Evaluating the Ethical and Political Implications of African Communalism vis-à-vis Western Individualism

Freedom, responsibility and rights are topics of concern in traditional and contemporary African social setting. The afore mentioned are due to the nature African conception of a person as communalistic, thereby constricting the rights and responsibilities of the individual to common communal bearing. This liberates both ethical, moral and social impacts from the individual and placing it on the community. A topic of pertinent concern in existential phenomenology is as to what level of understanding could the anthropological nature of man be grasped. This is an attempt to marry human actions to its relative effects and consequences. It also boils down to the problem of ethics and morality, the question of justice and fair treatments, the question of communal and individual responsibilities. That is, to what extent can one justify his or her actions based on community delegation and to what extent can one be held culpable even if the individual is carrying out what is said to be a social delegation. Actions and responsibilities have been a perennial question in philosophy. African communalism on the other hand suggests a communal setting where individuals see themselves as a small unit of a whole. It purveys the necessity of the primacy of the community over individual’s interest. It is a sort of brotherly solidarity and communal living that seek to achieve a greater communal goal as against individual’s interest. This concept has its own ill bearing where communal good could be sought out for at the expense of an individual’s right and culpability is exonerated on the name of communal delegation. Thus, it is based on this that this paper, employs analytical method to explores the political cum ethical implications of African communalism, how it has shaped, developed and downplayed African worldviews and social development. It further places it side-by-side with individualism as a western connotation-taking cognizance of the loopholes thereto the two. It concluded with a standpoint that is communal and individualistic in bearing as a way forward to a better Africa.