A Critique of African-Igbo Communalism in the Light Kant's Kingdom of Ends Formula

Abstract

In his fourth formular of Categorical Imperative, Immanuel Kant proposed a “Kingdom of Ends.” He understands by this the union of different rational beings in a system of common laws. A kingdom where rational beings abstract from their personal differences, and likewise from all content of their private ends, and must treat themselves never merely as means, but in every case at the same time as ends in themselves. The common objective laws have in view the relation of these beings to one another as ends and means. Using the African-Igbo communities in today’s eastern-Nigeria as a case group, I seek in this work to philosophically deliberate on communal ideals of traditional African communitarian communities, and judging from some of the constitutive elements of the Immanuel Kant’s Kingdom of ends formula- which I will argue as having to do with communal nature of moral and political principles and reasoning, l presented African-Igbo communal ideas as values or principles that could, from communitarian perspective, create a kingdom, which could also be seen as a kingdom of ends.