Conscience and Community: Exploring the Relationship between Conscience formation and Systemic Corruption (in Nigeria)

This research focuses on the impact of the moral community (or social context) on the formation of conscience and its implication for moral responsibility. It is an interdisciplinary approach to theological reflection that is particularly attentive to psychological, philosophical, sociological, and neurobiological viewpoints showing how these have either distorted or broadened our understanding of conscience in its relation to community and social responsibility, or its formation in relationship to our moral development. It stresses reciprocity of conduct (for we are "responders") and the complementarities of internal and external sanctions. It insists that the influence of conscience on behavior is undermined by a fixation on its cognitive aspect at the detriment of the feeling aspect such that retrieving the latter will broaden our appreciation of its deep but subtle influence. While admitting the richness of African <italic>communalism<<</he basis for a healthy formative process, it also sees in it a perplexing paradox given the socio-political realities of venal leadership and systemic corruption that de-colors the African landscape. Focusing on Nigeria, it identifies "tribalism" as a socio-moral "pathology" (an institutionalized self-interest) that not only distorts the traditional process of moral formation but has evolved as a core driver of systemic corruption. It claims that globalization enables "external powers" to impact local moral orientation. It links "local tribalism" and "international tribalism" as "pathologies" based on kinship of disordered self-interest. It exposes how the latter influences local moral disorientation in a way analogous to how the local moral community impacts the malformation of individual conscience and thus influencing irresponsibility. Its recommendations include: a "glocalized" moral reform aimed at "updating" conscience formation process and overcoming tribalism; a paradigm shift in foreign policy agenda towards a new ethic; and a "three-stage-process" that focuses on deconstructing unhealthy belief systems and building "active" moral communities as part of a robust long-term strategy against systemic corruption and deeper socio-moral transformation.

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Immediate Access

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Theology

Year dc:date.available

2014

Author dc:creator

• Ebido, Augustine E.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Gerald Boodoo
• James Bailey
• Elochukwu E Uzukwu

• Conscience and Community
• nature or nurture of conscience
• Globalization and moral responsibility
• Sinful social structures
• Systemic Corruption
• communalism and tribalism
• Theories of moral development
• Tribalism and communalism

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/512

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dsc.duq.edu:etd-1528