CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
ETHICS (n.d.) (n.d.) (n.d
There are many actions that we will condemn as morally wrong and should not be done by anyone, such as stealing, murder, bribery aimed at robbery and corruption, and so on. On the other hand, there are certain actions that everyone considers to be morally good, such as kindness, honesty, respect for elders, hospitality, and so on. Why do we consider some activities to be good or right while others are deemed to be bad or wrong? How do we distinguish between activities that are terrible or wrong and those that are good or right?
We need a science that deals with human behavior to solve these and other concerns. Ethics1 is a branch of science concerned with human behavior. As a result, ethics serves as a standard for assessing the goodness or correctness of a situation.
ETHICAL UNIVERSALISM (1.2)
According to ethical universalism, all ethical judgments, no matter how little, should be universalizable. As a result, ethical universalism asserts that a single ethical standard of assessment should be applied everywhere.
All actions should be viewed as common to all ethical Universalists. This notion or concept asserts that an action that is regarded “right” or “wrong,” “good” or “bad,” “praiseworthy” or “blameworthy” in Western countries, should be able to be accepted by the Yoruba people in Nigeria.
1.3 RELATIVISM IN ETHICS
” Ethical relativism demonstrates the diversity or difference in the morals of a community or an individual. In this scenario, mortality judgment is based on individual human behavior.” 2. It’s vital to remember, however, that ethical relativism is dependent on a few other fundamental characteristics. Individual or societal cultural, historical, and socioeconomic distinctions are examples. Ethical universalism asserts that a single ethical or moral standard of judgment should be upheld throughout the universe, whereas ethical relativism asserts that whatever action is deemed praiseworthy or blameworthy is relative to an individual or a society in a given period of time or circumstance.
CULTURAL UNIVERSALISM (1.4).
“Every wide general principle of selectivity and ordering —- “highest common factor” —— in terms of patterns of and for and about behavior in every diverse domains of culture content are reducible to parsimonious generalization,” says one definition.
3.
From the previous definition, it is evident that culture can evolve from more than only a society’s traditions and conventions. It could also be gained in a variety of other ways and absorbed into one’s existing culture. Other methods include the process by which a person or a group of people obtains information from another person or group of people. This philosophy, like ethical universalism, claims that all cultures are equal.
1.5 RELATIVISM IN CULTURE
All values are functions or products of their culture, according to cultural relativism, and reflect the interests of their society and culture. It is a culturally conditioned fact of human experience.
When we examine different societies, we can learn a lot about them. Some Eskimos, for example, believe that it is preferable to send their elderly people to wastelands where they will die rather than maintain them alive and suffer in old age.
Abortion, euthanasia, human sacrifice, and cannibalism are examples of parricide. The rightness or wrongness of human activities signifies different things to different communities or even individuals, as these instances demonstrate. That is to say, there can’t be any.
1.6 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE YORUBAS GENOLOGY
The Yoruba society or kingdom encompasses the modern-day states of Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti, Osun, Ogun, and some other areas of Kwara and Lagos, as well as the modern-day republic of Benin. Because of the homogeneous remains in their language, Yoruba society is sometimes seen as a single entity. Despite its multiple varieties, this language serves as the primary proof of a shared cultural background and origin.
The existence of a cycle of tales and its people over the entire country, as well as the foundations at “Ile-Ife, the world’s center of the first kingdom,” is a second clue to a shared origin of Yoruba civilization.