Ethical Challenges in Uganda – Updated 2024

Conference Paper Authors: Prof. Wilfred Lajul

Abstract

The world philosophy day is celebrated annually on the 16th of November. On such a day, it is worth reflecting on the major contributions of philosophy to the world. In as far as these contributions are concerned; other presenters will deal with in this conference. On the other hand, though philosophy has contributed significantly to the world and its development, it has also met several challenges. Among the challenges we can identify are those in the area of ethics.

Ethics is defined as the critical reflections on morality. Morality on the other hand is defined as the accepted standards of right and wrong according to an individual or a given society. By critically reflecting on the standards of right and wrong of different societies, we can derive principles or theories that can inform and justify our standards of behaviour.

Ugandan indigenous communities had their own moral standards of behaviour. But the Ugandan society of today has both the indigenous standards of behaviour and the standards of behaviour introduced by western civilization and philosophy. When we critically reflect on these standards of behaviour we can derive different sets of ethical principles that should guide our behaviour both in the public and private sector. These double set of ethical principles in itself is a big source of confusion to individuals, institutional and public ethical practice. This confusion has created a number of ethical challenges in our society as we grapple with different ethical issues that are eating up the very moral fibre of our society like corruption, tribalism, nepotism, to mention some of them. We shall now try to identify some of the challenges that arise out of these ethical issues.

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