is a nexus here with the obvious reality of the total collapse or lack of moral foundation anymore in our society. ''We have lost our age of innocence''.
This is one of the reasons why I am making a case for morality as a systemic note for anti-corruption warfare by advocating for the resurgence of the teaching of values, morality as a pathfinder to becoming good individuals cum citizens in our primary school curriculum.
It can be an important methodology for social engineering our young pupils mindset by re-directing their value system towards a nationalistic, law abiding, corruption and vices abhorrence citizenship.
This by my own understanding is a natural deterrent to corruptive atittude as a result of the pressures for conformity with laid down values and codes of conduct the pupils must have internalised from the ''indoctrination'' and if you like from social engineering processes while going through formal education.
The need to channel conformity exclusively through formal sanctions would be increasingly unnecessary because the mechanism of evolving such a curriculum has taken cognizance of various counter-measures that an individual or collective in the system can adopt to sabotage projected end goals. This is where the roles of parents are very important obviously the ball stops at their doorsteps.
The war on corruption is about good versus evil, its a battle for the survival of our nation and our existence as human being. The significance of morality in the war against corruption in any given commune is the protection of the integrity of the state and whenever/wherever corruption is allowed to have a free reign within a given state the eventual collapse or anarchy of such entity is a matter of time.
Therefore, we must win this battle if we are to get out of the Hobbesian categorization into our Eldorado flowing with democratic dividend.
OTUNBA ADE ILEMOBADE is a philosopher
Twitter: @pearl2prince
Morality can be a systemic note for anti-corruption warfare of the present administration if our traditional moral codifications are taking seriously and incorporated into the primary school curriculum in a process of ethical social engineering, reorientation of our people. We need to catch them young, so to speak.
I would like to conceptualise morality in a dualistic but coherent, consistent, eclectic paradigm to mean both descriptive and normative codes of conduct put forward by a society or groups given certain specified conditions would be meet based on rationalism of all persons.
If we say corruption globally defined is evil, bad, we are not only affirming the intrinsic evil of corruption but we are also saying that from experiences in the past, our epochal characterization of events and introspection on the impactness of the act of corruption on our lives have been negative. Therefore, corruption does not exist in vaccum as a particularistic monad hibernating only in our imagination.
The historiograpy of corruption in our geopolitical landscape can be seen from the perspective of what Thomas Hobbes in his famous masterwork (Leviathan) called The state of nature on the basis of which Hobbes developed his “social contract theory”.
In my opinion Nigeria is in a state of nature as regards corruption and all other things mentioned by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan.
''In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently, not culture of the earth, no navigation, nor the use of commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.- Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan).
Some people might say this description of Nigeria given by me using Hobbesian state of nature as a pedestal is over-exaggerated because we have a democratic administration in place about the time under review but my own counter argument to that is to say having a democratic government in place or perpetually might be necessary but not sufficient and adequate to negate the description given earlier based on the fact that what we witnessed then was anarchy, infact we had a failed state that was brutish encompassing everything that Thomas Hobbes mentioned in his masterwork (Leviathan).
Therefore, we need a re-establishment of civilize government and institutions in Nigeria not necessarily Hobbesian form of administration which in my own analysis is feudalistic and dictatorial in nature, nevertheless Thomas Hobbes had laid a solid foundation upon which we can look with critical mindset at our human society and in this case at the goepolitical entity called Nigeria as it was governed in the last 16years of PDP administration as our starting point because I do not have the liberty to look farther backward historically speaking due to time constraints.
There is no overflogging the fact that the previous administration was characterised by corruption, profligacy, perfidy and maladministration; unimaginable in the annals of public administration in Nigeria given the mind boggling revelations of malfeasance and treasonable felonious activities published daily on the pages of newspapers and online. Of note is the realization that all these criminalities perpetrated by people in the position of authority and trust cannot be viewed in isolation rather there is a nexus here with the obvious reality of the total collapse or lack of moral foundation anymore in our society. ''We have lost our age of innocence''.
This is one of the reasons why I am making a case for morality as a systemic note for anti-corruption warfare by advocating for the resurgence of the teaching of values, morality as a pathfinder to becoming good individuals cum citizens in our primary school curriculum.
It can be an important methodology for social engineering our young pupils mindset by re-directing their value system towards a nationalistic, law abiding, corruption and vices abhorrence citizenship.
This by my own understanding is a natural deterrent to corruptive atittude as a result of the pressures for conformity with laid down values and codes of conduct the pupils must have internalised from the ''indoctrination'' and if you like from social engineering processes while going through formal education.
The need to channel conformity exclusively through formal sanctions would be increasingly unnecessary because the mechanism of evolving such a curriculum has taken cognizance of various counter-measures that an individual or collective in the system can adopt to sabotage projected end goals. This is where the roles of parents are very important obviously the ball stops at their doorsteps.
The war on corruption is about good versus evil, its a battle for the survival of our nation and our existence as human being. The significance of morality in the war against corruption in any given commune is the protection of the integrity of the state and whenever/wherever corruption is allowed to have a free reign within a given state the eventual collapse or anarchy of such entity is a matter of time.
Therefore, we must win this battle if we are to get out of the Hobbesian categorization into our Eldorado flowing with democratic dividend.
OTUNBA ADE ILEMOBADE is a philosopher
Twitter: @pearl2prince
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