Stewardship: An Ethics for Environmental Respectability in Africa
Bonaventure Gubazire 
Issue: Vol.3 No.8 August 2022 Article 2 pp. 299-309
DOI: https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.2022382 | Published online 8th August 2022.
© 2022 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Drawing on various environmental philosophers and other scholars, this paper modestly proposes an ethitocal theory known as stewardship that strongly challenges mankind to treat nature (environment) with substantial reverence and care. Nature and human beings are symbiotically related. Human beings depend on nature for their existence. Stewardship, as an ethical theory and practice, pivots on the philosophical idea that nature is sacred [i.e., bearer of intrinsic value and locus of transcendence]. Stewardship challenges human beings to committedly preserve nature and to only tamper with it for the procurement of basic human needs. Destroying nature is somehow destroying oneself. Such awareness may change the way human beings relate to nature, especially in radical capitalistic societies where nature is simply seen as a means to satisfy human interests. This paper recommends contributory measures for implementing the ethics of stewardship. These include the ethical principles of co-existentiality, personalised responsibility, proportionality and solidarity. The ethics of stewardship carries greater prospects of challenging people’s irresponsible appropriation, commercialisation and instrumentalisation of nature (anthropocentrism); hence, contributing to environmental respectability.
Keywords: Nature (environment), Anthropocentrism, Sacredness, Stewardship.
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Bonaventure B. Gubazire (PhD) is currently a Lecturer in Philosophy and serves as Dean of Students at Spiritan University College-Ejisu (Ghana). He is a Catholic priest belonging to the Society of Missionaries of Africa (M. Afr). He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy and has lectured in some other universities. He has published a number of scholarly materials and presented academic papers in various universities in and outside Africa. His research interests are focused on Education, Ethics and Religions (Metaphysics).
Gubazire B.B., “Stewardship: An Ethics for Environmental Respectability in Africa,” E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences 3, no.8 (2022):299-309. https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.2022382
© 2022 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Publishers. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
