The Debate about African Ethics and Paucity of Principle-Based Ethics before WWII

Introduction: This is an investigation into the development of Principle-Based Ethics in both the Western world and in Africa. It attempts to explain the historical links of atrocities in the Western world to the development of Principle-Based Ethics. The paper aims to answer the question of whether Africa has a layout of African ethics and morality in its traditional dimensions and whether African ethics and morality originated from Western influences or its own cultural evolution and politics. Method and Methodology: The author employs the case-study method, with qualitative literature review as its methodological approach, to conduct content analysis of relevant literature to tease out ethical principles and values for the evaluation. Theoretical Approach: The paper uses intersectionality theory for the analysis of morality and ethics, considering the variety of ethical and moral frameworks of the nations forming Africa with differential colonial, historical, and developmental approaches. Results: The outcome showed that prior to the 2nd World War and the Nuremberg Trial, there was a paucity of Principle-Based Ethics in the Western world; and that the Nazi atrocities caused a major revolution in the development of Principle-based ethics in the Western world. This assertion does not deny the existence of moral mechanisms and social etiquette in the promotion of acceptable social behavior. The perennial argument about whether Africa has ethics and a moral framework is not helpful when one does not differentiate between the type of ethics and morality one is describing from the mundane social moral compass that governs the intersectional relationships between people and communities. Conclusion: The competing schools of thought deviate from empirically assessing what each of the nations offers. The allegation that Africa lags behind in the development of moral values, resulting in the negative effects on modern-day African societies due to the paucity of universalized virtue ethics, is debatable. The flip side of the coin posits that Africa has well-developed principle-based ethics, which is also highly debatable. What this paper has revealed is that Africa’s supportive role in causing world atrocities that led to the development of principle-based ethics after the 2nd WW and the Nuremberg Trial universalized the etiology of principle-based ethics for all nations that participated either in defence or offence of the Nazi atrocities and resulting war.