COMMITMENT IN SOREN AABYE KIERKEGAARD’S PHILOSOPHY: IMPLICATION FOR LEADERSHIP

BY

OBAWEKI, JOSEPH OSOLASE

950107038

B.A. (HONS.), M.A. (UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS)

BEING A THESIS SUBMITTEDTO THE SCHOOL OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS, IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Ph.D) IN PHILOSOPHY

NOVEMBER, 2012

1 TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

Certification...... i

Dedication...... ii

Acknowledgements...... iii-iv

Declaration...... v

Abstract...... vi

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND ANALYSIS

1.0 Introduction……………………………………………………………… 1-14

1.1 Statement of the Problem……………………………………………….... 14-16

1.2 Aims of Study……………………………………………………………. 16

1.3 Objective of Study………………………………………………………. 16-17

1.4 Significance of Study……………………………………………………. 17-19

1.5 Scope and Limitation of Study………………………………………….. 19

1.6 Research Questions……………………………………………………… 20

I.7 Operational Definitions………………………………………………….. 20-23

1.8 Theoretical Framework………………………………………………….. 23-26

1.9 Methodology…………………………………………………………….. 26-27

1.9.1 Synopsis of the Work…………………………………………………….. 28-29

1.10 Literature Review………………………………………………………… 30-42

CHAPTER TWO: KIERKEGAARD’S PHILOSOPHY: A GENERAL OVER VIEW

2.0 Introduction...... 43-44

2 2.1 Denmark in the time of Soren Kierkegaard...... 45-46

2.2 The Man Soren Kierkegaard...... 47-51

2.2.1 His Education……………………………………………………………. 51-53

2.2.2 His Religious Experience...... 53-54

2.2.3 His Marital Experience and The influence of Regine Olsen...... 55-57

2.2.4 Individual Influences on Soren Kierkegaard...... 57-64

2.3 Kierkegaard‟s Art of Indirect Communication...... 64-68

2.4 Kierkegaard‟s Concept of Dialectic...... 68-75

2.5 Existentialism: How it contributed to Kierkegaard‟s Thought...... 75-86

2.6 Existence and Thought...... 86-92

2.7 Kierkegaard‟s Notion of Faith and Reason...... 92-100

2.8 Kierkegaard‟s Attack on Hegelianism...... 100-105

2.8.1 The Corsair Incidence and his Attack...... 105-107

2.8.2 Kierkegaard‟s Attack on Christendom...... 107-109

2.9 Kierkegaard‟s Intellectual and Literary Experience...... 110-112

2.10 Kierkegaard‟s Works...... 113-115

2.11 Summary...... 115-116

CHAPTER THREE: KIERKEGAARD’S ETHICAL THINKING AS INSIGHT INTO THE CONEPT OF COMMITMENT 3.0 Introduction...... 117-119

3.1 The Various Conceptions of Ethics...... 119-122

3.2 Ethics before Kierkegaard...... 123-125

3.3 Kierkegaard‟s Ethical Thinking………………………………………….. 125-131

3.4 Kierkegaard‟s Theory of Stages...... 131-147

3 3.5 Existentialist Themes in Kierkegaard‟s Thought………………………… 148

3.5.1 Authenticity and Inauthenticity………………………………………….. 148-154

3.5.2 Freedom, Choice and Responsibility...... 155-162

3.5.3 Anguish, Forlornness and Despair...... 162-170

3.5.4 Anxiety, Guilt and Conscience...... 170-176

3.6 Summary...... 176-178

CHAPTER FOUR: KIERKEGAARD’S NOTION OF COMMITMENT

4.0 Introduction...... 179-180

4.1 The Meaning, Nature and Types of Commitment...... 180-192

4.2 Different Senses of Commitment...... 192-201

4.3 Kierkegaard‟s Notion of Commitment...... 201-205

4.3.1 Commitment and Freedom...... 205-210

4.3.2 Commitment and Faith...... 210-216

4.3.3 Commitment and Subjectivity...... 216-218

4.3.4 Commitment and Responsibility...... 218-224

4.3.5 Commitment and Transcendence...... 224-227

4.4 Commitment, Will, Conscience, and Consciousness...... 227-228

4.4.1 Commitment and Will...... 228-232

4.4.2 Commitment and Conscience...... 232-235

4.4.3 Commitment and Consciousness...... 236-240

4.5 Significance of Commitment...... 241-244

4.6 Summary...... 244-246

4

CHAPTER FIVE: THE NOTION OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN KIERKEGAARD’S

THEORY OF COMMITMENT

5.0 Introduction...... 247-249

5.1 The Meaning and nature of the Individual……………………………….. 249-252

5.2 The Nature of the Ethical Individual...... 252-259

5.3 The Nature of the Subjective Individual………………………………….. 259-266

5.4 Subjectivity and Objectivity...... 266-276

5.5 The Individual and the Masses...... 276-285

5.6 Summary...... 285-287

CHAPTER SIX: THE CONCEPT OF LEADERSHIP: AN EXPOSITION

6.0 Introduction...... 288-291

6.1 The Meaning and Nature of Leadership...... 291-301

6.2 Types of Leadership...... 301-303

6.3 Theories of Leadership…………………………………………………… 303-313

6.4 Characteristics and Qualities of Leadership...... 314-326

6.5 Leadership and Followership...... 326-334

6.6 Leadership Effectiveness and Responsiveness...... 334-342

6.7 Philosophical Basis of Leadership...... 343-350

6.8 Relationship between Commitment, Ethics and Leadership……………. 350-359

6.9 Summary...... 359-360

5 CHAPTER SEVEN: COMMITMENT IN SOREN KIERKEGAARD’S PHILOSOPHY:

IMPLICATIONS FOR POLITICAL LEADERSHIP IN NIGERIA

7.0 Introduction...... 361-365

7.1 For Political Leadership...... 366-376

7.1.1 For Democracy...... 376-380

7.1.2 For the Executive ……………………………………………………….. 380-381

7.1.3 For the Legislative.....……………………………………………………. 381-383

7.1.4 For the Judiciary ………………………………………………………… 383-385

7.2 For Social Welfare...... 385-388

7.3 For Education.... ………………………………………………………… 388-389

7.4 For Security Challenges...... 389-391

7.5 For Corruption...... 391-400

7.6 Summary...... 400

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

Summary…………………………………………………………………………. 401

Results and Findings of the Research...... 401-402

Contributions to Knowledge...... 403-406

Conclusion...... 407-409

Recommendations...... 410-414

References...... 415-454

6 DEDICATION

This work is dedicated to God Almighty who made it possible for me to go through the storm of life to attain this feat.

7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First I wish to acknowledge my gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Jim I. Unah who supervised my first degree long essay which was on “Traditional Problem of Freedom and

Determinism: Implication for Social Relations.” Also my Master degree which was on “The

Problem of Evil: A Philosophical Analysis.” And finally, my first supervisor at the Ph.D level for the support I received from him. I sincerely thank him for his indefatigable efforts and for having the time to thoroughly supervise this thesis in spite of his tight commitments and responsibilities. I am immeasurably grateful for his versatile intellectual mentoring. I also acknowledge my debt to my second supervisor Professor F.N. Ndubuisi, the current Head of the Department of Philosophy for his contribution and support.

Furthermore, I wish to express my sincere thanks to my uncle, Mr. Godwin A. Okoidegun under whose roof I got admission into the university in 1995. I also thank Brother Michael

Babaniji of Ikoyi Baptist Church who was instrumental to my gaining admission into the

University of Lagos in 1995. My thanks also go to my mother, Mrs. Angelina Ojebhenwanlan

Ibhazukor Obaweki for being there to serve both as a mother and a father.

Next, I acknowledge my debt to the contributions of my seasoned lecturers for teaching me how to philosophize and do philosophy. First in order of acknowledgement is Professor S.

Oluwole (Retired), Professor C.S. Momoh (Late), Professor J.I. Omoregbe (Retired),

Professor E.K. Ogundowole (Retired), Professor G.E. Azenabor, Professor A.O. Falaiye, Dr.

E.O. Kehinde, Dr. D.I.O. Anele, Dr. O.M. Ogbinaka and Dr. C.J. Ekwealo. I also want to recognize other lecturers of the Department who did not have the privilege of teaching me in both my undergraduate and post-graduate days but are now members of the Department of

8 Philosophy Postgraduate Committee - Dr. C.B. Okoro, Late Dr. J.O. Ogunkoya, Dr. A.O.

Okerebge, Dr. S.B. Jegede, Dr. C.T. Osegenwune, Dr. P.I. Oni, Dr. M.N. Onyeaghalaji. My thanks also go to other teaching staff of the department in the persons of Ms. Pat Agboro,

Mrs. P. Egbe, Mr. M.D. Gbadebo, Mr. D.O. Ekere and Mr. P. Osimiri. My thanks also go to the administrative staff of the department of philosophy, University of Lagos.

My thanks also go to my friends and colleagues both within and outside the Department of

Philosophy, University of Lagos. I also recognize Dr. O.O. Odiboh for his moral and financial support, Mrs. Osuji Ucheoma for her moral encouragement, Mr. Geoffrey Anyanwu for his intellectual contributions. To the following: Ikoyi Baptist Church, especially Members of the

Sunday school class two - Deacon Nebolisa Arah, Barrister Ame Ogie, Mr. Michael

Enyinnaya, Ms. Roli Egbe, Mr. Samuel Ayodele, Barrister Tunde Oyewole, Deaconness Mary

Katugwa, Mr. &Mrs. Chidozie Udeze, Mr. Rotimi Omosulu, Dr. (Mrs.) E.O. Kehinde, Mrs.

Chiaka Chukwu, Mrs. Akin-Ade Solomon, Mr. S. Owosho, Kingsley Uzoma, Mrs. IB Sylvia

Quadiri, Dr. (Mrs.) Franca Atto and John Odiboh for their financial support.

Finally, and most of all, I wish to thank my wife, Juliet Ererebunor Obaweki for her patience, encouragement, and understanding, and for having to endure hunger while the study last.

Joseph Osolase Obaweki

November, 2012

DECLARATION

9 I declare that this thesis represents my original work in the Department of Philosophy,

University of Lagos.

J.O. OBAWEKI

B.A. (Hons.), M.A. (University of Lagos)

ABSTRACT

10 This work argues the thesis that the adoption of Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment can bring about a responsive and responsible leadership in human society. This means that, with the right commitment, the absence of responsive and responsible leadership in the polity can be laid to rest. Kierkegaard‟s ethical philosophy, which is embedded in his theory of stages, provides an insight into the analysis of the concept of commitment. The work is a critical study of the problem of commitment in political leadership in recognition of the fact that the best ideology will forever remain mere paper work if it finds itself in the hands of an uncommitted political leadership. Thus the thesis of this work buttresses our supposition as an attempt to solve an existential problem: the problem of commitment in political leadership. Commitment is intended to address the absence of commitment to an authentic cause, and failure to apply same towards national development. The study involves a concrete interpretation of Kierkegaard‟s theory of stages – aesthetic, ethical and religious - on existential discourse in order to evolve a concept like commitment to address the problem of commitment in political leadership. Epistemologically, Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment as a means of attaining a responsive and responsible leadership will be an uphill task if not properly understood in its existential sense. The interpretation, however, allows one to choose the ethical within the three levels of human existence because there one lives a life that involves making a principled commitment to duty. To a great degree, Kierkegaard, a profound and provocative existential thinker, through his existentialism and his notion of commitment expressed in his three stages of human existence, has unwittingly provided the panacea to the problem of commitment in political leadership in a socio-political state. Although his ethical philosophy which is anchored on his theory of human existence, has been criticized on the ground that humans will always want to settle for an easy way out for the sake of pleasure, it is against this background that “COMMITMENT” is stressed. This is the gap in literature which the work aims at filling and has filled. Notwithstanding the perceived flaw, Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment has its merits in being more or less a guide to human behaviour, especially among political leaders and in the re-ordering of society. Thus, it is important to stress here that the notion of commitment in this work is in the “existential” sense, and that it is, as Soren Aabye Kierkegaard emphasizes in his ethical philosophy, embedded in his three stages of human existence. The term embraces, among other things, the capacity to choose and commit oneself to a particular course of action to bring about the moral, social and spiritual development of the individual which is relevant to the attainment of a responsive and responsible leadership, especially political leadership. The word “existential” is stressed to indicate that commitment must be lived, that is, it must show in our daily living. We therefore submit that responsive and responsible leadership on the political realm is a product of choosing the “ethical.” This work identifies the foundation of such a choice of the “ethical” in what is called “Kierkegaard‟s Ethical Stage” which epitomizes his theory of commitment. The ethical stage is where one lives a life that moves one beyond the egotistic motives of the self to set oneself to duty through principled commitment. It is due to this lack of principled commitment from political leaders to qualitative leadership that Nigeria has witnessed the absence of a responsive and responsible leadership resulting in underdevelopment, insecurity, social instability, and low utilization of the human capital. This thesis has now addressed the problem.

11 CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND ANALYSIS

1.0 INTRODUCTION

This work examines the theme of commitment in Kierkegaard‟s ethical philosophy which is anchored on his notion of the three stages of human existence with a view to harnessing them to propose a social ethics that addresses the problem of leadership in contemporary society.

The primary purpose of leadership is to meet human needs. Apart from that of meeting or supplying human needs, the essence of leadership also entails the management of the diverse constituents in a state as well as the equitable distribution of resources in such a way that the people will be able to live a good life. Although, it is impossible for any leader to meet everybody‟s needs in any human society, the leader can at least provide the enabling environment where individuals of all backgrounds can realize their existential possibilities, where freedom, equality and security can be guaranteed to improve the quality of human life.

Leadership is about service - service to one‟s fellow human beings. Leadership, according to

Socrates, is “the ability to supply human needs” (Adair, 2002:23). This means that responsible leadership creates “incentive that makes other incentives effective” (Anyanwu 1985:232).

Thus, we have a leadership problem in a situation where a leader is unable to provide the enabling climate through which certain basic human and psychological needs can be met. To this end, we agree with Achebe (1983:1) that the problem of leadership stems from leaders‟ inability “to rise to their leadership responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership.” Therefore, it is argued in this work that the leadership failure which has become a big threat to the realization of quality life and the development of

12 human society arose in the first place because people in leadership positions lost sense of the basis of leadership, which is to prosecute people-oriented programmes.

The notion of leadership we are referring to here is political as it concerns putting in place those structures that can bring about improvement in the quality of human life in the society.

Therefore, insofar as leadership is conditioned towards human welfare, that is, meeting human needs and managing the diverse constituents in a state as well as the equitable distribution of resources in such a way that the people will be able to live a good life, commitment is required to enable the leader do his/her duties successfully. Duty implies action and responsibility. Commitment to duty should be a leader‟s driving force. A leader has a moral duty and obligation to administer and render service to the citizens of the state. Political leadership, thus, becomes an essential trait and attribute of government, not just political leadership but the dedicated type of political leadership. Hence, Awolowo (1968:117) says, it

“is frivolous and irresponsible on the part of any man to imagine and treat government as a place for pleasure and laziness.” A political leadership that is truly committed and dutiful to the service of the nation would have, in Awolowo‟s estimation, little time to think and plan to cheat and steal from the public treasury. The problem here is the problem of commitment.

Lack of commitment is what makes leaders fail in their duty to the people. Commitment finds relevance in human activities of all sorts. Therefore, no leadership can attain its set objectives in the absence of commitment. A leader in a liberal setting requires commitment to carry out liberal policies and programmes and the same goes for those in communist or socialist settings. Kierkegaard made the point clear from his three stages that it is only through an act of commitment that human existence is possible.

13 Kierkegaard was reacting to immoral behaviour among the Danish people of his time because it had become a trend for them to place too much emphasis on romantic life, on living and thinking according to the value of the crowd, which consequently affected their sense of commitment to an authentic existence. Thus, he saw the misfortune of Denmark as that of “...a people among whom are to be found daily proofs that there is no public morality” (Dru,

1958:137). Consequently, he observed, human beings had “forgotten not only what it means to exist christianly, but also humanly” (Kierkegaard, 1958: xvii). But what is morality?

Morality is “that property of an act by which it is judged to be right or wrong, in harmony or disharmony with man‟s true nature as a rational being.” On the other hand, public morality is

“the influence of conduct, individual or collective, good or bad, on society or the public”

(Okolo, 1996/97:39-40). It has to do with a public sense of right and wrong, public order, right goals and values for individuals and society. For Unah (2008:59), morality is “about behaviour, about manner, about character. .... It attempts to explain human conduct and seeks to separate acceptable forms of behaviour from those that are not acceptable.” This means that the immoral actions of individuals or groups are the immediate antithesis to the health, stability and progress of society. Morality usually has its social, political or public dimensions and as such our actions, both good and bad, can have far-reaching consequences on others in concrete well-defined ways as members of a family or community.

Thus, this lack of commitment to moral and religious values in most human societies today is an indication that public immorality appears to be at its zenith since the will-to-be-immoral appears to rule individuals as well as groups. Basically, immorality is at the root of much of the irresponsiveness and irresponsibility or what Kierkegaard calls “aesthetic behaviour”

14 crippling most contemporary societies and which has totally eroded people‟s sense of responsibility to moral and religious commitment. Thus, Kierkegaard (1941:109) noted that human beings have forgotten “what it means to be a human being.” In his words, “personal living is made to appear as an addendum, a mere consequent to objective reflection about the world and things in it” (Kierkegaard, 1958: xv). In the light of the above, Kierkegaard saw his task as that of Socrates and insisted that his mission was to redefine “what it means to be a

Christian.” This expression could be stated differently to read what it means to be a human being, a public office holder, a medical doctor, a teacher, a leader, a lecturer, a student, an engineer, a husband, a wife, etc, in the existential sense. Therefore, in a bid to remedy this situation or problem, Kierkegaard elaborated his theory of human existence by categorizing it into three stages, namely: “aesthetic, ethical and religious spheres‟‟ (Kierkegaard, 1945:10).

These stages will be examined in detail at a later chapter.

Jolivet (1946:169) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that the Christian life is, “a life lived in accordance with all its breadth, with all its demand.” To him, the demand Christianity places on believers is the demand of faith, risk and renunciation which requires an unqualified degree of involvement of commitment whereby the preacher‟s life must be in conformity with what he preaches. He condemned the Danish Christians for living a false Christian life which was totally devoid of risk, involvement, self-denial, sacrifice and engagement. It is for this reason and this reason alone, according to Bretall (1946: xxii), that Kierkegaard attacks “the aesthetic way of life.” Aware of the demand of the ethical and its relevance to religious life, Roubiczek

(1966:64) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that, “ethics does not simply mean a command to obey the moral law, it demands personal participation... Therefore, to understand ethics, we

15 have to approach it from within and apply the subjective method.” This means that a believer who professes to be a Christian must be totally and completely immersed in the practice of

Christianity. His or her Christianity must be one of total involvement and not of abstract speculation because “what counts is total involvement” (Harper, 1958:101). Although,

Kierkegaard was particularly addressing the Christian inauthenticity of his time, the social, religious, and institutional challenges bedeviling the world today have made us come to the realization that the real challenge from Kierkegaard‟s discourse “is to the whole established form of society and not the ostensibly Christian elements within that society” (Smith,

1965:18). Kierkegaard did not look at the social dimension of leadership. His theory of commitment, therefore, was focused on Christian establishment alone while neglecting the problem of secular, political leadership. A leader whether at the family, organization, church or political level requires commitment and will to be able to do his/her job well. This means that where commitment and will are lacking, irresponsiveness and irresponsibleness will become the order of the day. Commitment and will are mentioned here to show their interconnectedness. A leader, for instance, needs commitment to engage his/her will in order to be able to discharge his/her duties well. While will refers to the power of conscious and deliberate choice of action, commitment means a resolve to perform or engage oneself in a chosen task. The difference between commitment and will lies in their ontological and existential nature. Commitment is an existential virtue, which means the living, concrete power in action, while will is ontological because it is part of human nature. Commitment itself is a virtue and as a virtue it means power in action. And when applied to human activity, it becomes the power behind human action. A leader needs to be firm and decisive in taking decisions on any issues affecting his/her constituents. Commitment will provide this firmness

16 and decisiveness in a leader. Irresponsiveness and irresponsibleness depict a situation whereby a leader exhibits a sense of uncommitted attitude in the discharge of his/her duties. It pictures a situation where a leader does not get him/herself involved in alleviating the sufferings of the people. Thus, this problem of irresponsiveness and irresponsibleness arising from lack of commitment by political leadership, which was not envisaged by Kierkegaard is what we intend to address with his notion of commitment. What then are commitment and leadership?

Commitment is a wholehearted devotion to a cause with a resolute mindset to accomplish a chosen or given task. In other words, commitment is a resolve based on conviction to pursue a given task to its completion. One might ask: what kind of commitment are we talking about?

In this work, we are talking about the “existential” type of commitment. “Existential” in the sense that it means “living, concrete” (Soccio, 2007:425). In other words, it refers to “the capacity to choose a particular way of life (say, nurse or an engineer) and learn about the standards, skills, and conditions relevant to that way of life and commit to it.” (Heslep, 2002:

511-514). Or “a dedicated or even a devoted way of living: a determination to maintain and carry on.” It arises not from any social status but from “a resilient and resolute first-personal stance” (Heslep, ibid. p. 505). In simple terms, “existential” means live, real commitment.

What commitment does is that it “provides the conviction and resolution pre-requisite for the accomplishment of a purpose irrespective of how seemingly insurmountable it may be”

(Nyong, 1995:82). Commitment “is what gives one‟s life a focus and a sense of direction”

(Criag, 1998:499). It helps one to live a meaningful life.

17 Philosophically speaking, commitment is an existentialist virtue, as well as an ethical concept, which Kierkegaard expressed in his ethical philosophy. Meanwhile, Kierkegaard‟s ethical idea is existential. Ethics, for him, must be live and it demands participation and involvement.

As a philosopher of human existence, he considers ethics as the inspector of existence for it is founded upon humans‟ rational capacity to distinguish between good and bad actions.

Therefore, our emphasis on commitment in Kierkegaard‟s philosophy is justified on the grounds that it can provide the raw materials with which a leader can accomplish his or her duties. Commitment, as Kierkegaard noted, has a price and as such calls for sacrifice - which could be in terms of time, care, energy, money, intellect, etc, expended to achieve a given task.

Thus, the choice of Soren Aabye Kierkegaard, as well as the title of this work, is informed by the significance of commitment and particularly the contemporary relevance of Kierkegaard‟s thesis to socio-political leadership and individual‟s moral and social development. Even though Gabriel Marcel is also another existentialist philosopher who harps on commitment,

Kierkegaard is preferred because of his phenomenological analysis of commitment into aesthetic, ethical, and religious respectively. This, for me, captures the thesis of this work.

This process of analysis has never been undertaken by any philosopher before or after him to address human existential problems.

By leadership is meant “the capacity of influencing people to cooperate toward some goal which they come to find desirable” (Tead, 1935:20). According to Reinemund (2002:62), a leader‟s job is “to define the overall direction and motivate others to get there.” A leader defines the task to be done. In the same vein, he/she ensure that plans are drawn up to

18 accomplish it. He/she has to monitor progress of work and review performance so that it can be improved. Someone has to create and maintain the team. This is where the leader‟s commitment to duty becomes imperative. That means a leader is “one who goes ahead to guide the way ... may be a mother in her home, any person who wields influence or the head of a vast organization” (Greenleaf, 1996:287). However, there are some theoretical assumptions about leadership which emanate from the thoughts of great Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, etc. Such assumptions deserve to be discussed here, as they form the foundations of arguments about whether leaders are born or made. For instance, The Birth Trait Theory: It holds that leaders are born, which means leadership is a result of special birth traits inherent in the personality of the individual. It implies some humans are born with unique qualities that set them apart for leadership. Following is the

Providence Theory. It says that certain individuals are chosen by “the gods” and appointed to the elite position of leadership over the unfortunate masses – meaning leadership is divine.

Next is the Charismatic Theory. It says that certain individuals who possesses a unique measure of charisma; who exhibit special traits, such as a force will; who are extroverts; who are magnetic speakers, and so on, are leaders. But we must realize that in many cases, leaders emerge from the unique circumstances of the time in which they live without manifesting any special charisma. We also have the Forceful Personality Theory. It says that leadership is the product of a forceful personality. This theory emerges from the belief that leadership is the result of an authoritarian, coldly calculating, no-nonsense, hard-driving, impatient, quick- tempered, and moody personality. This is a false perception of leadership because a true leader does not need to manipulate the subjects before compliance. And lastly, the Special

19 Training Theory. This theory holds that leaders are produced through special educational courses and training.

On the other hand, Awolowo believe otherwise. To him, there are no particular people who are naturally endowed with the qualities of leadership. In that regard, Awolowo argued that no group of persons is born with a natural capacity for leadership. Rather, he believed that “a leader is made, not born” (Awolowo, 1981: 182). Both the ancient Greek philosophers and

Awolowo‟s positions are valid in the sense that leadership is innate in some human beings which circumstances often reveal but sometimes has to be learnt. And in other cases, leadership is learned only through training. Adair (2002:33) quotes Xenophon as proposing thus: “If leaders are made in the sense that they can acquire the authority of knowledge, are they born as far as the capacity to inspire is concerned? The ability to give people the intellectual and moral strength to venture or persevere in the presence of danger, fear or difficulty is not the common endowment of all men and women.” Xenophon believed that leadership could be acquired through education. All these assumptions directly or indirectly actually influence the way leadership behaves. The position of this work is that whether a leader is born with leading qualities or made through learning, leadership, as Adair (2002:33) concludes, lies primarily through doing it. Therefore, for a leader to lead through doing it, commitment is inevitable. To guide, lead and wield influence does not just happen overnight; it comes as a consequence of commitment from ethical choice. This means that a leader needs commitment to be able to guide and lead others through good examples to accomplish set objectives. Hence, Kierkegaard laid much emphasis on ethico-religious choice (i.e. human effort and divine assistance as vital) as the basis for human commitment. When a leader marries reason, which is human effort and faith, which is divine assistance together, the

20 leader‟s level of performance in terms of duties carried out is enhanced. Leadership calls for total commitment and involvement in the alleviation of human existential problems. The price for qualitative leadership is sacrifice. Commitment means sacrifice; it means price. Thus, from the perspective of Kierkegaardian notion of commitment, it is argued that a responsive and responsible leadership can emerge in contemporary society. An individual or a leader driven by a sense of commitment will always be willing to make sacrifices and pay the necessary price whether it is convenient for him/her or not in order to ensure that certain obligations are met. In its existential meaning, Kierkegaardian commitment calls for sacrifice. A true leader is known not by the office he/she occupies, but by his/her depth of commitment to the alleviation of followers‟ existential problems. Leaders who lack a sense of commitment to duty will never impact the life of their followers. The greatness of any nation lies on the commitment of her leaders‟ readiness to sacrifice their self-interest in order to improve the quality of human lives. Countries that have experienced improved social condition in different spheres of human life are countries where leaders have chosen to exhibit a true sense of ethical commitment to the welfare of the people. Commitment is a choice issue. It is not a concept you impose on any human being. Any leader who is willing to work in a bid to improve the quality of lives under his/her care will choose commitment. Commitment has universal applicability. However, looking at the universal nature of philosophy, which means that its findings can be applied anywhere, we shall therefore, in the last chapter zero in the whole doctrine of Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment, with particular emphasis on the

Nigerian situation because we are aware of the fact that the intensity of leadership problem in

Nigeria is not the same with that of Britain, Canada, United States of America, Germany,

Sweden, etc.

21 This work argues the thesis that Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment can be adopted to address the dearth of responsive and responsible leadership in contemporary society. Most contemporary societies are confronted with certain basic problems, which include endemic leadership failure and the devaluation of the worth of the individual. Commitment is the major problem affecting some contemporary leadership, especially political leadership. In politics, we have leaders with good ideologies but who have not been able to properly channel them to guide their political action in order to arrive at national development, because they lack the resolve, which is the problem of commitment. This means that leadership, especially political leadership requires the involvement of commitment as theorized in Kierkegaard‟s ethical philosophy embedded in his three stages of human existence. Kierkegaard‟s “three stages of human existence” was designed to address humans‟ moral problem. This is in recognition of the fact that the best ideology will however forever remain a paper work if it finds itself in the hands of an uncommitted political leader. Thus, the thrust of the thesis is that an understanding of Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment will reveal it as a philosophical study laden with themes that are beneficial to the promotion of a healthy political leadership.

However, in spite of its existential terminology, commitment, upon thorough analysis, provides us with themes, which when analyzed, can solve the ethical and moral problems facing leadership that has led to the absence of responsive and responsible leadership at the political level. Thus, the thesis of this work is the problem of commitment.

Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment in this regard, implies an ethical irrevocable resolve borne out of a conviction to fully execute a given task. In fact, in Nyong‟s (1995:132) words, commitment is “…the degree of resolve with which a being strives to fulfill his ontological responsibilities.” These ontological responsibilities include: caring, loving, cultivation,

22 procreation, clothing, shelter, provision of food, sporting activities, as well as religious, social and political activities, etc. Commitment is an act of dedicating oneself to a cause from a sense of conviction. It is the willingness to commit one‟s entire being to a chosen course of action without looking back irrespective of obstacle one encounters along the way.

Commitment to an authentic course of action is what Kierkegaard‟s ethical idea stresses.

A responsive and responsible leadership is used to depict a situation where a leader is responsible and accountable to the people that elected him or her to power. This means that a leader‟s response to his or her leadership responsibilities is a consequence of his or her commitment to the alleviation of human suffering and the value he or she places on humanity generally. It is true that a leader may not be able to meet the demand of the entire citizenry, but it is equally true that in addition to the basic necessities of life, the leader can create the enabling environment where individuals can discover their gifts and talents to earn their living. By leadership is meant “a quality which… signifies the ability of a person…to persuade others to act by inspiring them and making them believe that a proposed course of action is the correct one” (cf. Button, 1998:246). In other words, it is the capacity to direct and guide others to achieve set objectives. These set objectives may be how to provide uninterrupted power supply, build more refineries, fund the education sector, create more jobs, check a rising crime rate, guarantee shelter for all, food sufficiency, security of lives and property thereby creating the enabling environment where human beings of all sorts can actualize their existential possibilities, etc. Here we are dealing with the notion of political leadership as it concerns improving the quality of human life. For Adenaike (2010:19), leadership is “the process of influencing and directing the activities of an organized group towards the achievement of the group‟s set objectives.” Similarly, Jennings (1960:30)

23 conceives leadership as “social influence. It means leaving a mark.... By their ideas and deeds, leaders show the way and influence the behaviour of others.”

In other words, leadership is “the process by which leaders and collaborators work together to achieve mutual goals” (Shriberg et al, 1997:6). This means that leadership is “a personal relationship in which one person directs, coordinates and supervises others in the performance of a common task” (Fieldler, 1976). For Burns (1978a:28), leadership is “a process in which numerous people participate, not the activities of a single person.” In the words of Olumese

(1985:49), leadership is “the art of inspiring followers or subordinates to perform their duties willingly, competently and enthusiastically.” Leadership is guardianship and that means overseeing the welfare of both the followers as well as the led. In sum therefore, a leader would be “one who shows the way ahead, holds people together as a group and encourages individuals by example and words to keep going despite the hardships and dangers of travel”

(Adair, 2002:67), because he is one who consistently makes effective contribution to social order. A leader acts as an agent of change through leadership by example. In the words of

Maxwell (1998:165), leadership by example always has “a powerful impact on followers.”

This happens because the leader sets the tone for those who follow him.

The concept of responsibility means that a leader or follower “is accountable for his or her behaviour, regardless of whether it is right or wrong” (Price, 2008:141). Therefore, responsibility for morally or ethically correct action would imply praiseworthiness, and responsibility for immoral or unethical action would mean blameworthiness. Responsibility here would also mean “the obligation to ensure certain results are achieved” (Portny,

2002:62). It is in the above sense that Kierkegaard considers it not only as what makes an

24 individual human, but also what makes genuine ethical commitment possible. Therefore, one of the major reasons why societies are witnessing the absence of virile and robust leadership at the political level is the fact that those who are there or have been there as well as those jostling for leadership positions lack the true existential sense of leadership. Their approach to leadership has been more of aesthetic, that is, serving their selfish interest rather than involving themselves in the promotion of the welfare of others, which, according to

Kierkegaard, is a source of irresponsibility and indiscipline since an aesthetic person or leader will not be concerned with actively promoting the good of others except his or her own good.

Leaders are humans and, as such, require commitment to transcend self-interest. Although this work is not intended to defend Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment, it is thought that commitment - existential commitment is an essential ingredient for the realization of a responsive and responsible leadership in human society. This means that if political leaders fail to embrace commitment they may remain egotistic in practice and far removed from rising up to their leadership duties. This is where the moral problem in leadership shows itself.

1.1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The major problem this research seeks to address is the dearth of responsive and responsible leadership in contemporary society. The first aspect of this problem is the endemic leadership failure in political leadership, which has become more worrisome given that part of its adverse effect is the weakening of human institutions and the effective delivery of much desired development. Leadership is crucial to all aspects of human life, be it the family, a corporate organization, church, or the political sphere, because without it nothing works. This shows that leadership requires firm political direction to deliver. In the words of Maxwell (1993: x),

25 everything “rises and falls on leadership.” And because of this absence of responsive leadership, families, communities, churches, organizations and political institutions are witnessing failure leading to social instability. This is happening because of a lack of commitment to carrying out leadership responsibilities at the different levels of leadership in most human societies.

The second identified problem is the devaluation of the worth of the individual. This was

Kierkegaard‟s major problem which necessitated his tripartite stages of human existence. The stages were evolved to deal with humans‟ lack of moral will and involvement in the drama of human existence. The moral significance of the individual lies in his ability to embrace commitment to drive a given task and accept responsibility for its outcome. Therefore, when the individual‟s worth is devalued, he loses his sense of commitment to take social duty with all the seriousness it deserves. An individual whose worth has been devalued does not have the ethical capacity to choose a course of action and commit to it nor can he or she act from a sense of conviction. This invariably means that such an individual will no longer be able to see anything as wrong or as immoral behaviour. It is in view of the above that Gardiner

(1998:238-239) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that individuals have largely “forgotten what it means for you and me and him, each for himself to be human beings, … and a passive submission to the levelling influence of the crowd took precedence over the vital constituents of human life and experience - the inner spirit, the ethical, freedom.”

All of these problems show that there is a lacuna that calls for total involvement of commitment by human being to deliberately choose a set of values and be committed to them.

This trend has become a major concern to all who desire an authentic human community. In

26 fact, every society yearns for a transvaluation of values to enhance the quality of the human person. This is why it has become necessary to examine these problems and proffer solutions as they affect human beings‟ capacity for personal commitment in virtually all aspects of human endeavour. Therefore, it is argued here that without resolving the identified problems above, especially as they concern leadership, committed political leadership will be difficult to realize. This means that the individual must be recalled back from his inauthentic

(aesthetic) state to a state of authenticity (ethical) in order to regain his dignity through commitment to duty. By this, a political leadership that will live up to its purpose will emerge.

Kierkegaard was reacting to a decadent society of his time steeped in immorality and where people went along with convention and responded to situations mechanically. This moral crisis of his social environment manifest itself, according to Pattison (1997: 8), “…in many areas of social and political life and its roots thrust beyond intellectuals‟ speculation and questioning into the dynamics of modern technology, dynamics that not only overturn established patterns of industrial and social life, but also create a new moral dimension.” Still, this is the situation confronting us today in the twenty- first century. This means that Kierkegaard‟s (1958: xvi) protest is “both an ethical one, against the denigration of human personality.” This is why we have a moral problem in political leadership today - leading to an epicurean style of leadership.

1.2 AIMS OF STUDY

This research covers an exposition and interpretation of Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment in order to bring out the salient themes that are relevant to the realization of a responsive and responsible leadership in contemporary society.

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF STUDY

The research seeks to achieve the following objectives:

27

1. To critically examine the notion of commitment and show how it can engender a

responsive

and responsible leadership in human society.

2. To examine the philosophical understanding of Kierkegaard‟s three stages of human

existence in relation to the moral and social development of the individual.

3. To show that Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment exposes the problem of

commitment in leadership and leadership effectiveness.

4. To propose that the foundation for tackling the moral problem in leadership can be laid

through the adoption of Kierkegaard‟s notion of ethical commitment.

5. To identify the relationship between commitment, philosophy (ethics) and

leadership.

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

The study will be significant in the following ways:

1. It will engender a responsive and responsible leadership in contemporary society. This will happen when the tenets of ethical commitment prescribed by Kierkegaard are imbibed by those seeking political positions. This would mean that leaders in positions of authority clearly delineate their areas of responsibility and handle them with all the seriousness they deserve, that is, executing them in a more firm and committed way. Thus, by so doing the problem of endemic leadership failure, especially at the political level that has become a feature of some human societies will be laid to rest.

2. It will produce morally and socially developed individuals who will be able to show a sense of dedication to duty when given the position of leadership. The nature of politics today

28 demands individuals with sound moral integrity who can be firm in their decision-making.

Don‟t forget, human beings are social and political by nature. Therefore, our politics will be devoid of the rancour that it currently assumes when we have moralized individuals seeking leadership positions in our society. For, they are well able to bring integrity to bear in leadership.

3. It will tackle the problem of commitment between leadership and followership to bring about effectiveness in leadership. Leadership and followership relations are based on reciprocity. It agrees with the saying: “you watch my back and I will also watch your back.”

The success of any leadership is largely dependent on the leader-follower cooperation, because leadership only makes sense when there are good and committed followers making quality contributions to the policies and programmes of the leader. The leader‟s commit to engaging followers‟ needs and the followers‟ commit to connecting to the leader‟s vision.

Fundamentally, leadership, by virtue of its purpose in human life, is essentially affected by followership because in the absence of followership, leadership will be unthought-of and unheard-of. This means that when there is a reciprocal commitment between leadership and followership, leadership effectiveness becomes its outcome.

4. It will help lay a solid foundation for tackling the moral problem in political leadership.

These moral problems include indiscipline, selfishness, corruption, integrity question, etc. All these vices are consequences of an aesthetic lifestyle, which is located in the first stage of

Kierkegaard‟s three stages of human existence. Therefore, the leader‟s commitment to norms, principles and customs of society found in the second stage, that is, the ethical, will check the ethical and moral problems facing political leadership in our society. This would mean that

29 political leaders deliberately choose the ethical life to transcend their egotistic motives in order to bring godly and upright commitment to bear on their duties. Thus, a disciplined leader is not one that exercises moral will or self-control only, but one that also takes his/her duties, obligations and promises seriously.

5. It will ensure that a leader is committed to set objectives. When a leader is acquainted with the philosophy of leadership, it becomes easier for the leader to develop a sense of commitment to duties. Commitment will guide the leader‟s focus and direction, thereby helping him or her to avoid what are often termed “white elephant” projects and instead concentrate on those projects that promote the people‟s welfare and immediate needs. White elephant projects are projects that do not have immediate and perhaps future relevance to the welfare of the people. Consequently, with focus and direction, the leader will be able to promote people-oriented programmes.

1.5 SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF STUDY

This research work covers Soren Kierkegaard‟s background and it is essentially confined to his ethics embedded in his three stages of human existence from where his notion of commitment is derived. We are interested in many of his moral convictions about commitment. The work reflects the importance Kierkegaard attached to ethical commitment.

Consequently, the work covers and is limited to Kierkegaard‟s ethical philosophy embedded in his three stages of human existence. A detailed analysis of his ethics, anchored on his three stages of human existence, is also discussed. The relevance of the research work can be seen from the justification of ethical commitment for the attainment of a responsive and responsible leadership in contemporary society.

30 1.6 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

In this study, the following questions are necessary for further exposition of Kierkegaard‟s philosophy: a. What is commitment, its nature, goals, and functions in Kierkegaard‟s philosophy? b. What does Kierkegaard‟s three stage classification of human existence mean in relation

to the moral and social development of the individual? c. How does Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment expose the problem of commitment in

leadership and leadership effectiveness? d. How can the adoption of Kierkegaard‟s notion of ethical commitment lay a solid

foundation for tackling the moral problem in leadership?

e. What is the relationship between commitment, philosophy (ethics), and leadership?

1.7 OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS

Concepts used in this work include:

(a) COMMITMENT: Means an ethical resolve to choose and dedicate oneself to a particular way of life without wavering.

(b) KIERKEGAARD’S THEORY OF HUMAN EXISTENCE: This refers to

Kierkegaard‟s metaphysical trichotomy of the aesthetic, ethical and religious stages of human existence, where an individual chooses a particular life he wants to live. The aesthetic stage is where an individual seeks only self-pleasure and shuns social responsibility. The man who lives in the aesthetic stage lacks the experience of a decisive personal commitment to anything in life. He is subject to experiencing pleasure and despair. The ethical stage is where an individual takes responsibility seriously with a sense of commitment. The man who lives in the ethical possesses the moral will to act in accordance with the principles and standards of

31 society. He lives a life of involvement in a more firm and regulated manner. The religious stage is where an individual embraces religious tenets. To live in the religious stage, a leap of faith is required. It is a level where a God-man relationship is established. The religious stage is where a man transcends both the aesthetic and ethical stages to live an authentic human existence.

(c) INDIVIDUAL: Is used here to mean a unique entity or an irreducible entity. It also means an individual in the sense in which every human, absolutely every human, can be and should be an individual.

(d) LEAP OF FAITH: This refers to a situation whereby man is confronted with a choice without any logically compulsive motive to guide him and as such he drops any preference of proving his case and “leaping” into the dark.

(e) EITHER/OR: Means that the decision about the truth of existence is a personal matter left for each individual person to make. Either you live an aesthetic life or you live an ethical life. This means that you must choose since you cannot live both lives at the same time.

(f) EXISTENTIALISM: This refers to a contemporary philosophy that relates to the condition of human beings in the world. It is a philosophy that stresses humans‟ moral and religious predicament in the world. Hence, it is both theistic and atheistic. The basis of existentialism is that meaning always follows existence, and that things only have meaning when they matter to us. Existentialism places responsibility and experience solely on the individual.

(g) EXISTENTIALIST ETHICS: Is used here to mean an ethics of involvement, that is, an ethics to be lived in concrete situations.

32 (h) ETHICAL: Means to make upright commitment to a cause. It also means to take moral precepts as binding.

(i) ETHICAL INDIVIDUAL: Is used here to mean an individual who has resolved to commit his entire life to a pursuit of truth that is morally right to its logical conclusion.

(j) PASSION: Refers to a deep desire borne out of a conviction that renders one possessed by commitment to a purpose.

(k) EXISTING INDIVIDUAL: Is technically an individual who has made the ethical or moral choice to exist as a human being. It also means an individual who is not a spectator but an active participant in the drama of human existence.

(l) EXISTENTIAL: Means the act of relating oneself to human existence. We also mean one who affirms existence or is grounded in the experience of existence.

(m) EXISTENTIAL COMMITMENT: This refers to a capacity to choose and commit to a particular way of life as a free human being. It also means to live and involve yourself with your entire being in your chosen career or profession.

(n) ETHICAL COMMITMENT: Refers to an upright, dedicated way of carrying out one‟s responsibility.

(o) SUBJECTIVITY: Is used here as the capacity of a particular individual to exist inwardly and morally.

(p) OBJECTIVITY: Refers to the capacity of a particular individual to think existence from a disinterested point of view without relating one‟s life to it. It also means the non- involvement of the individual in the goal of existence.

33 (q) LEADERS: Is used here in a broad sense to mean politicians, judges, governors, the armed forces, chairmen, members of commissions, boards, corporations and other government agencies, and senior officers in all our public services.

(r) FOLLOWERS: Is used in this context to refer to those who help the leader drive his/her vision to achieve set objectives.

(s) DEARTH OF RESPONSIVE AND RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP: Is used here to mean the absence of leadership that demonstrates a high degree of conscious involvement in mobilizing human and material resources on a consistent basis in order to alleviate human suffering of all sorts in human society.

(t) LEADERSHIP EFFECTIVENESS: Refers to a leader‟s ability to create the right environment, select the right people to work with and use resources available to meet human needs. Therefore, leadership becomes ineffective when it lacks the commitment to concretely put into effect the responsibilities attached to its office.

1.8 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

A theoretical framework is basically a theory on which a research work is based. Thus in philosophy, a theoretical framework is regarded as the philosophical principle of the work. In this work, we have more than one principle: Existentialist ethics and The Great Man Theory of leadership. First, existentialist ethics: An existentialist ethics “is the ethics that emphasizes the importance of individual choice in concrete situations” (Holmes, 1993: 210). The main goal of existentialist ethics is the emphasizing of man‟s individuality, uniquely, freedom, choice and responsibility in concrete situations. Fundamentally, an existential ethics entails

“the development of a heightened sense of moral responsibility” (Stack, 1973:121) in the

34 sense that it is a lived ethics. Moral responsibility is only possible in the atmosphere of freedom. More importantly, Kierkegaard‟s thought is situated perfectly on existentialist ethics because it best explains how ethical commitment can be the philosophical foundation for addressing the moral problems facing contemporary society. Thus, with this goal of existentialist ethics, we feel that it is proper for us to link up a leadership theory that shares the objective of Kierkegaard‟s existential ethics. This means a leadership theory that allows the freedom, choice and responsibility of the individual in the determination of his or her existence in a social setting will be our theoretical framework for leadership.

Thus, among the various theories of leadership discuss in the main body of the work - The

Great Man theory, The Trait theory, The Elite theory, The Behavioural theory, The Situational theory, The Charismatic theory, The Style theory, The Contingency theory, The Transactional theory, and the Transformational theory, etc, the „Great Man‟ theory has been chosen because it is more in agreement with Kierkegaard‟s existential ethics‟ objective. The theory traces leadership to individuals of superior nature. The theory holds that legitimacy resides in “the greatness of the man, in his being great” (Harter, 2008:70). Historically, the theory acknowledges human differences as a basis for leadership. In other words, the theory holds that human differences justify leadership. Thomas Carlyle (1969) is widely credited with the

„great man‟ theory of leadership. The great man theory considers the impact of distinctive characters on the ordering of society. The theory claims that individual leaders have played a part in holding nations together under the most adverse conditions. This is why one finds

Plato and Aristotle, for example, making such claims about the unique excellence of the philosopher-king or the mature man. Existentialism is about the unique individuals and, as

35 such, the „great man theory” of leadership agrees more with Kierkegaard‟s existentialist ethics.

Existentialism advocates the individual‟s participation in the drama of human existence with a deep sense of responsibility. Under the great man theory, the individuals have a commitment to work for the success of the leadership and the promotion of the well-being of the people as history has shown. From the above definition, it is clear that the great man theory of leadership recognizes that man is “an individual person with unique characteristics, a singularity of purpose and an irreversible history” (Unah, 1996:61). This means that it shares existentialists‟ view on the need for individual to define him/herself through active participation in the drama of human existence and leadership is just one aspect of that drama.

Thus, Kierkegaard‟s argument that a proper theory of ethics should be based on existentialism because existentialism stresses responsibility “to the effect that one is the author of all one‟s actions” (Ndubuisi, 2006:83), which entails involvement as the basis for authentic moral life.

In fact, existentialism is concerned with such practical issues as “making choices, decisions, and personal commitments. Existentialism emphasizes a life of thorough-going engagement and involvement as the surest way of creating meaning for human existence” (Stumpf,

1977:467). In this sense, existentialism as a philosophy of human existence or a philosophical thinking about human existence restricts humans from merely following the crowd sheepishly without asserting their individual uniqueness, since a life lived in that order is a life lived in inauthenticity. Every action must spring from deliberate choice since human freedom is

“exercisable only in choice” (Ndubuisi, 1998:54). Hence, we agree with May (1981:62) that our capacity as human beings to imagine, to think, to wonder, to be conscious are all degrees

36 of freedom. Therefore, the authentic person would be one who truly “lives in clear honest recognition of existential freedom” (Craig, 1998:504).

It thus confirms the critical message from existentialism which says that philosophy “should address the concrete problems of human existence” (Unah, 2002a:104). This means that a philosophy of existence that “is of no practical value to the individual in his encounter with the world loses its concern in practical life” (Chukwu, 2006:111). The stuff of our being, says

Kierkegaard, lies in freedom, choice and responsibility. Man is defined by freedom. In fact,

Sartre (1943:444) captured this understanding succinctly when he says that “freedom is identical with my existence.” To Kierkegaard, it is not the freedom that is free from anguish but, rather, the freedom that enables man to exist subjectively as a moral being. Therefore, freedom for him is possibility. It is the “possibility of development, of enhancement of one‟s life; or the possibility of withdrawing, shutting oneself up, denying and stultifying one‟s growth” (May, 1981:5). To Harper (1958:99), freedom is a feature of man‟s being and the source from which all significations and all values spring. In all intent and purpose,

Kierkegaard‟s ethical philosophy is meant to emphasized one‟s individuality, one‟s singularity. It is meant to involve, commit and engage the individual to a genuine cause.

1.9 METHODOLOGY

This research is library-based. To this end, relevant information from valid material as it relate to Kierkegaard‟s philosophical thoughts was consulted, studied and analyzed. The methodology adopted in this work is phenomenology. Phenomenology is a method which demands a direct approach and an unbiased openness towards that which may reveal itself in the investigation. It is fundamentally “a stripping of that which shows itself, a

37 stripping away of concealment and distortion such as will let us see that which let it be seen for what it is” (Heidegger, 1962: 11). In philosophy, phenomenology means “to let things stand out in their own terms and according to their own merits” (Unah, 2002a:35). In other words, phenomenology is the methodological description of a thing precisely as it is. It is a methodology that deals with factual analysis of facts what has been written in books, journals, monographs, precisely as they are presented. Phenomenology is basically a philosophical tool designed by Edmund Husserl for analyzing and describing the essence of things. In this work then, phenomenology is employed in presenting commitment in Kierkegaard‟s philosophy anchored on his three stages of human existence in order to sharpen the focus of this research and to address a contemporary leadership problem. Therefore, the characterization of human commitment from the perspective of Kierkegaardian existentialism is presented phenomenologically. The relevance of the methodology of phenomenology to this work is that: (i) It allows for objective consultation, collection, careful study and analysis of Kierkegaard‟s views from relevant books, journals, and monographs. (ii) It helps in delineating the essential correlation between commitment, philosophy (ethics) and leadership and (iii) It helps us to clearly analyze Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment in the stage of human existence - aesthetic, ethical and religious - for proper application. (iv) It also enhances our understanding of man, who is capable of living an aesthetic, ethical, and religious life at difference stages of his existence. Therefore, the adoption of phenomenology further enhances the uniformity of this research in that Kierkegaard himself was an existential phenomenologist who employed phenomenology in the analysis and description of the human condition in the three stages of human existence. To this end, the three stages of human existence remain the fulcrum or grundnorm of his philosophy. Therefore, any existential examination of commitment to address leadership problems in human society must of necessity require the methodology of phenomenology.

38 1.9.1 SYNOPSIS OF THE WORK

In considering the above position, this work is structured into seven chapters. Chapter One is titled “Introduction and Background Analysis.” This chapter commences with an introduction, it discusses the statement of the problem, aim and objectives, significance of study, scope and limitation of study, research questions, operational definitions, theoretical framework and methodology. It also examines the existing literature. Chapter Two is titled “Kierkegaard‟s

Philosophy: A General Over View.” This chapter takes an intellectual expedition into

Kierkegaard‟s background with the intention of exposing how his personality and the cultural setting in which he grew up influenced his philosophical thought, especially his theory of the three stages of human existence from where his notion of commitment was derived. This chapter then ends with a summary. Chapter Three is titled “Kierkegaard‟s Ethical Thinking as

Insight into The Concept of Commitment.” This chapter examines Kierkegaard‟s ethical thinking, which is anchored on his three stages of human existence. Analysis of his ethical thinking is extended to include an overview of the various conceptions of ethics, ethics before

Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard‟s ethical thinking, Kierkegaard‟s theory of stages, Existentialist themes in Kierkegaard‟s thought: authenticity and inauthenticity, freedom, choice and responsibility, anguish, forlornness and despair, anxiety, guilt and conscience. This chapter ends with a summary. Chapter Four is titled “An Exposition of Kierkegaard‟s Notion of

Commitment.” This chapter discusses the meaning, nature and types of commitment, different senses of commitment, commitment and freedom, commitment and faith, commitment and subjectivity, commitment and responsibility, commitment and transcendence, commitment and will, conscience and consciousness, significance of commitment. This chapter equally ends with a Summary. Chapter Five is titled “The Notion of the Individual in Kierkegaard‟s

39 Theory of Commitment.” It will be difficult to appreciate Kierkegaard‟s philosophical thought, where the notion of commitment is central, without first of all understanding his position about the nature of the individual whom he held dear in his entire thought. This chapter also discusses the meaning and the nature of the individual, the nature of the ethical individual, the subjective individual, subjectivity and objectivity, the individual and the masses in Kierkegaard‟s theory of commitment. It also ends with a summary. Chapter Six is titled “The Concept of Leadership: An Exposition.” This chapter discusses the meaning and nature of leadership, types of leadership, theories of leadership, characteristics and qualities of leadership, leadership and followership, leadership effectiveness and responsiveness, philosophical basis of leadership, relationship between commitment, philosophy (ethics) and leadership. A summary then follows. Chapter Seven is titled “Commitment in Kierkegaard‟s philosophy: Implications for Political Leadership in Nigeria.” The chapter tries to apply the thesis of this work to society, with a view to promoting socio-political re-ordering. It proffers solutions to the problems of endemic leadership failure at the political level. It prescribes ways of tackling the moral problem in political leadership in Nigeria. It submits that the moral and spiritual development of the individual and the “ethical” commitment of Kierkegaard will be helpful in the building of sound moral political leaders who will serve as agents of socio- political change in Nigeria through commitment to duty. This chapter ends with a summary, after which the findings of the research, contributions to knowledge, conclusion, recommendations and references follow. Commitment is existential, which means it is valid for all human societies. Thus, no matter how good a leader‟s ideology is, if commitment is lacking, the leader will not be able to drive it to guide his/her political action in order to arrive at national development, which every society or nation seeks.

40 1.10 LITERATURE REVIEW

Sources and purpose for this research work can be seen clearly in the detailed bibliography and literature reviewed. As is customary to any research programme, this research will be based on some of the original works of Soren Kierkegaard in English translations as well as books and articles in journals which dwell essentially on Kierkegaard‟s philosophy. The primary source of the research is the original works of Soren Kierkegaard, while the secondary sources include relevant texts, commentaries and learned journal articles on leadership, ethics and commitment. Hence, the bibliography at the end of this work provides the necessary details of the diverse range of material consulted. The purpose and rationale for this study becomes emerge after a concise clarification of what experts have written about

Soren Kierkegaard. on one hand or the other. Thus, a literature review is therefore essential in order to establish agreement with and our point of departure from existing literature. We shall proceed chronologically.

Soren Kierkegaard (1941) in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, clearly states the basic relationship between ethics and the religious sphere. Although Kierkegaard discussed ethics, he discussed it in the sense that it is not a universal moral requirement but a mode of existence where the individual‟s expression matters most. The work, nevertheless, misses the point in that it was not a work devoted to moral issues but essentially to refute rationality and systematic thought. Aside from addressing the theme of commitment, the work left out the social dimension of leadership.

Soren Kierkegaard (1945) in Stages on Life’s Way made explicit statement about the three possible modes of existence applicable to human beings. He delineated these three possible

41 modes into aesthetic, ethical and religious. These modes of existence constitute his ethical philosophy. In these modes, Kierkegaard showed how commitment can make the existence in ethical and religious spheres possible. Though the theme of commitment was implicitly stressed, the social dimension of leadership was not covered.

Marjorie Grene (1952) wrote an article entitled “Authenticity; An Existential Virtue in Ethics,

Vol. 62, No. 4. It was another brilliant attempt made by Grene to explicate Kierkegaard‟s ethical theory. Though Grene says authenticity as an ethical value remains the core of genuine existence, his presentation is more or less re-echoing Kierkegaard‟s position. Grene did not think of the relevance of commitment to the social dimension of leadership as one would have expected.

James Collins (1953) in his book The Mind of Kierkegaard undertook a critical analysis and appraisal of Kierkegaard‟s ethics. The book happens to be the most authoritative commentary on Kierkegaard‟s ethics. Though Collins work dwelt on Kierkegaard‟s ethical philosophy extensively, the work neither dwelled on the theme of commitment nor showed how it connects to the social dimension of leadership which is the main thrust of this research.

Soren Kierkegaard (1954) in Fear and Trembling dealt primarily with the ethical as a universal moral requirement and with the existential explanation of the biblical saga in respect of Abraham and Isaac. The ethical here has to do with universal norms and principles which are accepted by a group and set forth as a proper guide or directive for moral action. As an existential explanation of the biblical saga in respect of Abraham and Isaac, the work deals essentially with Abraham‟s „‟teleological suspension of the ethical,‟‟ considered to be morally wrong but religiously valid. Therefore, Abraham‟s suspension of the ethical is the main

42 subject of this work. The theme of commitment is well emphasized in this work by

Kierkegaard except that he did not discuss how commitment can be adapted and applied to the social dimension of leadership.

Robert K. Fullinwider (1995) in his article “Citizenship, Individualism, Democracy and

Politics” in Ethics: An International Journal of Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy, Vol.

105, No. 3., undertook a critical defense of liberal commitment to individualism against the three radical critics of Rawls‟ original position in Theory of Justice: Iris Young, Bonnie

Honig, and Chantal Mouffe, who were of the view that liberalism started on a false footing by stressing individualism in isolation of group solidarity. Fullinwider submits that individualism supports robust political activity the same way group solidarity does. Fullinwider‟s defense is in tune with Kierkegaard‟s commitment to individualism. The individual is the basis of commitment.

Albert William Levi (1956) in his article “The Quixotic Quest for Being” in Ethics discusses some prominent key existentialist philosophers such as Heidegger, Jaspers, Marcel, Sartre and Unamuno with an ethical evaluation. He concludes that the quixotic quest for being is an ontologically disguised hunger for values which the rational intellect is unable to guarantee.

Levi identifies Kierkegaard as one whose thought was personally related. The work only concerned itself with an ethical discussion and evaluation while leaving out the social dimension of political leadership.

William Barrett (1958) in his book Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy made a brilliant interpretation of Kierkegaard‟s ethical discourse. The work dwells on the aesthetic, ethical and religious spheres which constitute Kierkegaard‟s ethical philosophy. Barrett,

43 having stressed the concreteness of Kierkegaard‟s ethical theory; he criticized Kierkegaard for treating the ethical and the religious together as if the two levels of existence were the same. This work was, however, silent on the theme of commitment in the Kierkegaardian sense and its relevance to the social dimension of leadership.

Soren Kierkegaard (1959) in Either/Or Vols. 1 & 2, discusses his notion of ethics by contrasting two different attitudes to life, which are the aesthetic and ethical modes of existence. The ethical he says deals with man‟s passionate and resolute choices, whereby an individual is left to decide for himself the kind of life he wants to live. In this book,

Kierkegaard thus presents an ethical problem from the standpoint of the centrality of choice and decision in concreteness. This work presupposes ethical or moral philosophy because choice and decision which are central to ethics were dealt with. Though the theme of commitment was implicitly discussed, the work however did not connect commitment to the social dimension of leadership.

Calvin O. Schrag (1959) in his “Note on Kierkegaard„s Teleological Suspension of the

Ethical” in Ethics, Vol. 70, No. 1, elucidates clearly what Kierkegaard‟s actual position is on the question of the “Teleological Suspension of the Ethical” by Abraham. Schrag‟s main point is that there is a difference between the ethical as a universal moral requirement and the ethical as a manner or mode of existence. Schrag‟s position in this article is yet another attempt to make Kierkegaard‟s ethics clearer. Yet, the work omitted the social aspect of leadership.

Niccolo Machiavelli (1961) in his book The Prince discusses in detail the virtues and vices along side the traditional qualities of a leader in a political state. The work is a masterpiece on

44 political leadership. In this book, Machiavelli undertook a realist analysis of politics and showed how the prince can employ any tactics, even vicious ones, needed to ensure his control over the state. He encouraged immoral means for retaining political power, which is that, the ends justify the means. This means that the prince (leader) can employ questionable tactics provided he achieves results. In this work, Machiavelli, rather than stressing that a leader‟s commitment to virtuous acts remains the best way for him or her to secure power and stability, stresses unscrupulous tactics.

Soren Kierkegaard (1962b) in The Present Age discusses in detail the notion of the individual, the public, the press, his political ideas, and views about the social decays of the Denmark society of his time. Though he was widely regarded as apolitical thinker, he foreshadowed many other points of modern social problems and so became the first philosopher to call attention to the real danger of the press. As relevant as that book is work is to the thesis of this work, it did not show how commitment to social dimension of political leadership is possible.

Frederick Copleston (1963) in his book A History of Philosophy Vol. VII Modern Philosophy

Part V presented yet another brilliant exposition of Kierkegaard‟s thought. Copleston takes a critical look at Kierkegaard‟s ethics and agrees with him that commitment is indeed needed to live an ethical or moral life. His acute knowledge of Kierkegaard‟s existential thought led him to present an unbiased assessment of Kierkegaard‟s ethical theory. In as much as we would want to agree with this work, our contribution to it would be to extend the ethical to commitment in political leadership since human societies are consolidated in political action.

Gregor Malantschuk (1963) in his book “Kierkegaard’s Way to the Truth”: An Introduction to the Authorship of Soren Kierkegaard provides another valuable commentary on Kierkegaard‟s

45 thought. As a student of Kierkegaard, he admitted that Kierkegaard‟s ethics rested squarely upon a religious premise. He tells us that Kierkegaard understood the impossibility of an ethical stage without an understanding of God. What Gregor‟s work left out was the application of commitment to the social dimension of political leadership.

Gabriel Marcel (1965) in Being and Having provides a brilliant work on commitment. In this book, Marcel saw commitment as the basis for a genuine relationship. Marcel, like

Kierkegaard stressed humans‟ religious commitment to God and to fellow human beings. He discussed the concept of commitment in relation to inter-subjectivity as a means of relating to others (I-thou). Though this work contains the theme of commitment, it did not however address the question of political leadership, which represents the social dimension of human existence that our work intends to address.

Alasdair Maclntyre (1967) in his article entitled “The Aesthetic and the Ethical” in The

Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Vol.3 & 4 opines that Kierkegaard‟s ethics placed absolute emphasis on choice and commitment as leading to one‟s ethical consciousness, which again emphasizes or stresses the sphere of universal rules of duty and of unconditional demand. The genuine ethical individual must feel the intensity of duty to affirm the eternal validity of his being. Also, Maclntyre‟s position merely repeats Kierkegaard‟s emphasis even though

Kierkegaard was right in his assertion. This work does not address the social dimension of leadership as our research intends to do.

George J. Stack (1973) in The Journal of Ethics: “The Self and Ethical Existence” in Ethics

Vol. 83, No. 2, presents a thorough exposition of Kierkegaard‟s ethical ideas in a more lucid manner. In this exposition, Stack reiterated Kierkegaard‟s stance on the ethical existence of

46 the individual. However, Stack‟s position fails to point out the theme of commitment inherent in Kierkegaard‟s ethics.

Roger Trigg (1973) in Reason and Commitment discussed commitment in detail, such as, what is commitment, the nature of commitment, fact of commitment, elements of commitment, religious commitment, ideological commitment, etc. It is indeed a brilliant work on commitment. However, the focus of the work seems to be more of justifying commitment on rational grounds, rather than on moral and religious grounds as Kierkegaard, Marcel and

Levinas did. Notwithstanding, it is a good work on commitment. This is the authentic clue to this work as we intend to appropriate the ground for social and political purposes.

Plato (1974) in his book The Republic discusses the ills of society and how they can be addressed. His inquiry into the ethical standard of leadership revealed to him that it was a moral problem. Consequently, he sought a cure for the ills of society in philosophy. Hence,

The Republic was born to address the moral and ethical problems of leadership in Athenian society. In this book, Plato enumerated the characteristics and qualities a leader should possess to be able to govern well. And he ended up recommending the philosopher-king for leadership positions. Though the book stands as the best leadership literature in circulation today, Plato in this book failed to see commitment as what a leader needed to exhibit those worthy qualities necessary for effective leadership.

Chinua Achebe (1983) in his book The Trouble with Nigeria identifies the problem with

Nigeria as the unwillingness or inability of the county‟s leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example, which are the hallmarks of true leadership. This unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility of leadership has led to a

47 monumental failure of leadership, according to Achebe. Thus, it has led to other anti-social vices such as: tribalism, unpatriotic spirit, social injustice, indiscipline and corruption of all sorts. Though this work clearly captures the problem of bad leadership in Nigeria, it omits the most decisive element that makes a leader‟s rise to leadership responsibility possible, which is commitment.

Roland Pau Blum (1983) in an article entitled “Emmanuel Levinas‟ Theory of Commitment” in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 44, No.2, discussed extensively

Emmanuel Levinas‟ Theory of Commitment. In fact, it was yet another brilliant work on commitment. In this article, Blum tells us that Levinas, like Marcel, focused his attention on the notion of inter-subjectivity and interpersonal relations in relation to “Other Persons.” In this Levinas‟ theory of commitment, otherwise known as the “theory of unlimited obligation,”

Levinas tells us that our effort to discharge our moral or religious obligation automatically increases our commitment. In this theory, Levinas, like Kierkegaard, was primarily concerned with the ethical in addition to propounding an “individualistic ethics. And consequently, he delved into the realm of relating ethics and religious commitment to man and God. As relevant as this work is, it fails to show how commitment can be applied to the social dimension of political leadership.

Campbell S. Momoh (1991) in his book A Philosophy of a New Past and an Old Future discusses social issues like corruption in Nigeria‟s political leadership. He lambasts political office holders for their deep-seated corruptive practices. As a way of checking this corruptive practice in public office, he advocates “active oath-taking” by public office holders. This active oath-taking involves swearing by the power of “juju” or the “Koran” or the “Bible” by

48 public office holders. This, according to him, will help put public office holders in check.

Momoh‟s suggestion is commendable but what is difficult to locate in Momoh‟s work is the commitment to ensuring that public office holders strictly adhere to the oath taken.

Campbell S. Momoh (1994) in his book The Funeral of Democracy in Nigeria undertook a critique of democracy. In this book, Momoh argues that democracy as it is practiced in

Nigeria does not guarantee the provision of social amenities because politicians who are the actors are corrupt. And to guard against this trend, he advocated a scientific programme of state administration and active oath-taking as answers to corruption in public office. Though

Momoh‟s active oath-taking as cure mechanism for corruption is natural, innovative, and creative, we add that without commitment to making the active oath-taking binding, it will just be mere swearing that is lacking in action. Thus, the fight against corruption and the promotion of a corrupt-free democratic society will be an uphill task.

Jim Unah (1995) in a chapter entitled “Creative Statesman: On the Legitimacy of the exercise of Political Power” in Essays in Philosophy discusses the issue of revolutionary and authentic leadership for the correction of a corrupt state. In this book, Unah notes with concern and argues that where vice and where corruption has eaten deep into the mental fabric of society what is called for is not sermonizing but a total revolution in thought and action by authentic leadership. Though this work is a beautiful effort to proffer solutions to how a corrupt state can be reformed through genuine leadership, the work fails to discuss the issue of commitment, which makes total revolution and authentic leadership possible.

Anthony Rudd and C. Stephen Evans (1995) wrote an untitled review article titled

“Kierkegaard and the Limits of the Ethical” in The Philosophical Review, Vol. 104, No. 4. In

49 this article, Evans tells us how Rudd, with the aid of Kierkegaardian notion of ethics, concludes that the Kantian ideal of autonomy in ethics is misplaced. Endorsing the

Kierkegaadian argument that the “aesthetic” individual refuses responsible commitment, he posited instead that the most adequate form of the ethical life see ethics as requiring a religious foundation. Non doubt, Rudd has a firm grasp of Kierkegaard‟s ethical thinking even though he left out the possibility of relating commitment to the social dimension of leadership.

Patrick Gardiner (2002) in his article Kierkegaard Soren, “Aesthetic and Ethical” in Routledge

Encyclopedia of PhilosophyVol.5 also proffered an explanation of what Kierkegaard‟s whole concept of ethics is all about. Gardener‟s position is merely an explication of Kierkegaard‟s ethical thought. Gardiner, in this article, fails to emphasize commitment as well as the social dimension of leadership in human existence.

John Adair (2002) in Inspiring Leadership discusses leadership from a variety of perspectives.

The work dwells more on the characteristics, qualities and functions of leadership. However, it fails to link it to commitment as we intend to do in this research.

George Manning and Kent Curtis (2003) in The Art of Leadership provides a personal insight about leadership, while discussing leadership concepts and principles. In fact, the work provides a beautiful exposition on leadership. However, the work was silent on the question of commitment as it affects political leadership.

Philip A. Ogbonna (2005) in A Preface to Kierkegaard presented a brilliant work on Soren

Kierkegaard‟s biography. Though the work provides a better clue to understanding

50 Kierkegaard‟s whole mission, it however fails to discuss commitment as it affects political leadership.

Williams R. Schroeder (2005) in his book: Continental Philosophy: A Critical Approach undertook a critical appraisal of Kierkegaard‟s ethics - aesthetic, ethical and religious. He argues that Kierkegaard‟s ethics synthesizes two elements: social norms and personal commitment. In this work, Schroeder argues that Kierkegaard‟s ethics emphasizes the particularity of specific individuals in particular situations. However, Schroeder‟s submission merely throws more light on Kierkegaard‟s position without adding anything new. This work is completely ignorant of the theme of commitment and the social dimension of leadership in human society.

William McDonald (2006) in his article Kierkegaard’s Ethics in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy provides a rich understanding of Kierkegaard‟s ethics. His exposition shows that Kierkegaard‟s ethics recognized ethics as a universal norm and man‟s ethical duty to God which now supersedes his temporal moral duty because, in the first instance, God is the author of universal morality. Man, therefore, is drawn into a conflicted ethical arena: social and divine morality. However, McDonald‟s position does not address the critical issues, which is the theme of commitment; neither did he discuss the social dimension of leadership which constitutes the focus of this work.

A.A. Lawal (2006) in a work titled Corruption in Nigeria: A Colonial Legacy undertook an incisive historical analysis of how corruption entered Nigerian soil. He traced the genesis of corruption to colonial imperialism and showed how the colonial imperialists fostered corruption, exploitation and roguery on Nigeria territory through various administrative

51 frauds. As a way of correcting this malaise, he recommended the basic requirements for a long lasting solution to the problem of corruption, among which is the promotion of ethics in government and public integrity and accountability in order to advance national and economic interests in public and private sectors. Lawal‟s position supports the thesis of this work.

Godwin E. Azenabor (2007) in his article titled “Corruption in Nigeria: Perspectives and

Strategies for Effective Control” in Faculty of Arts Monograph Series No. 3 pp. 1-33 takes a critical look at corruption. In this article, Azenabor traces corruption from the origin, its nature, forms, and causes. Consequently, he enumerated various control measures to check the menace, one of which is leadership by example. It is indeed a beautiful work on how to curb corruption in Nigeria. But the work is silent on how commitment can be brought to bear on those control measures for us to be able to combat corruption effectively.

Antonio Marturano and Jonathan Gosling (2008) in Leadership: The Key Concepts made a detailed exposition of the key concepts in leadership. In this book, Marturano and Gosling provide an in-depth understanding of key concepts of leadership such as authority, power, trust, responsibility, influence, etc, as well as various theories of leadership. But the book completely omits the discussion of commitment as it affects political leadership, which is the main goal of this research.

Jim Unah (2008) in his article “Public Morality and the Phenomenon of Corruption” in

History, Morality and Public Order makes a brilliant and intelligent argument on “Public

Morality and Corruption” and shows how public morality can be deployed to curtail the flow of corrupt practices that is now threatening the survival of human society. In the final analysis, he contends that knowledge of public morality is a necessary condition to regulate motives

52 and check corruption in order to bring about the common good. Though this article was incisive about public morality and corruption, it did not discuss how commitment to maintenance of public morality can help check the corruptive attitude of individuals.

53 CHAPTER TWO

KIERKEGAARD’S PHILOSOPHY: A GENERAL OVER VIEW

2.0 INTRODUCTION.

The philosophical problems and social milieu of a philosopher will generally influence his thought. And the philosopher usually devises a method to philosophize upon his problems.

The social milieu is “the knowledge and experience available to the philosopher at the time of his philosophic venture” (Ogbinaka, 1995: 36). This means that no philosopher theorizes in a vacuum and, as such, his philosophy or thought is essentially conditioned by his orientation, circumstances, environment, culture, education, etc. Thus, for a proper understanding of

Kierkegaard‟s philosophy it is appropriate that we delve into the background of the person whose thoughts and ideas form the basis of this study. To this end, it is therefore mandatory on our part to explore the tendencies and trends that contributed to the development of Soren

Kierkegaard‟s philosophy, which revolves around individualism. For a moral or political philosopher to actually fashion out a relevant moral or political philosophy, he must have a proper grasp of the ontological nature of man in that particular society for which the philosophy is meant. Jobi (1998: 28) captures this point aptly when he says: “Even the philosopher himself is a product of his socio-political reality. His vision of the world is tainted by the reality he experiences.” The validity of this assertion finds its expression or relevance in the consanguinity between Soren Kierkegaard‟s background and his philosophical proclivity or propensity.

In effect, this work in its depth is an attempt to adopt Kierkegaard‟s notion of ethical commitment towards the attainment or realization of a responsive and responsible leadership

54 in contemporary society. This is why it is very important to know the circumstances, situation, milieu or the times in which Soren Kierkegaard lived and wrote. For it is by so doing, that we will be able to appraise his works objectively and draw an affinity between his life, his theory of individualism and his clamour for a morally and religiously committed individual in an immoral society in order to bring about morally healthy individuals. In this chapter, therefore, we demonstrate that Soren Kierkegaard‟s philosophical attitude has its foundation or bearing in the various influences meted out to him by the experience of his birth and parentage, historical influences, his marital influence, literary experience, his romance with and feeling towards past philosophical traditions and the misfortune of his life, so to say. Revelations emanating from our intellectual navigation into his autobiography show that the development of Soren Kierkegaard‟s mental capacity was largely conditioned or shaped by the type, nature and degree or rigorousness of training and exposure he received from his father and his broken engagement. He underwent three stages of development (i.e. aesthetic, ethical and religious) in life before attaining maturity of mind. His concept of individualism or subjectivism was greatly shaped by his parental upbringing as we shall see later in detail.

More importantly, a detailed background of Kierkegaard is inevitable since his upbringing contributed immensely to his philosophical thinking. In effect, if we are to understand Soren

Kierkegaard‟s entire philosophy and appreciate the views he proposed and expressed, then we must dig deeply into his biography. Thus, Kierkegaard‟s biography is necessarily more relevant to his thought than is the case with most philosophers, for he “saw philosophical enquiry, neither as the construction of systems nor as the analysis of concept, but as the expression of an individual existence” (Maclntyre, 1967:336). The epitaph which he composed for himself was simply, “That Individual” (Kierkegaard, 1962d:129).

55 2.1 DENMARK IN SOREN KIERKEGAARD’S TIME

For us to appreciate Kierkegaard‟s philosophy, it is apt for us to revisit or take an excursion into the situation or atmosphere of the society into which Soren Kierkegaard was born and nurtured. And since Kierkegaard was born in Denmark, nurtured, lived and wrote all his philosophy there, it is perhaps very pertinent to explore Denmark during Kierkegaard‟s day.

Interestingly and unfortunately, Kierkegaard was born at a time when Denmark was experiencing a political and economic backwardness due to the French Revolution. Europe in his time witnessed a number of uprisings and Denmark was not spared in these uprisings.

Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark where Kierkegaard was born, happened to be the seat of government. Socially and economically speaking, it was a provincial town. And from a culture point of view Copenhagen was a centre of intense intellectual activity and could be said to be the heart of Scandinavian Universities, that is, the University of Copenhagen including its learned academic. For the purpose of emphasis, the term Scandinavian countries as it is used today, tends to include all Nordic countries such as Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark. Strictly Speaking, the term “Scandinavia‟‟ means only “Sweden”, “Norway” and “Denmark”(Hartnack, 1987:29). Throughout Kierkegaard‟s time, life in Copenhagen was strictly confined and it was a place where poverty, miserable housing conditions, sickness, epidemics and distress loomed large. Nevertheless, one notable fact about Copenhagen in

Kierkegaard‟s day was that it harboured an intellectual life comparable to that of any other city in the world. It was a time when Denmark was running a kind of political system known as “Absolutism.‟‟ Absolutism is a kind of political system where the rulers exercise unlimited power.

56 More importantly, as small as Copenhagen was, it was a closely knit society which provided

Kierkegaard with “a clinical specimen of the social, political, intellectual and religious currents of the day, which he could consult like a barometer” (Dru, 1958:8). Kierkegaard‟s birth also coincided with Denmark‟s national bankruptcy, with Denmark taking side with

Napoleon against England. Denmark‟s most important source of revenue at the time of

Kierkegaard‟s birth is called “Oresund customs-dues,‟‟ which has been in existence for four hundred years‟‟ (Rohde, 1963:15). The above quotation shows that Kierkegaard lived, worked and wrote in a regulatory-bound outdated society. It is interesting to know also that

Kierkegaard lived at a period when “an individual can react against the ills of society in two ways: That is, either he blindly accepts what is going on or he rebels against it” (Ibid.). These were the options available to any individual in his native land, Denmark. However,

Kierkegaard chose to blindly accept the situation on ground and in the process he turned his back on the affairs of this world. By this decision, he allowed the status quo to remain unchallenged. In fact, it was a time Denmark was running an „Absolute Monarchical‟ government. Also, Denmark at this time was dominated by German literary and philosophical ideals which further confirm Denmark‟s inferiority status. The country was also under constant military threat from Prussia. And his reaction to this state of affairs was intensive and profound and culminated in his unreserved attack on Hegelianism and other speculative philosophies that stressed abstract ideas. Obviously, Danish national pride and national frustration contributed immensely to Kierkegaard‟s upbringing. Owing to the provincial nature of Copenhagen, Kierkegaard expressed deep regret that the remoteness of his national tongue, which lay on the fringe of European Civilization from the provincial capital of Denmark, would limit the spread of his views.

57 2.2 THE MAN SOREN KIERKEGAARD

Soren Aabye Kierkegaard, who is often referred to as “the Danish philosopher and theologian of the first rank, a shrewd analyst of social and political trends and a master psychologist”

(Kierkegaard, 1959: ii), is one of the most provocative thinkers of the nineteenth century. He was “born in Copenhagen on 5 May 1813 in the parish of Our Lady and got baptized on 3

June 1813 in the Church of the Holy Ghost” (Kierkegaard, 1958:17) to Michael Pedersen

Kierkegaard, who due to suffering from cold, hunger, and loneliness while tending or herding sheep stood on a hill and sternly cursed God over the deplorable conditions of his life in his tender age before providence smiled on him. He later retired as a prosperous woolen merchant after acquiring considerable wealth from his business to brood over his sins. The word

“Kierkegaard” which is pronounced (kier-ker-gaw) means in Danish “Cemetery” or

“graveyard” (Rohde, 1963:7). This Danish philosopher and theologian, influential protestant thinker of the 19th century, commonly considered the precursor of existentialism and ably described as “a poet, as a prophet, as a philosopher, and as a theologian” (Lefevre, 1956, v),

“died in Copenhagen on November 4, 1855” (Dupre, 1967:174). From his autobiography, we gather that he had three older sisters and three older brothers. Soren was the youngest of them.

According to Lowrie (1942: 22), “Maven Kirsten came as the first child followed by Nicoline

Christian, Petrea Severine, Peter Christian, Soren Michael, Niels Andreas and Soren Aabye as the last child.” From history, we are made to understand that the degree and manner of a child‟s upbringing in most cases often helps to a great extent in shaping that child‟s mentality and, by extension, his weltanschauung (world-view).

58 From Kierkegaard‟s autobiography, we gather that his childhood years were pretty eventful for he was a happy boy, full of life, even though he almost experienced a bleak future due to events that unfolded afterwards. He described his childhood experience thus:

My childhood has been fortunate, in asmuch as it has enriched me with ethical impressions. ...When I was two years older I was sent to high school. Here I began a new life, but here again the chief impression was the ethical notwithstanding that I had the greatest freedom. ... Had I not undergone such deep influences in my earlier years an event of this nature possibly have had a harmful effect on me.... I knew that it was my duty to go to school, to this particular school where I‟d been placed; even though everything else might change, this could not. It was not awe of my father‟s grave character which instilled this feeling in me: it was rather the lofty conception I‟d acquired of what constituted a human‟s duty. So I got a sufficient deep impression of the fact that something exists which is called duty, and that this has eternal validity (Rohde, 1963: 24-25).

From the above quotation, it is obvious that Soren Kierkegaard‟s early acquaintance with ethical issues which entailed duty and responsibility prepared him far ahead of time. Along side his upbringing comes training in the sense of duty and responsibility which finds its birth in existence. He enjoyed a rare intimacy with his father and spent his early childhood in “the close company of his father, who insisted on high standards of performance in Latin and

Greek, inculcated an anxiety-ridden „pietistic‟ devotion of a deeply emotional kind, and awakened his son‟s imagination by continually acting out stories and scenes” (Maclntyre,

1967:336). This quotation brings us to the understanding of why Soren Kierkegaard took after his father‟s analytical power and imaginative capacity, which he exhibited throughout his literary career. However, his childhood innocence and faith was later punctured by the

“Great Earthquake” which he experienced as a child while growing up with great enthusiasm.

Concerning his physique, he was aptly described by Rohde (1963:7) as “short and spindly handsome but slightly hunch-backed (the result of an accident) with a rasping high-pitched voice, a sardonic wit, and dandyish tastes in cloth, Kierkegaard led a life of bizarre as his looks.” As a home boy, he was not subjected to many distractions, so his father engaged him in philosophical discussions. This means he was not allowed to mix up with others outside

59 the school environment and home. It is possible that it was this condition that informed his existential category of the “individual.” His close tie with his father had the most profound impact on his whole existence. Why? Because, it was the training he received from his father that helped him develop his degree of creativity, originality, imagination, ingenuity, resourcefulness and skill.

His religious education was personally undertaken by his father, who made it a point of duty to instill in his children, with a special focus on his last son, Soren Kierkegaard, the most decisive idea of Christianity. According to Rohde, Soren Kierkegaard “received one of the most stringent trainings any child can ever have in his day and perhaps our time. He was brought up in a strict religious way from his childhood regardless of his father‟s deep melancholy” (1bid. p. 207). Following this, he says:

Enough about his crazy up-bringing as a child. But the period of his youth, and the ten years passed in the university, he barely refers to as his vita ante anta, with the mere hint that he walked, alas , even in the path of perdition. In fact, he lived for several years a disorderly life, in revolt against his father and against God (Kierkegaard, 1962d: xxiii).

Humanly speaking, he lamented that he was crazily brought up and this made Christianity appear to him as the most inhuman cruelty and remarked thus:

The greatest danger is not that his father or tutor should be a free-thinker, not even his being a hypocrite. No, the danger lies in his being a pious, God fearing man, and the child being convinced therefore, but nevertheless noticing that deep in his soul there lies hidden an unrest which, consequently, not even the fear of God and piety can calm. The danger is that the child in that situation is almost provoked to draw a conclusion about God, that God is not infinite Love (Rhode, 1963: 27).

However, it was this religious orientation that eventually made a profound impact in his life to the point that he said after the death of his father in 1838 that: “the religious education he received from his father, however erroneous it may have been, however inappropriate to childhood, and however profound were the scars it left upon him, had nevertheless the effect of planting God indelibly in the heart” (Lowrie, 1942:37). He admitted that as a boy he was

60 strictly brought up in the Christian religion which means he was not quite pleased with his religious upbringing.

Before Soren Kierkegaard reached his twenty-fifth birthday, some kind of family calamities had befallen him while at the university. His mother, his sisters and two of his brothers all died mysteriously. The order of death goes thus:

In 1819, Little Soren Michael died at the age of twelve years after hitting his lead against another boy‟s lead. In 1822, Maren Kirsten died of cramps at the age of twenty four. On September 10, 1832, Nicoline Christine died when she was thirty-three years old on giving birth to a still-born baby. In September, 1833, Niles Andreas died in his twenty fifth years at Paterson, New jersey, His wife died in 1834 after a brief illness and in the same year, December, 27, 1834, he lost the most brilliant of his daughters, Petrea severine who was married to Henrik Ferdinand Lund, a director of the state bank in her thirty-third year after giving birth to a son. Peter Christian and Soren Aabye survived the hurricane (Dru, 1958: 14).

In addition to his family calamities, his knowledge of his father‟s secret sins brought upon him a devastating moral and emotional crisis which is often referred to as “The Great

Earthquake” while at the university between 1833-1834. This moral crisis refers to his father‟s illicit affair with his housemaid who latter became his father‟s wife and his mother. His father sacrilegious act of standing on a hill after suffering from loneliness and hunger and cursing

God before providence smiled on him, an incident he failed to forgive himself for till death.

As a result of this moral crisis he rebelled against his father and God, and defected from morality and Christianity. And lastly, it affected his mental disposition and produced a devastating breach between him and his father. In the process, he went astray and ventured deep into aesthetic life of all kinds ranging from alcohol consumption, dressing beyond his limit and engaging in sexuality. In the process he experienced dread and attempted committing suicide in the spring of 1836, but was rescued by Paul S. Moller. And it took six months of concerted effort before he could be reconciled back to his father, after the father had confessed his immoral acts to him personally.

61 Consequently, he reunited with his father on the occasion of his twenty-fifth birthday and also returned to God. And between May1836 to 1838 he underwent a moral conversion when he decided to break away from his aesthetic lifestyle and adopt moral standards. This period corresponds to the ethical in his later dialectic (theory of stages). And it thus marks his first ethical conversion which represents his reformative period to resolutely take up responsibility as an ethical individual. On May 19 1838, the year in which his father died, Soren

Kierkegaard experienced a religious conversion, accompanied by an “indescribable joy.” He immediately went back to school and faced his theological studies with utmost zealousness though he was yet to face the decisive either/or choice. Therefore, he identified this moment as a period of joyful independence and states thus:

So I went forth into life, favoured in every way, so far as intellectual gifts go and outward circumstances. Every thing was done and continued to be done to develop my mind as richly as possible. Self-confident-yet with a decided sympathy or predilection for suffering, or for whatever in any way is suffering or oppressed. In a certain sense I may say that I went out into life with a proud and almost foolhardy bearing. I have never at any instant in my life been deserted by the faith that one can do what one will-only one thing excepted, all else unconditionally, but one thing not, the throwing off of the melancholy in whose power I was (Kierkegaard, 1962d:78).

2.2.1 HIS EDUCATION

Soren Kierkegaard‟s educational voyage began in 1821 when he was admitted into the

“School for Civic Virtue” at age eight under the headmaster Michael Nelson in Copenhagen.

He completed both his elementary and secondary education in 1830. Early enough, it was obvious that Soren Kierkegaard was “apt to dabble in too many things not being sufficiently pertinacious or deep at any” (Kierkegaard, 1958: 18). Though his early education did not present him as an intelligent pupil, he kept well within his father‟s expectation as he never exceeded 2nd position in his class. At home, he was tutored by his father through whom he inherited the three basic dispositions of “imagination, dialectic and religious melancholy”

62 (Collins, 1953: 4), which later had a profound effect on his entire literary career. The education he received from his father was meant to make him something of “a writer, a thinker, an ethical personality and a Christian” (Rohde, 1963: 25) even though his father employed an independent method that was described as unconventional in nature.

He gained admission into the University of Copenhagen to read theology in 1830 at the age of seventeen and graduated in 1840 after a period of ten years with a Bachelor Degree (B.A.

Hons.) in Theology. Originally, Kierkegaard was admitted into the university to study theology - a discipline chosen for him by his father, because he wanted him to become a priest. But Kierkegaard made no definite progress in this direction. Why? Because “his interests at this time were primarily philosophical, literary and history, and a decade was to elapse before he finally took his examination” (Gardiner, 1969:289). In fact, he was an enthusiastic student of Plato, the Romantics, Shakespeare and the latest authorities in philosophy (Collins, 1953:6), especially Hegelianism. During this period, Kierkegaard was very much the observer of life, critical, and disillusioned. And having lost interest in theology, he spent the next ten years living a student life devoted basically to drinking and attending the theater to the point that he became known for his good taste in food, clothes and other aesthetic delights. He lived an extravagant social life while in the university, appropriating passionately the aesthetic side of life.

While at the university, he actively participated in student unionism. As a unionist, he wrote four political articles such as the: The Flying post, The Arbiter of literary elegance in

Denmark, The Organ of the great Heiberg, and A Literary Review (Now Present Age). He is both a conservative and apolitical thinker. As an apolitical thinker, he “intervened vehemently

63 or vociferously in church politics, cultural politics and also in the stormy social changes of his time” (MacDonald, 2006), which amply justified Soren Kierkegaard‟s contention as a unionist. However, the year 1840- 1841 was the most productive and stormy year in

Kierkegaard‟s life. He finally sat for his final theology examination on the 3rd of July 1840 and graduated with distinction. The same year he graduated on November 17, 1840, he was admitted in the Royal Pastoral Seminary for practical training in homiletic (i.e. the art of preaching) while at the same time he was reading for his postgraduate studies. He preached his first sermon in January 1841. His M.A. on “The Concept of Irony with Constant Reference to Socrates” was however converted to a PhD thesis which he defended in his mother tongue instead of Latin as the standard practice. His oral defense which took place on 29th of

September 1842 attracted an unusual large crowd and it lasted for seven hours. In attendance

(Kierkegaard, 1966:9-10) were:

(1) F.C.Sibbern - Dean of the faculty of philosophy (2) P.O. Bronsted - Professor of Greek, (3) F.C. Petersen - Professor of Greek, (4) H.C.Orsted - Rector of the University, (5) J.L Heiberg - Leading Danish Hegelian, (6) A.F. Beck - Who reviewed the book in a local newspaper, (7) H.L.Martensen - Professor of Theology, (8) J.N.Madvig - The University‟s influential philologist,

2.2.2 HIS RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

Although Kierkegaard was brought up in a stern religious way, he was not by that fact a true

Christian because it was not a choice he made out of his own free will. His father initiated him into Christianity in accordance with his own belief and orientation. To this end, he criticized his religious upbringing by describing it as a crazy one. However, the great moment came on

May 19, 1838 at half past ten in the morning (10: 30am) when an unexpected event happened to him which he vividly described as one of indescribable joy. Accordingly, he says:

64 There is an indescribable joy which enkindles us as inexplicably as the apostle‟s outburst comes gratuitously. “Rejoice I say unto you rejoice‟‟ Not a joy over this or that but the soul‟s night song “with tongue and mouth, from the bottom of the heart:‟‟ “I rejoice through my joy; in, it, with, over, by, and with my joy” a heavenly refrain, as it were suddenly breaks off our other song a joy which cools and refreshes, a wave of air, from the trade wind which blows from the plains of Mamre to the everlasting habit nations” (Dru, 1958: 59).

This Kierkegaard‟s deep religious experience was truly an experience that transformed his entire life religiously even though he pointed to no particular moment when he had become a

Christian. For, as he says, he was simply “becoming a Christian” up to the very end of his life.

He, however, regarded this religious experience as the moment of his religious conversion.

This event that happened to Kierkegaard truly marked a moment of his religious conversion because it was not a mystical experience since he was too reflective and dialectical to regard the experience as a mystical one. Even Kierkegaard could not reflectively or dialectically explain what happened to him, yet the experience was real to him, super real and it thus preoccupied him all through his life. After the religious experience, Kierkegaard repented from the rebellious life which he had drifted into as a result of his father‟s sensuality, and went back to Christianity and subsequently resumed church activities. Ten years later he witnessed yet another religious experience which took place on Easter 1848 and so, he says:

“my whole being is changed; my reserve and isolation are broken. I must speak! Great God, give me grace‟‟ (Dru. 1958:137). Consequently, he says “Maundy Thursday and Good Friday have become for me true holy days‟‟ (Hohlenberg, 1954: 203). It should be noted that this second religious experience by Kierkegaard finally unveiled to him what his religious task was. Through this latter experience, he discovers that his task was to urge men that

Christianity demands that the preacher‟s life must be in conformity with what he preaches. In other words, he saw his task as that of reintroducing of Christianity in its original setting since a whole generation has forgotten what Christianity really is.

65 2.2.3 HIS MARITAL EXPERIENCE AND THE INFLUENCE OF REGINE OLSEN

Kierkegaard‟s relationship with Regine Olsen was short and uneventful. The relationship began in the summer of 1840 after Kierkegaard‟s official examination in theology. Before he met Regine Olsen, the daughter of, Copenhagen bourgeois named Terkel Olsen, Head of

Danish Treasury Department, he has had a brief romance with Miss Bolette Rordam - a daughter of a deceased clergy man. But the romance was limited to the intellectual realm because he found in Bolette‟s companionship a solace in his great loneliness. He proposed to

Regine Olsen on 10th of September 1840 and became officially engaged to her having completed all the customary processes involved. Unfortunately, immediately after the official engagement, he suddenly realized that his action would lead him to unhappiness and concluded within himself that the engagement must be broken because he was scared of revealing his past and that of his father to her, more concerned with his spiritual existence than any other thing. Hence, he says one may love and sacrifice everything for one‟s love but

“my spiritual existence I cannot forego, I cannot sacrifice, for that is a contradiction, since without that I do not exist‟‟ (Kierkegaard, 1945:291). His conscience was yet another major barrier hindering him from going ahead with the marriage. Jolivet (1946: 18) quotes him as saying that “how impossible it would be, without deception, to involve an open-hearted simple young girl of seventeen in the destinies of a young intellectual marked down, apparently, to be an “exception,‟‟ and in addition, burdened with a melancholy which bore all the signs of fatality.”

In addition, his higher order to be an „exception‟ contributed immensely. This order requires

Kierkegaard to be engrossed with a single purpose and as such, he must do away with any other thing that does not agree with that order. Seeing marriage as a source of possible

66 distraction to accomplishing his role of an „exception,‟ he says: “Our relationship cannot become a marriage. Why not? Because in my melancholy I am morbidly reserved. That I knew in the beginning, I believed that the task was to conceal it. It was in this way I understood the matter but such a situation is not marriage” (Kierkegaard, 1945:326). More importantly, he does not want to be morally compelled to marry Regine Olsen since Regine‟s happiness is also of primary importance to him. Hohlenberg (1954:9) quotes Kierkegaard as saying on May 17, 1843 in his journal that:

If 1 had had to explain myself, then I should have had to initiate her into terrible things: my relationship to my father, his broodiness, the eternal darkness that broods deep within my going astray, my lusts and excesses. These last however are perhaps not so outrageous in the eyes of God, for it was dread that drove me to excess, and where was I to look for a stronghold, when I knew, or at least suspected, that the only man, I had admired for his strength and power had tottered.

The above quotation shows that Kierkegaard was a man of good conscience and integrity.

In summary, Kierkegaard is said to have broken his marriage according to (Soccio,

2007:407) because: “he might have been afraid of committed marriage. He might have found her cherry temperament incompatible with his somber melancholy. He might have feared that his depressions would harm her. He might have been a cad, as the popular opinion in

Copenhagen had it. All these motives played a part.” Based on the above submissions, he finally called off the relationship and had the engagement severed on October 11, 1841.

However, concerning Kierkegaard‟s action, Copleston (1963:115) has this to say: “Marriage is an ethical institution, the expression of the universal. And if ethics, the universal, is supreme, Kierkegaard‟s conduct was inexcusable. He was justified only if he had a personal mission from God whose absolute demands are addressed to the individual.” In fact, it was on the ground of this personal mission from God that Kierkegaard shelved the marriage.

The effect of the breach was so great that Kierkegaard wrote “my feeling was this: either I

67 plunge into wild dissipation or into absolute religiousness” (Rohde, 1963:8). But Kierkegaard chooses to become a religious poet and as such, he writes forcefully. In fact, he frequently affirmed and with as much reason that “it was she who made me a poet” (Lowrie, 1942:

147). The influence of Regine Olsen‟s relationship was so impactful and intense on him that it greatly contributed to his literary success, life thoughts and writings. It contributed to his commitment to writing as he went into prolific writing, devoting himself to Christian writings. Therefore, his authorship can be traced to his broken relationship with Regine

Olsen. Hence, he wrote again in 1849 that “through sorrow at having to make her happy, I became an author...” (Hohlenberg, 1954:116). It revealed his vocation to him. The breaking of the engagement allowed Kierkegaard to “devote himself monastically to his religious purpose, as well as to establish his outsider (outside the norm of married bourgeois)”

(McDonald, 2009). From then on Kierkegaard took to writing, attending lectures in Berlin,

Germany, which happened to be the intellectual nerve centre and capital of Europe. Though

Kierkegaard‟s marital life was short and uneventful, the experience he had was of a great influence, impetus and a catalyst to his literary activities.

2.2.4 INDIVIDUAL INFLUENCES ON SOREN KIERKEGAARD

Every great scholar must pass through a dossier of people whose thoughts he or she has to borrow from to either improve upon or jettison altogether. Soren Kierkegaard received several and varied intellectual stimuli in his university days that contributed immensely to shaping his thought in the early1830. In short, his early intellectual development was to a great extent largely influenced by a host of thinkers comprising theologians, philosophers and poets.

Incidentally, he has been aptly described as a theologian, philosopher and poet. We have seen also that his father, Michel Pedersen Kierkegaard, exercised a considerable influence on him.

68 And apart from his father‟s influence, there were other external influences that bore heavily on him (i.e., from thinkers of great talent). He was particularly enthused by the philosophical and religious discourses of these thinkers as their emphasis was centered on the significance of life (reality). Thus, as a profound and original thinker, he was well able to sift and reconcile the various opinions, ideas and views. He adopted and those he considered important in formulating his theories and philosophy, thereby showing that he had a mind of his own and that he knew what he wanted and how to go about it. Those influences were both internal and external and they contributed a great deal in shaping his thought whether in politics, psychology, philosophy, religion, ethics or morality, logic, aesthetic, etc, as is evident in his vast literature. Thus, we shall briefly look at these influences.

Soren Kierkegaard studied Plato (427-347 B.C.), the disciple of Socrates and the outcome was Kierkegaard‟s theory of “indirect communication,” which is a literary device for stimulating the experience of a Socratic conversation. Kierkegaard used it as an “instrument for disabusing his readers of what is not personally appropriated, of stripping away what is not permeated with consciousness and enjoyed” (Kierkegaard, 1966:37). To this end,

Kierkegaard regards irony as the mere beginning of subjectivity, and assigns to it the value of making the birth of the personal life. His M.A. thesis shows a deep knowledge of Plato.

Through his reading of W.G. Tennemann‟s “History of Philosophy” and Friedrich Adolf

Trendelenburg‟s writing, he came to know Greek philosophy on a wide scale, especially

“Aristotle, the skeptics, the cynics and so on. He also came to know Rene Descartes, G.W.

Leibniz and Benedict Spinoza” (Kierkegaard, 1958:60). Interestingly, Kierkegaard learnt of

Socrates and the Greeks through his acquaintance with Johann George Hamann, Paul Martin

Moller and Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg.

69 Socrates (C.469 or 470- 399 B.C) represents and was perhaps the most original influential and controversial figure in the history of Greek thought who influenced Kierkegaard so profoundly to the point that the latter had to write his Master of Art (M.A.) thesis on The

Concept of Irony With Constant Reference to Socrates and this earned him the title the

“Danish Socrates” (Swenson, 1945:34). Kierkegaard adopted Socratic “dialectic.” Socratic dialectic is “the method of seeking or acquiring knowledge through question and answer”

(Omoregbe, 1990:91). He taught by conversing with people, asking them questions and helping them to seek the answers. He declared that “the unexamined life is not worth living”

(Plato, 1941:73). His ethical lifestyle influenced Kierkegaard‟s philosophy. Consequently,

Kierkegaard regarded the Socratic dictum “Man-Know-thy self” as the nexus of existentialism.

Following Socrates is the French Philosopher and mathematician, Rene Descartes (1596-

1650). Descartes had a great influence on Kierkegaard in that he actually began with subjectivity - that is, his popular dictum “Cogito Ergo Sum” I think, therefore, I exist.”

Descartes doubted the accepted traditions and the accepted evidence about the world and in the process he asserted the triumph of reason. From Descartes, Kierkegaard knew that skepticism leads to true knowledge. In fact, Kierkegaard was a skeptic. He doubted all previous philosophies and began the corrective so as to pave way for the moral and religious individual.

Another important thinker that influenced Kierkegaard was the German critic and dramatist,

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781). Lessing posited that “Truth is subjectivity.” Through reading his works Kierkegaard came to know that truth is subjective. Kierkegaard‟s thesis,

70 “Subjectivity is Truth,” was influenced by G. E. Lessing. Hence, Kierkegaard grouped

Socrates and Lessing together for claiming that both self-knowledge and self- examination are necessary ingredients for the attainment of truth.

Following in the catalogue of influences is Johann George Hamann (1730-1788). Hamann was yet another thinker who influenced Kierkegaard greatly. From him Kierkegaard learnt how to distinguish between irony and humour. Kierkegaard‟s early irony in its Socratic sense induces ethical living. Humour in Hamann‟s sense is applied to the attitude of those who, with a smile of disbelief (incredulity) refuse to accept Christianity though they know all about it. Ludwig Feuerbach is a good example. He attacks Christianity, but expounds it so reliably or satisfactorily that it is a pleasure to read him. For Feuerbach, theology is anthropology – meaning that God is but man‟s imagination. Ludwig Feuerbach‟s “The

Essence of Christianity” portrayed all traditional religion “as man‟s projection of his own attributes into another sphere” (Singer, 1983:85). It marked the first modern attempt to develop a psychology of religious belief.

Another thinker of note who also influenced Kierkegaard greatly was the German Christian theosophist, Franz Von Baader (1765-1841). From Baader‟s lectures, Kierkegaard got himself acquainted with medieval thoughts as reflected in his either/or. Through association with Baader‟s lectures, he came to know that “the good exists only when we do it, but similarly, truth only exits when we acknowledge it.” And he also came to understand that

“whatever is known, is known through the capacity of the knower (quid quid cognoscitur premodum cognoscentis)” (Kierkegaard, 1958:70). Also, his knowledge of the significance

71 of different religious attitudes, necessary stages of self-consciousness, the meaning of accommodation-anthropomorphism which H.L. Martensen speaks of was Baader‟s emphasis.

George W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) was yet another interesting thinker who exerted a great deal of influence on Kierkegaard‟s literary life. Kierkegaard was heavily indebted to Hegel, apart from being schooled in Hegelian philosophy. In fact, his “native dialectical powers were disciplined by a serious study of Hegel” (Swenson, 1945:136). Yet, the absence of any systematic treatise covering the logical and metaphysical discipline by Kierkegaard was a deliberate expression of a well considered choice. It is a planned application of a corrective against “a one-sided and abstract intellectualism” (Kierkegaard, 1941:312). While in the university he read Hegel with great avidity (Swenson, 1945:11). Hence, he took it upon himself to translate:

The hardest passages into Danish, in order to make them clearer to himself and he read and re-read the “Logic” over and over again. Both his philosophy, style and his terminology show the influence of Hegel, but he was never able to acknowledge the validity of Hegel‟s central idea. He freed himself gradually from the dominating influence that the great name of the German master had exerted upon his youthful and enthusiastic mind and was destined to give to the world the most thoroughgoing and absolutely destructive criticism that the Hegelian philosophy has, to my knowledge, ever received” (Kierkegaard, 1941:98-108).

Kierkegaard‟s relation to Hegel was said to be “a process through which his own thought was clarified. Kierkegaard‟s authorship up to and including the Postscript was determined by an attempt to devise a radical cure for the Hegelian “speculation” from which the age suffered”

(Thulstrup etal, 1981:736).

Another important thinker who exerted a great deal of influence on Kierkegaard was F.W.J

Schelling (1775-1854). In one of Schelling‟s lectures, titled “Philosophy and Actuality,”

Kierkegaard (1958: 68) says, when Schelling mentioned the word “Actuality” and spoke of the relationship between philosophy and actuality (i.e. actual daily life), “the embryo of

72 thought leaped within me for joy as in Elizabeth when Mary visited her.” It was a relief for

Kierkegaard who had been yearning for truth since Hegel in his ingenuity had no doubt tried theoretically or speculatively to unite philosophy with existence (actual life), that is, thought with being. Thus, from Schelling‟s criticism of Hegel‟s “Negative” philosophy, Kierkegaard got to know that philosophy is positive and should begin from actual experience and reach a personal relationship between God and man.

The next most important personality who impacted greatly on Kierkegaard was the German philosopher and philologist Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg (1802-1872). Trendelenburg exerted a great deal of influence on Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard extolled Trendelenburg for benefiting him immensely through his works. Kierkegaard‟s doctrine of the category of the

“Individual” came as a result of his reading the works of Trendelenburg that emphasized the doctrine of categories. He was particularly impressed with Trendelenburg‟s criticism in “The

Logical Question of Hegel’s unfinished use of Negative.” His impression stemmed from the fact that Trendelenburg did not begin with “Nothing” but with “movement”, that is,

Aristotle‟s type of movement. Consequently, in 1844, he wrote: “The Greek remain my comfort. The accursed falsity which entered philosophy with Hegel ... Trendelenburg be roused; one of the most sober thinking philologist I know” (Kierkegaard, 1941: 100).

Next in the line of influences on Kierkegaard was Hans Lass Martensen, a Danish Bishop and theologian. Martensen was a professor of theology at Copenhagen University. He made a great impression on Kierkegaard to the point that in the spring of 1834 the latter engaged

Professor H.L. Martensen as his theology tutor. He also influenced Kierkegaard‟s idea of keeping a journal record - a book which later become one of the most valid and authentic

73 source of information about Kierkegaard‟s contact with Martensen. Hence, Godlove

(1997:43) says: “These tutorial sessions were instrumental in helping Kierkegaard to establish his intellectual agenda.” Interestingly, Martensen has a book titled “Ueber Lenau’s

Faust” where he set forth in the introduction: “The idea of Faust in its full significance for the present age as the doubt unto despair,” picking up on the „doubting sickness‟ which

Martensen had experienced in the early part of his trip” (Capel, 1965:26 & 408). This publication of Ueber Lenau’s Faust further deepened the influence of Martensen on

Kierkegaard, even though Kierkegaard had planned to do a project on Lenau‟s Faust. Hence,

Roos (1955: 123) noted that Kierkegaard‟s despair:

Is due to the fact that Martensen had stolen his thunder; the “ New conception” of Faust that he had come up with was undercut on November 19,1837, when in the course on Speculative Dogmatics Martensen‟s discussion of the principle of doubt, which had expressed itself in various forms was depicted as finally revolving around the difference between Faustian haughtiness and the free thinking of the children of God, so that Faust is pictured as “Luther‟s caricature, who misunderstands the protestant human right to think freely.

It means that the idea of Faust which Kierkegaard showcased in his book Either/Or was derived from Martensen. Kierkegaard was also impressed by Martensen‟s discourses on:

“Freedom and Dependence” under “the ideality individuality” when he was considering “The

Good as ideal” in the “outline to a system of moral philosophy” (Godlove, 1997: 68). The

“self” of Kierkegaard in the book “Sickness unto Death” by Anti-Climacus is a reflection of

Martensen‟s influence on Kierkegaard. In addition, Kierkegaard benefitted immensely from

Martensen‟s work on “Moral Philosophy,” where he anticipates how the human personality needs to relate itself “to another, to a power, to God who as the substance of the world‟s being is the source of human freedom, but who is also the true personality who is able to make the human truly free as the human humbly acknowledges his need for God. This greatly coloured Kierkegaard‟s notion of freedom” (Ibid.). Furthermore, in the theological

74 arena, Kierkegaard was deeply influenced by Martensen. His notion of God-human relation, subjectivity and objectivity, the notion of qualitative as opposed to quantitative dependence were all derived from Martensen. Martensen was also instrumental in helping Kierkegaard to arrive at a comprehensive theological vision although Kierkegaard chose to move to a different direction afterwards.

His kinship with the Romantic poets - Novalis (1772-1801), Ernst Theodor Wilhelm

Hoffman (1776-1822), (Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829), August Wilhelm

Schlegel (1767-1845), etc, who were then thriving in Germany, also made a great impact on his thought. The young Romantics saw art as the key to social, political, and cultural reforms.

Their philosophy is that, “if reason had demystified the word, art could remystify it, so that once again, we could feel at home in it” (Beiser, 1999:525). Kierkegaard found in the

Romantics the substitute to deliver the age from becoming completely Hegelian, that is “their emphasis upon all that is strange, mysterious uncharted and nonconceptual in human experience seemed to open a gaping breach in the side of the unpregnable system, and to make room for values which found no place in that imposing structure” (Collins, 1953:23).

2.3 KIERKEGAARD’S ART OF INDIRECT COMMUNICATION

In his early authorship, Kierkegaard was confronted by how to express his views about existence and genuine Christianity to others. Notwithstanding the obvious fact that in his theory of stages he had an over-view of all the possible attitudes or state of human beings, for he had to look for a corresponding theory of the art of communication-otherwise known as

“the indirect communication.” By communication is meant “the activity or process of expressing ideas and feeling or of giving people information” (Hornby, 1998: 230). Therefore,

75 this means an indirect way of expressing ideas and feeling or of giving people information.

Kierkegaard found in Socrates one of the most important principles of how to communicate the truth. While Socrates in his time wished to draw humans‟ attention to the boundless (i.e., eternal) in his own inner-self, Kierkegaard wished on his part to call attention to the revelation of the endless (i.e. eternal) in time. Socrates conducted his task by positioning himself in the other man‟s place and leading him on from that point.

Kierkegaard also began with this Socratic rule and hence, he wrote: “to succeed in truth to bring a man to a certain place one must first and foremost be sure to find him where he is and begin there” (Kierkegaard, 1962d:27). Socrates solved his problem by using the dialogue to enter into different men‟s thinking in order to help them. Kierkegaard‟s commitment was to achieve the same thing in his writings. As a result, he tried to get to men by presenting the many different conditions of life pseudonymously (i.e., fictitiously) so that a man might find somewhere in his works his own existential position, and then, from there move toward the truth. Through his writing, he was able to find man where he is, right or wrong, and was able to speak to all, regardless of their spiritual condition. This was what he called the “Art of

Communication,” to use a Socratic expression. His intention of employing indirect communication was meant to hasten the individual into making a choice and becoming involved in the issues. Therefore, the aim of his “indirect communication according to

Howard V. Hong, who wrote the foreword in Kierkegaard’s way to the Truth: An

Introduction to the Authorship of Soren Kierkegaard, “was to make the author a vanishing point and to avoid direct presentation of a system of argument and conclusions, not because of the unimportance of decisive thought, but because of the primary importance of the reader‟s own decisive thought” (Malantschuk, 1963:5). An example of this method is found in his

76 maiden work, Either/Or, where two opposite courses are placed side by side and it is left to the individual to make his choice. Stages on Life’s Way, Fear and Trembling, Repetition, The

Concept of Dread, Philosophical Fragment and Concluding Unscientific Postscript. All these works were issued not under Kierkegaard‟s own name but under pseudonyms.

They are therefore indirect. They prepare the way since they are designed to unsettle the reader (i.e. the individual) by revealing to him the true character of the dwelling he has inhabited. The question then arises, why should Kierkegaard adopt an indirect communication method in presenting his views about existence and Christianity? According to Emmanuel

(1992:240), the intention of Kierkegaard in adopting an indirect method of communication to air his view falls into two purposes: “First, to present the reader with a choice between a number of competing world-views or existential possibilities. And second, to withdraw himself from the process of interpretation by presenting these views in such a way that the reader would be free to make a personal decision.” Consequently, Kierkegaard (1941:132-

133) explains that:

This art consists in reducing oneself, the communicator, to nobody, something purely objective and then incessantly composing qualitative opposites into unity. This is what some of the pseudonyms are accustomed to call “double reflection.” An example of such indirect communication is, so to compose jest and earnest that the composing is a dialectical knot- and with this to be nobody. If anyone is to profit by this sort of communication, he must himself undo the knot for himself. Another example is, to bring defense and attack in such a unity that none can say directly whether one is attacking or defending. So that both the most zealous partisans of the cause and its bitterest enemies can regard one as an ally- and with this to be nobody.… an objective something not a personal man.

Thus, from the above lengthy quotation, it is quite obvious that the purpose of Kierkegaard‟s indirect communication is to get the reader (i.e. the individual) to see that ethical-religious truth lies in the realm of inwardness and subjectivity, and hence, it must be appropriated by every individual for himself. His model for the indirect form of communication “is the

77 maieutic method of Socrates” (Kierkegaard, 1962a: 144). Socrates‟ maieutic method is simply the method of midwifing those pregnant with knowledge or ideas. He adopted indirect communication to enable him to destroy (or for the purpose of destroying) an illusion because he believed that an illusion could never be destroyed directly, except by indirect means can it be radically removed or cured. This means that Kierkegaard did not intend to communicate directly the truths about human existence, but, rather to enable others discover that truth for themselves by taking away the illusion (i.e. a false idea or belief) that lead them away from the truth. Therefore, what happens to the individual in Kierkegaard‟s art of indirect communication is that the individual is left to himself to piece things together by his own endeavour if he so desires. Fundamentally, Kierkegaard‟s art of indirect communication is a literary device for stimulating the experience of a Socratic conversation. He adopted a pseudonymous style in conveying his message to his generation and ours and his subsequent direct approach, because he was quite aware that philosophy is a subject in which maturity of ideas come with experience. His aim also was to urge men to transform their lives morally and religiously and to this end, he presented his thought as concretely and indirectly as possible.

Then one might ask: How does Kierkegaard‟s art of indirect of communication engender our understanding of commitment and leadership?

Kierkegaard‟s art of indirect communication is designed to enable an individual human being to discover the truth of existence personally and by so doing, destroy illusion. You do not openly tell people to be committed to X, Y, Z; but rather you show them how to be committed, and that means an indirect way of communicating commitment. People see it in what you do and how you go about it. This means that commitment is a personal affair and true leadership is communicated through indirect conduct, that is, by personally leading the

78 way things should be done. A true leader does not need to force people or followers to do the right thing. Rather, he/she sets the right example for them to follow. This is because setting the right example achieves much more than forcing people to follow due process. By so doing, the leader is unknowingly indirectly communicating the right example to his followers.

Therefore, when a leader is leading by example, he/she is indirectly communicating to the people or subordinates that the art of leadership is discoverable through personal commitment.

This is how the knowledge of Kierkegaard‟s art of indirect communication engenders our understanding of commitment and leadership. In all, a leader with the knowledge of the art of indirect communication is in a better position to show commitment to duty than a leader who lacks it. It is in this understanding that we thought it wise to include it in Kierkegaard‟s background, for we know it is capable of bringing about a leader‟s sense of commitment to leadership. From the above exposition, one is no longer in doubt as to how Kierkegaard‟s art of indirect communication set the stage for genuine leadership and commitment to thrive.

Interestingly, in Kierkegaard‟s writings, the dialectic is also an indirect ways of communication which he employs in several ways and, therefore, constitutes the various forms of the dialectic. Adopting pseudonyms, for example, was a method that he called indirect communication and that he often described as existential dialectic.

2.4 KIERKEGAARD’S CONCEPT OF THE DIALECTIC

The concept of the dialectic has its history and development. Though the concept is not of

Kierkegaard‟s coinage, to a large extent, it takes a new dimension or connotation in his own usage because he gave it an existential interpretation. Hence, it is often called “Kierkegaard‟s

Existential Dialectic.” Notwithstanding his claim and his use of the concepts in an entirely different sense, Kierkegaard‟s notion of dialectic shares some affinity or similarities with

79 Socrates, Plato, G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx and other dialecticians. The dialectic “is any systematic reasoning, exposition, or argument that juxtaposes opposed or contradictory ideas and usually seeks to resolve their conflict” (Mish, 1999:319). From Greek, dialectic means

“discourse” (Cunningham, 1942:78). Taken, in its etymological sense, dialectic means, “the art of arguing whereby one party asks questions in order to receive answers which it uses again in order to ask further questions” (Bah, 1997:76). The history of dialectic is traceable to

Zeno of Elea, the first philosopher to apply this method of reasoning even though it was in a less systematic format to defend his master, Parmenides. However, with the emergence of

Socrates and his “Socratic dialectic,” the dialectic became the art of debate by question and answer as evidenced in the platonic dialogues.

Plato in the Republic adopts this method to arrive at all-inclusive definitions of concepts like appearance, reality, virtue and justice. To this end, Plato saw dialectic as a process of transcending one-sided views to attain a universal view of reality. Consequently, Plato posits that the just society cannot be attained until either the philosophers who understand this method as a means of comprehending reality become the rulers, or the rulers become philosophers so as to possess or acquire this knowledge. Accordingly, Plato (1974:263) declared that, “there is no other road to real happiness either for society or the individual.”

This means that only those individuals who have the contemplative intellect and the thoroughly developed capacity for philosophizing are assumed to be eligible for political leadership. Thus, for the philosopher-king or ruler, dialectic is the exercise of pure thought aimed at the idea of the Good. A mastery of it will equip the ruler with the power of vision of the Supreme Good. Therefore, Plato to a large extent retains the traditional conception of

80 dialectic as a method of reasoning, a process of examining the pros and cons of the subject- matter through the method of question and answer.

In the modern period, dialectic has two special meanings for Immanuel Kant. Kant used it as the name of that part of his critique which dealt critically with the special difficulties

(antinomies, paralogisms and ideas) arising out of the futile attempt (transcendental illusion) to apply the categories of the Understanding beyond the only realm to which they can apply, that is, the realm of objects in space and time (phenomena). In the hands of Kant, the dialectic was used to tackle difficult issues or problems in his attempt to transcend the phenomena to the realm of noumena. For Hegel, dialectic is simply the faculty of human reason to discover the absolute essence in concepts abstracted from things. In other words, the dialectic for Hegel connotes the process of the development of an “idea” or “spirit” in its progress towards complete self-realization which manifests in nature and the history of societies. In this sense, the dialectic as a method of thinking is different from the traditional logic of being and thinking.

On his part, Vladmir (1976: 223) conceives the dialectic as, “… The doctrine of the unity of opposites.” Karl Marx in The Capital remarks that his own concept of the dialectic was not only different from that of Hegel, but was directly opposed to it. To buttress this assertion, he explained that Hegel‟s dialectics was wrapped up in a mystical shell and that it was his task to unwrap the mystical shell through his dialectic – Marxian dialectic popularly known as

“Dialectical Materialism.” Accordingly, Marx (1959: 19) says: “The mystification which the dialectic suffers in Hegel‟s hands by no means prevents its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him, it is standing on its head. It must be turned

81 the right side up again, if you would discover the rational Kernel within the mystical shell.”

With this position, Marx thus develops the concept of dialectic from the materialist worldview into what would later become dialectical materialism, which, when applied to history, became historical materialism. From Hegel‟s and Marx‟s conceptions of the dialectic, we can confidently conclude that the dialectic in the philosophies of Hegel and Marx is:

A mechanism of change and progress in which every possible situation exists only in relation to its opposite. This relationship is one of both antagonism and mutual dependency, but the antagonism (a form of violence) eventually undermines the relationship and overthrows it. However, sometimes the term “dialectical” is used only to emphasize a relationship of reciprocity between two entities or processes (Palmer, 2001:406).

Having explicated the views of classical and modern dialecticians, we need to ask what does the dialectic mean to Kierkegaard? Or how did Kierkegaard conceive of the dialectic?

In Kierkegaard‟s writings, the dialectic means an indirect way of communication which he applies in diverse ways and thus constitutes the various forms of the dialectic. His pseudonyms are, for example, a method which he called indirect communication and he frequently described it as existential dialectic. To this end, Gardiner (1988: 40) writes:

Kierkegaard never addresses the reader directly, as the author but instead speaking to him through the medium of different pseudonyms under which the books were published; by adopting such masks and shifting disguises he appeared to distance himself, if sometimes rather disingenuously, from the positions to which his pseudonyms or invented personages variously subscribe.

From the above, we can say that Kierkegaard, from his theory of stages, is communicating some vital messages about life that simply go beyond their literary understanding and importance. As a theory, the stages have a dialectical nature, but each stage is also dialectical and the moods have their dialectical structure that sometimes conflict or clash. To this end,

Dunning (1985: 9) says that, “the stages are an excellent place to explore the nature of formal dialectical structures. Such structures involve a series of opposed poles, and the way in which these oppositions are related to one another determine the character of the dialectic.” To

82 Collins (1953: 6), the dialectic is, “a theory about the stages in the growth of personality rather than a metaphysical scaffolding after the manner of Hegel‟s triad moments.”

Essentially, Kierkegaard‟s dialectic is focused on existence. Hence, he writes:

Dialectic is in itself a benevolent helper which discovers and helps to find where the absolute object of worship is. Dialectic itself does not see the absolute, but it leads the individual as it were up to it and says: Here it must be that, I guarantee: when you worship here you worship God. But worship itself is not dialectic. A dialectic that mediates is a derelict genius (Kierkegaard, 1941: 438 - 439).

From the passage above, it is clear that the dialectic points to the absolute. As a dialectician, everything Kierkegaard discusses involves dialectic. Hence, he speaks of the dialectic of existence, of freedom, of faith, of suffering, of communication, of paradox, of inwardness, of humour and irony, etc. In the words of Diem (1959: 9), the essence of the dialectic in

Kierkegaard‟s thought is meant to, “denote the acting of that part of thought that reaches its goal by moving between question and answer or assertions and contradiction in dialogue. In so far as this implies correctness of thought and its technique, this dialectical process may also be called logic.” Though Kierkegaard did not offer any definition, his use of dialectic, apart from assuming the Socratic style, means “reality” or the very act and fact of existence. To this end, he writes: “Reality or existence is the dialectical movement in a trilogy whose beginning and whose end cannot be for the existing individual, since qua existing individual he is himself in the dialectical movement. Abstract thought close up the trilogy” (Kierkegaard,

1941: 279). By this quotation, Kierkegaard means that reality which is expressed with existence is the dialectical element in the three. It depicts the starting point and the endpoint.

According to Ogbonna (2005: 121), the term “dialectic” is notorious for its ambiguity and when applied to Kierkegaard‟s doctrine of the stages, “it transforms the ambiguity into a paradox.” Therefore, to him, Kierkegaard as a dialectician may also be referring to the

83 Hegelian triad stages or moment – thesis, antithesis and synthesis. … The three stages can dialectically be seen to be in contradiction. To this end, Hannay (1993:14-15) senses the stages in relation to genuine human development and, consequently, he expresses his view thus:

This is the doctrine of the aesthetic, ethical and religious stages. It is a theory of development of a “genuine” individual, or a self integrated, autonomous person who retains his infinite concern for eternal blessedness in clear and full realization of the fact and implications of the truth of lifting himself. In lifting himself out of the aesthetic into the ethical stage he achieves integration by taking on to duties, roles, responsibilities, by virtue of which he first presents a “self” to the world at large. Then in the religious stages the infinite goals in which self satisfying form of eternal blessedness plays no part.

Kierkegaard‟s dialectic of existence is a consistent application of reformation principles. In view of this fact, Ogbonna (2005: 43) avers that the dialectic is “an invitation to the human existential universe, the human basis, which reaches its apex in religious, impersonal appropriation of the divine revelation.” In fact, Kierkegaard employs the dialectic “to take away knowledge rather than to increase it, to make things more difficult rather than to make things more easy” (Swenson, 1945:57), and only with difficultly can it be reduced to common understanding. By this difficulty, Ogbonna avers that Kierkegaard transformed the being of

Christianity and morality into a problem so profoundly that it became a question whether there existed any genuine ethical human being and one true Christian.

Thus, the dialectic of Kierkegaard is brought out in its bearing to focus on the individual existence or the thinker‟s reality. In fact, it seems appropriate to designate the focus of

Kierkegaard‟s dialectic as “inwardness” (Dunning, 1981:386). Fundamentally, the height of

Kierkegaardian dialectic is the relating of the finite individual to the transcendent but loving

God. To this end, he argued that instead of reshuffling the Hegelian dialectic from within as

Marx envisioned, attention should be directed to the fact that every sort of dialectic is a tool

84 for the individual human being and can only achieve results in his hands and through his free decision. This, according to Ogbonna, is precisely the meaning of the “dialectic” as well as the existential movement in Kierkegaard‟s thought. In the light of above exposition, how does the dialectic engender our understanding of commitment and leadership?

The dialectic itself is a method of reasoning, that is, a process of examining the pros and cons of the subject-matter through the method of question and answer. It means critical discourse.

It implies correctness of thought and when stretched further, it becomes logic of reasoning in which issues “are objectively and thoroughly discussed and evaluated” (Unah, 2002:157). It means to be dialectical is to be logical. Plato‟s tripartite division of the human personality shows that guardians should be people of high cerebral standing. And so he opines that a just society can never be attained until either the philosophers who understand the dialectic as means of apprehending reality become the rulers or the rulers become philosophers so as to acquire this knowledge. The implications of Plato‟s assertion show that only individuals who have the contemplative intellect and the thoroughly developed capacity for philosophizing are assumed to be eligible for political leadership. Though Kierkegaard‟s dialectic is focused on existence, it still assumes a Socratic style. He called it a benevolent helper which helps us to discover the truth about existence. Leadership is not for a dull mind; it requires critical mind.

It is argued here that a major reason for the preponderance of underperforming leaders in

Africa in general and Nigeria in particular is the leaders‟ lack of logical thinking. From their party manifestos one easily discovers that their policies lack focus and direction because they are not geared towards alleviating human existential problems. They lack the rigour (dialectic) and commitment that leadership requires. Hence, they often leave the main issue out of their

85 programme of action. A leader needs to be logical in the decision-making process. A leader is expected to discuss issues of national interest objectively before taking a final decision on them. This means that a leader needs dialectic as a tool to apprehend reality correctly because he/she is bound to face conflicts of choices or interests as to which programmes to embark upon that will benefit the masses. If a leader is knowledgeable in dialectic, he/she will be appropriately guided on how to resolve conflicting priorities that will arise in the course of his/her duty. This is where commitment comes in. Dialectical knowledge will enable a leader to develop a critical mind/spirit towards issues affecting his/her subjects and, as such, will be able to bring commitment to bear in leadership. This is how the dialectic engenders our understanding of commitment and leadership in this work. Fundamentally, Kierkegaard‟s dialectic is tied to the concept of the individual, which is the focus of existentialism. A detailed exposition of existentialism shall be undertaken in our next sub-topic titled

“Existentialism: How it Contributed to Kierkegaard‟s Thought.”

2.5 EXISTENTIALISM: HOW IT CONTRIBUTED TO KIERKEGAARD’S

THOUGHT

The discourse on existentialism here is meant to articulate the essential features of existentialism as a prelude to an in-depth understanding of Kierkegaard‟s philosophy.

Existentialism, as a philosophical movement, came on stream in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries on a rescue mission for man, especially his moral dimension and the nature of his existence in the world. As a philosophy of human existence, it has its precursor in the likes of

Socrates, St. Augustine, and Blaise Pascal. For instance, Pascal, a French mathematician and philosopher, happened to be among the foremost thinkers who in the history of ideas reflected on the human condition. He was as a precursor to existentialism. His major work, Pensees,

86 provides a good introduction to existentialism. Two aspects of his thought revealed this assertion. In his Pensees, we have the phenomenological descriptive approach to individual existence. Many of the recurring themes of existentialism or existentialist thought are found there. Beck (1969:439) cites these two aspects of his works as follows:

(1) The problem of knowing oneself concretely, the distrust of science and reason for existential concerns, the uncertainties of existence, the nothingness of man‟s being, the elusiveness of finality, the reality of temporality and change and man‟s corruption- his untruth,- as revealed in disguise, falsehood and hypocrisy….”

(2) …. “Man is a riddle, a paradox, as spirit, his reality is found in his passion for eternal, as natural, his being is an in-significant speck between two infinities.

The second quotation from his Pensees above is ontological in that Pascal offers us a view of man as spirit and yet as spirit in nature. The above excerpt from Pascal‟s Pensees indeed was a catalyst to the birth of existentialism which Kierkegaard the “spiritual ancestor, though not of course, its sufficient cause, of existentialism” (Copleston, 1963:122) eventually originated through his articulate provocative thought. The Socratic dictum, man-know-thy-self and St

Augustine‟s philosophical or psychological introspectionism and Rene Descartes‟ cogito ego sum were all attempts made by ancient, medieval, and modern thinkers alike to kick-start the doctrine of existentialism. Their views at best represent half-hearted attempts to direct their thoughts toward man and his inwardness, though they did not dwell extensively on man‟s existential dimension in an elaborate form. Kierkegaard is the well known “progenitor of all existentialist thinkers. He was the first in modern times who consciously and deliberately strove to think existentially” (Rohde, 1963:149). Fully aware of the fact that life can only be understood backwards but lived forwards, which means that there can never be a complete system of philosophy, since man cannot stand outside the movement of life and understand it,

“it can only be understood in that movement which is continually seized by decision and the action which qualifies thought” (Dru, 1958:23). Kierkegaard was actually the one who

87 articulated and elaborated widely on man‟s existential nature. He laid the themes upon which subsequent existentialist thoughts were built. He is properly regarded today as the father of existentialism because he gave existentialism an explicit formulation.

Thus, existentialism as a branch of philosophy (contemporary) is the movement in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries‟ philosophies that addresses fundamental problems of human existence. The existentialist thinkers of the 19th and 20th centuries include:

The Danish protestant theologian and philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, the German atheist Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Jaspers, the German psychologist and philosophers, the German fundamental ontologist, Martin Heidegger, the French Catholic philosophers, critic and playwright, Gabriel Marcel, the French Feminist philosopher and novelist, Simone de Beauvoir, and the French phenomenologist and critic of objective thought, Maurice Merleau- Ponty, Martin Buber, Albert Camus, Nikolai Berdyaev and Jean-Paul Sartre (Priest, 2001:20; Unah, 1996:vi).

Their main thrust is human existence, that is, what does it mean to exist? What is it that exists? Does existence have a purpose? Is there objective difference between right and wrong?

Are we free? Are we responsible for our action? What is the right sort of religious and political commitment? How should we face death? As a continental or European philosophy, existentialism, which took its root from the anti-rationalist stand of the above philosophers, is reputed for its robustness and vitality and also for stinging the conscience of speculative metaphysics (ontology) to revert philosophy to the service of concrete human needs. The above philosophers opposed “the depersonalization of human life, the functionalization of man, the loss of selfhood and a sense of community, the hopeless surrender to endless desires and the denial of individual freedom by various devices” (Unah,1996:vi). As a branch of philosophy, is existentialism definable? In other words, what is existentialism? The point to note is this: existentialism poses difficulty in terms of a definition. The difficulty stems from the fact that existentialism as a doctrine or movement is “not a homogeneous school or a

88 coherent system of philosophy” (Unah, 2002a:84). This means that existentialism is not a body of doctrine, system or school; rather it is way of doing philosophy. In the words of

Johnson (2002), existentialism can be described as “a mood within philosophy that emphasizes the concrete and particular existence of man in the world.”

Charlesworth (1975:722) quotes Raymond Aaron as saying that existentialism has two possible meanings: “Either it is a special philosophy or a special way of philosophizing, or it is a very specific social movement.” Existentialist, despite their non- homogenous nature, is viewed as belonging to a single philosophical movement partly because of certain common themes such:

As human subjectivity, anguish, dread, freedom, choice responsibility, facticity, finitude, nothingness, anxiety, guilt, death, essence, and existence (are common to them) and partly because they all make human existence the focal point of philosophy. But their treatment of these themes is so different as to render existentialism a concealment of “vague generalities”. Similarly, their attitude to such matters as religion and politics exhibit considerable divergence (Unah, 1996:29-30).

Though the approach to this theme may differ, they pervade their philosophy. Thus, “even if one or two writers who are both rightly called existentialist differ enormously in doctrine, they can be placed in the same family tree” (Maclintyre,1967:147). Still, what they have in common is the concern for human life and human situation. This perhaps may have informed

May‟s (1958b:11) description or definition that existentialism is “the endeavour to understand man by cutting below the cleavage between subject and object.” To this end, existentialism has been characterized as: “A movement of protest, a diagnosis of man‟s predicament, a belief in the primacy of existence, an emphasis on man‟s subjective experience, a recognition of freedom and responsibility, and emphasis on human weakness and necessity”( Titus,

1970:299-303).These characteristics, as delineated by Titus, form the fulcrum of existentialist

89 philosophy. However, due to the difficulty in arriving at a univocal definition, various scholars have adopted a subjective approach to describing or defining the concept. For instance, Sartre (1956:288) in his popular work Existentialism is a Humanism defines existentialism as, “a doctrine that does render life possible; a doctrine also which affirms that every action implies both an environment and a human subjectivity.” To Barrett (1962:145), existentialism “is a philosophy that confronts the human situation in totality, to ask what the basic conditions of human existence are and how man can establish his own meaning out of this condition.”

Etymologically, the term existentialism was coined from the Latin word “Ex-sistere,” which originally meant “to standout” and from the English verb “to exist.” But, to Kierkegaard,

„existentialism‟ or its etymological meaning does not simply mean “to exist” or “to be.”

Rather, the difference becomes clearer when the etymological meaning is stressed “Ex- sistere” which means “to stand out from” (Kierkegaard, 1941: xviii). Philosophically stated,

“to exist” means “to emerge or standout from the background as something really there, to exist is to stand out from nothing” (Macquarrie, 1983:6). Macquarrie (1987:13) demonstrates this by saying that, “a cup on the table for example, exists as a particular item in the world and its existence is presented to me as a fact to be accepted.” All this, Macquarrie noted, is summed up in the word “Existence.” In fact, Jean Wahl says in “The Roots of Existentialism:

An Introduction,” in Essays in Existentialism, that the word “existence,” in the philosophic connotation which it has today, was first used by Kierkegaard” (Cited in Sartre, 1977:3). This means that Kierkegaard was the first philosopher to focus his thought on existence. Existence, to Kierkegaard (1941: 469), means “the striving of a person to fulfill himself. It is not an

90 abstract sudden flow, but a steady striving, a continuous meanwhile.” And that men must strive to actualize their individuality points to the fact that there is a tension within man‟s very being. But in existentialism the term existence is restricted only to the existence of human beings. More importantly, “it is the way which begins by interrogating existence, whereby

“existence” is understood as the kind of being that belongs to man in his concrete living, acting and deciding” (Macquarrie, 1981:351). The uniqueness of human existence is that any man is always on his way, he is always standing before possibilities of decision. His being is always in bits or fractional. Only human beings can exist. When we talk of existence in this sense, we mean something having real and not merely possible existence. It means that the existent exists somewhere concretely. To exist is to occupy place in the real, temporal world.

A thing exists only when it takes leave of what is in order to establish itself.

In fact, Macquarrie (1983:61) goes further to assert that to say anything “exists” is simply to point to the fact that it is. Existence is characterized by particularity and also by a sheer givenness”. Existence, therefore, is characterized by the concreteness and particularity of a thing. However, Donceel (1967:8) gave existence a materialist definition, according to which

“it means that which makes a being exist: that which makes a thing real.” For Nyong

(1995:18), existentialism means “the philosophical attitude which consists in the clarification and the realization of the significance of existence as such. And by existence, one means the mode of being which is specific and originally of man, and irreducible to that of any other entity, thing, or object subsisting.” This means that the philosophy of existentialism applies only to the human being who “strives, who considers alternatives, who chooses, who decides

91 and who, above all, commits himself” to certain ways of life” (Stumpf, 1977:462). Hence, it advocates for the active participation of a person in shaping his life which is here and now.

Existentialism is, in one strand of its development at least, a reaction against the speculative idealism of Hegel. It was a philosophical tradition that vigorously questioned and assaulted the philosophical culture of pre-20th century era for its abstract speculations and its over- reliance on a logical system. Hence, the word “existentialism” in Kierkegaard‟s usage is a rejection of all purely abstract thinking of a purely logical or scientific philosophy. Alluding to this change of emphasis from abstract thinking to concrete realities, Roubiczek (1964:10) writes:

Existentialism is a rejection of all purely abstract thinking, of a purely logical or scientific philosophy; in short, a rejection of the absoluteness of reason. Instead it insists that philosophy should be connected with the historical situation in which it finds himself, and that it should be, not interesting abstract speculation, but a way of life. It should be a philosophy capable of being lived.

Existentialism was a contemporary revolutionary movement that offered a completely new face to philosophy. Philosophy, the existentialists argued, should be an enterprise that must be lived. It must not be separated from the spectacular human being. Life, the existentialist maintained, is not something you can label and keep on the shelf for periodic inspection. It has to be lived to be understood in the exercise of freedom. Thus, in Kierkegaard‟s existentialism, it is relevant to observe that he presents an existential analysis of the three alternative spheres of existence, namely: the aesthetic, ethical and religious stages. He shows in these stages how an individual human being develops different levels of his existence and finally comes to establish his authentic self in the religious stage. His extreme theism leads one to think of the religious sphere of existence as the goal of human existence. As a result, he upholds what has been called religious individualism in which one of the most important

92 characteristics of authenticity is that the individual must realize his being or authentic self from deep commitment based on faith and intense passion to do what is of God. And that decision is right only for the individual.

Existentialism was the most influential philosophical movement of the 20th Century. Hence,

Tillich (1944:44-70) described it as “an over one-hundred-year-old movement of rebellion against the dehumanization of man in industrial society.” This rebellion has been seen as coming to the fore because “the solutions proposed by Hegel and Marx proved ineffective for overcoming the fact of alienation” (Heinemann, 1958:12). It is correct to describe it more as a movement rather than as a school, because it does not subscribe to the same doctrine as

Platonism, Thomism, Rationalism, Kantianism, Hegelianism, etc. It is a new kind of movement in philosophy by philosophers who are existentially minded, from whom a number of different schools derive their origin. Hence, a famous existentialist says: “The movement is not a school of philosophy but rather it should be seen as a style of philosophizing. They do not believe in abstract speculation but rather they are interested in concrete human existence.

Their philosophizing begins from man rather than from nature” (Macquarrie, 1983:14). As a modern philosophical movement, it relates intimately to man, the world, spirit, nature, thought and action. Members of this movement are primarily interested in the nature of human existence. Principally, existentialism takes human existence as the point of departure for philosophy. In this sense, it vents its anger on rationalism that emphasizes only the role of the intellect in understanding reality. Man is not only part of reality, but the very being from whom the understanding of reality should start. Rather than see man as the basis of reality, man was being replaced from “an “I” into an “it,” “subjects” into “objects,” from “person”

93 into “pronouns” (Stumpf, 1977:460). This philosophical movement was actually a baby of

Denmark, Germany and France. Its development in continental Europe the during eighteenth and nineteenth centuries brought a kind of respite for man because his essence had been over taken by existence.

In Being and Nothingness, Sartre (1956: 289) means by “existence precedes essence” that

“man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world and defines himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist sees him is not definable, it is because to begin with, he/she is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he/she will be what he makes of himself.” This contention that “existence precedes essence” is one of the salient features of existentialism. In fact, “existence precedes essence” was actually Kierkegaard‟s coinage and not Sartre‟s. The position of the existentialists in emphasizing existence over essence is based on their honest belief that human existence captures the totality of man - that is, what the individual does, his feelings, emotions, his basic desire, his associations, etc, are all that make up his existence. Winn (1960:29) quotes Heidegger as saying that “the essence of man lies in his existence.” In the words of Jaspers (1962:10), “existential philosophy is the mode of thinking…. in which man longs to become himself. This illuminates and brings to bear the thinker‟s own being… it appeals to man‟s freedom as clarification of existence.” As a philosophy of human existence and being, existentialism wishes to restore a connection between abstract thinking and the individual‟s concrete experience of the self (individual) and the world. This individual is the starting point of existentialist philosophy and it is this problem that engages the interest of all existentialists. It is with this conception that existentialism does not advocate “a universal code of conduct for persons to observe”

94 (Abwire, 2006:129). This is because in the philosophy of existentialism, everyone finds himself in unique situations and faces the situations differently. Still, despite its contribution to man‟s awareness of its distinctive features, existentialism has been accused of subjectivism and irrationalism. The charge of subjectivism is more fundamental. This is because existentialism begins or starts from the situation of the existing individual despite the fact that his existence is not that of an isolated subject but of existence in the world.

However, existentialist philosophers are of two distinct camps - theistic and atheistic. Theistic

(Christian) existentialists, among whom were Soren Kierkegaard, Gabriel Marcel, Karl

Jaspers, etc; and atheistic (non-Christian) existentialists among whom were Friedrich

Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre and of course, Martin Heidegger even though he was not a self- professed atheist or theist. The theistic or Christian existentialists, according to Unah

(1996:31), maintain an attitude which is best described as “philosophical faith.” For them, each individual is to establish a relationship with God freely through pure subjectivity. They oppose and reject any universally laid down code of values. The atheistic ones, on the other hand, believe that there is no God. For example, while Nietzsche declared God‟s death, Sartre expressed the absence of God and thus argued that it was God‟s absence that made human beings free. Now, how does Kierkegaard‟s existentialism engender our understanding of commitment and leadership in this work?

The relevance of existentialism to the understanding of commitment and leadership is not in doubt because the entire thesis is built on existentialism taking into consideration the philosopher, Kierkegaard, whose views we are analyzing and reinterpreting for proper

95 application. Kierkegaard is the acclaimed father of modern existentialism. More importantly, the notion of “commitment” which the research seeks to adopt to address the problem of commitment in political leadership is borne out of his existential thought. In addition to that, existentialism as a philosophy of human existence deals with human existential problems.

Fundamentally, existentialism is a philosophy that confronts the human situation in totality in order to create meaning out of it. It emphasizes a life of thorough-going engagement and involvement as the surest way of creating meaning for human existence (Stumpf, 1977:467).

Its message is that philosophy should address the concrete problems of human existence

(Unah, 2002a:104). Basically, existentialism emphasizes the restoration of human dignity in totality. It stresses action and responsibility. Leadership is necessitated by the desire to improve human well-being in society. The improvement of human welfare is one way of restoring human dignity. Therefore, a leader with the knowledge of existentialism will know that leadership is not for fun but a means of alleviating human existential problems like provision of shelter, food, security of life and property, provision of job opportunities, and creating an enabling environment, etc. Leadership is not about talk or dress code, but about action. Existentialism is concerned with human action. And basically, action is shorthand for leadership performance as measured by such acts as policies and decisions. Thus, setting the right political action requires commitment. In fact, a connection exists between existentialism and government. For instance, as apolitical as Kierkegaard was, he was a staunch conservative and he supported monarchical government; Heidegger was a Nazi and Sartre took sides with the communists. Thus, these men or thinkers brought their existentialist views of reality to bear on government of their time. Existentialism is about human welfare just as leadership is.

This is how existentialism engenders our understanding of commitment and leadership. By

96 and large, existentialism is a philosophical movement that focuses its attention on humans‟ existential problems. It wants individual human beings to relate their thoughts to the concrete reality of human existence (life). We shall make a detailed analysis of Kierkegaard‟s notion of existence and thought in our next sub-topic titled “Existence and Thought.”

2.6 EXISTENCE AND THOUGHT

The question of thought and existence was part of those background issues that informed

Kierkegaard‟s philosophy. In effect, his philosophy revolved around thought and existence. In fact, his absorbing interest in human existence led him to stress existence concretely. When

Kierkegaard talked about existence, what he meant was existence in a moral or ethical sense and not existence in the abstract sense of Hegel - the father of abstract thought. Existence and thought are the driving force in Kierkegaard‟s philosophy. His main concern is existence, existence in the sense in which you and I exist. Hartnack (1987:299) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that to exist is:

To be subjective. The objective is the universal, the general and the timeless. To be objective, therefore, is to abolish existence. To exist is to be subjective and to be subjective involves a decision. A person may look upon himself objectively, that is, he may in an objective way explain why he is as he is. He observes and understands a certain fact. But the subjective person does not explain why he is as he is. The subjective person affirms himself, he chooses himself. And by choosing himself and taking the responsibility for himself he becomes guilty. Guilt, then, is a necessary condition of existence.

Existing was of primary significance to him because he wanted people to be deeply involved and be rooted in existence. Ogbonna (2005: 6) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that it seems,

“human beings and philosophical sciences seem to have forgotten what it means to exist, forgotten the values associated with existence and forgotten the individual.” Existence for

Kierkegaard has a peculiar meaning when it is used to refer to human existence. To „exist‟ “is to be an actor and not simply a spectator in the drama of life. It involves personal choice and self commitment to a certain way of life” (Omoregbe, 1991b:156). He was actually concerned

97 with the problem of what it means really to exist as a human being. Fundamentally,

Kierkegaard‟s main question is: How does one exist as a true Christian? This question can be broadened to read: How does one exist as a true human being? As a true scholar? As a true leader? Indeed, Kierkegaard stands tall as the philosopher who inaugurated the philosophy of human existence. He was ably represented by Karl Jaspers. Hence, Heidegger (1949: 30) characterized his own attitude towards Kierkegaard as follows:

In the nineteenth century S. Kierkegaard expressly seized upon and penetratingly thought out the problem of existence as an existential one. But the existentialistic kind of problem (problematic) is so alien to him that he is entirely under the sway of Hegel and of the ancient philosophy seen through him, in ontological respect. Therefore, more can be learnt philosophically from his edifying writings than from the theoretical ones-with the exception of the treatise on The Concept of Dread.

Thus, the distinction between “existential and existentialistic is a fundamental one. Therefore, according to Heidegger, when Kierkegaard criticized Hegel on the ground that Hegel had omitted the problem of the actual existence of the individual human being in his philosophy, his aim “was primarily not a “theoretical” one but he wished by his “existential” elucidations to serve and to guide other people in their conduct of life” (Ibid.). Consequently, Kierkegaard scorned the systematic ontology of Hegel as something between story and fraud. He argued that for the question of Being and Time to have meaning, it must be worked out concretely with attention to historically relevant problems.

Thus, Kierkegaard presents his conception of existence and thought in his most philosophical book, Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1941), a work intended as a direct challenge to every attempt to create a system of existence, a rational and harmonious scheme of man and things. Even the clarification of existence in Jaspers‟ (1962) philosophy takes fundamentally the same approach. However, Heidegger‟s interest in existence is essentially different from

98 that of either Kierkegaard or Jaspers. Heidegger regarded the issue of existence as his task to analyze Dasein (man) ontologically, as had not been done by the Greeks and was never attempted afterwards. Meanwhile, the existentialists restrict existence to only human beings.

Consequently, they label their philosophy, a philosophy of human existence and accordingly preoccupied themselves with human existence. What then is existence? What does it mean?

And what does Kierkegaard mean by saying existence “is the state of being actual” (Titus,

1970: 301). It means one concrete individual being here and now. It possesses a subjective quality and it always precedes essence. Kierkegaard sees existence as individual and subjective. Collins (1953: 147) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that by existence is meant exclusively, “a finite temporal mode of being which is essentially subject to becoming.” As a result of this, he did not apply the term “existence” to God whom he considered in His own eternal mode of being. Existence is not the humanity of man but this man, John whom I know or this particular horse which I possess and love. On the other hand, essence is in contrast to that which distinguishes a thing from other types of object. It is simply that which makes, “a thing what it is” (Titus, 1970:301). What a thing is we call its essence. Essence in actual fact refers to the true nature of things, the humanness of man, the horseness of a horse. It can be considered in an abstract way as contrary to existence.

In the light of the above, Kierkegaard argued, existence cannot be understood systematically but only in the ethical choice since it is a lived phenomenon. He understood existence from the perspective of morality. Therefore, his philosophy of existence is a subjective existential thought. And in contrast to Hegel‟s universalism, he focused his philosophy on the concreteness of existence (i.e. on the realness of individual human existence). To this end, he

99 argued that existence was not flattened out on the graph paper of analysis but comes alive in the movement of a drama - some of which is yet to be lived. He insisted that existence “is contingent, is in time, and is characterized by resolute repetitious “movement” from possibility to actuality in constant striving” (Shmueli & Stack, 1972:286). More importantly, his emphasis on existence and thought is meant to argue the point that existence cannot be captured by any system of thought because existential life calls for struggle, endurance and courage in the face of distress for a rugged disposition. To Kierkegaard, existence is a moral concept that must be lived and not to be thought. Palmer (2001:246) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that:

To think is one thing, to exist is another,” said Kierkegaard. I can think and say many things about myself- “l am a teacher, I am a man, I am an American, I am in love, I prefer chocolate to vanilla.” Yet, when I am done talking and thinking about myself, there is one thing remaining that cannot be thought- my existence, which is a “surd” (an irrational residue), I cannot think it. Rather, I must live it.

What we can gather from the quotation above as stated by Kierkegaard regarding the relationship between existence and thought is that when all the roles such as teacher, man, an

American, in love, and preferring chocolate to vanilla, as he rightly suggested, have been stripped or taken away, what is actually left is my existence and it is this existence which

Kierkegaard insisted could not be thought but had to be lived. This is so, because my lived existence (your lived existence) is identical or equivalent with passion, decision, and action.

As such, none of these states or structures, according to Kierkegaard, can be emptied by thought. Thus, in view of what Kierkegaard has said about existence and thought so far, does it mean that existence and thought have nothing in common? Is there any connection between existence and thought?

100 Of course, they both have something in common and as such, a relationship exists between them (i.e. existence and thought). That is why Kierkegaard made a declarative statement that existence must be interpenetrated with thought for it to have ethical value. Thought is natural to human beings but this thought, Kierkegaard noted, must be related to concrete reality

(existence). This means that we cannot dream of ethics or morality in the absence of existence and thought. The kind of thought he is referring to here is not the abstract thought he accused

Hegel of, but rather, “an existential probing” that “dedicates itself more and more profoundly to the task of existing and with the consciousness of what existence is, penetrates all illusions, becoming more and more concrete through reconstructing existence in action” (Kierkegaard,

1941:315,387). And existence, he reiterated, is not an abstract acceleration but rather it is a

“steady striving and a continuous meanwhile” (Ibid. p.469). Kierkegaard actually demanded a strict separation of essence and existence. Existence, to him, means “the personal existence of the subjective thinker and the subjective thinker is distinguishable by the inwardness of his conscious direction and by his involvement in the situation of human choice” (Levi,

1956:134). Hence, he says, thought can be understood as the action or process of thinking. It could also mean to think. Thought and being are not as the Hegelian philosophy assumes, but thought bears the same relation to reality that a plan not yet realized bears to its actual realization. This does not mean that reality is to be identified with the bare external fact, for the motive, the inner interpretation, the idea, the subjective attitude, is the life of every decision, and he who clings to the external fact alone is content with an empty shell.

Thus, in Kierkegaard‟s existentialism, existence is subjective because he observes in philosophy that the self (i.e. the individual) is regarded as the knower and therefore, the state

101 of subjectivity is the state of knowledge. This means that as an existential subject, a human being can be seen as a “concrete subject.” Hence, Kierkegaard preferred to begin from existence and to keep to it, so that the real things are kept intact, as intact as they occur in our actual personal experience. Existence is “self-making–in-situation” and it is in contrast to other entities, whose essential properties are fixed by the kind of entities they are. The human person is not fixed by his/her type but by what he/she makes of him/herself or who he/she becomes. Thus, the main contribution of existential thought lies in the idea that one‟s identity is constituted neither by nature nor by culture, since to “exist” is precisely to constitute such an identity. Traditional philosophers tied the concept of existence to that of essence in such a way that existence represents an abstraction. Then, the question is, how does Kierkegaard‟s notion of existence and thought contribute to our understanding of commitment and leadership?

From their meanings, we can deduce their relevance to our understanding of commitment and leadership. Existence, in simple terms, means “life” or the “state of being actual” while thought means “to think.” Thought is natural to human beings but this thought, Kierkegaard noted, must be related to concrete reality (existence). According to him, existence cannot be thought but has to be lived. This means that we must show it in our decisions and actions.

This is where the relationship between existence and thought becomes obvious. It means that our thought process must be grounded in existence, that is, by relating it to actual situations

(concrete reality). When this is narrowed down to commitment and leadership, it will help a leader to know that leadership is not about theorizing alone but also about doing (practical).

Leadership must be real, practical. It means bringing leadership to practical reality in the lives

102 of the people. Therefore, to be a leader is to be an actor. It is not about bearing or wearing the title „leader‟ in its abstract sense. A leader is meant to affect life positively, that is, bring the essence of leadership to bear on the lives of the people. Only through commitment can a leader do this successfully. This is how existence and thought contribute to our understanding of commitment and leadership. However, it is fitting to note that existence thrives on faith while thought thrives on reason. Both are necessary for human existence. In the light of the above, a detailed exposition of faith and reason will be undertaken in the next sub-topic titled

“Faith and Reason.”

2.7 KIERKEGAARD’S NOTION OF FAITH AND REASON

The impossibility of marriage between faith and reason was a recurrent decimal in

Kierkegaard‟s existential philosophy. In other words, Kierkegaard‟s thought was essentially and dogmatically centered on his view of faith. To him, faith remained the only means of being sustained amidst the uncertainty of life and as such, he stressed faith rather than reason.

His authenticity as a Christian thinker rested squarely on his absolute reliance on faith over and above reason (i.e., rationality). Right from his early years as a theology student in the university down to the hostile years of public strife, Kierkegaard never stopped searching into the relationship between faith and reason. He made this probing a strong task in his universal agenda of the basic Christian terms. Therefore, in assessing Kierkegaard‟s abiding relevance or importance, we must take into account his thoughts on the mutual connection between

Christian faith and human reason. Without negating the influence of Kierkegaard‟s position upon more recent theological developments, our focus must therefore be directed primarily towards his own views.

103

Thus, the protest that Kierkegaard is rendering is essentially concerned with the limits to which some philosophers assign reason and not with reason and rationality in our understanding of the concepts. In fact, his protest, “is not against reason and rationality per se but within the area of religion” (Sutherland, 1984:43). This means that Kierkegaard in actual fact did not debunk reason and speculation altogether; rather, he was only “warning against the rigid rationalism of Hegel” (Martin, 1967:733). The above explanation became necessary because of the wrong impression created that Kierkegaard rejected reason in place of faith by some scholars. Thus, the unmistakable point that must be clear to any reader of Kierkegaard is that Kierkegaard‟s existential philosophy is based entirely on the either/or leap of faith.

For Kierkegaard, only the leap of faith will resolve one‟s existential dilemma and enable one to become truly free to live an authentic human life. Consequently, he says, it is in faith that man begins to exist authentically. Therefore, to him, faith “is everything” (Kierkegaard,

1954:42). In fact, in his book Sickness unto Death Kierkegaard (1946:132) defines faith as

“the self in being itself and in willing to be itself is grounded transparently in God.” To

Barrett (1958: 93) faith “is faith, vital and indescribable.” Faith is “the acceptance of certain beliefs by a deliberate act of will” (Hick, 1990:59). In Kraushaar‟s (1942:102) words, faith is

“the acceptance of ideals which are theoretically indemonstrable reality of freedom.” To

Billington (1990:118-119), faith is “believing where we cannot prove” or could also be seen as “consisting in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.” It means to hold fast to a conviction in the face of a lack of objective justification or grounds. In this sense,

Kierkegaard (1954:64) defined faith simply “as the paradox.” Westphal (1999:54) agrees with

104 Kierkegaard that faith is paradoxical because “it involves learning what reason cannot discover.” It means giving approval to something that appears intrinsically contrary to reason, which is an offence to the understanding itself. Hence, he says that faith essentially involves a personal venture or risk. Basically, faith is “belief without proof” (Shipka & Minton,

1996:76). We exercise faith when we embrace a belief for which we lack proof. Proof means evidence sufficient to show that the belief is true.

In summary, faith as paradox means, “the absolute acceptance of an apparent contradiction, but one to which the individual is impelled by his pain of personal guilt. It involves going beyond reason, experience and feeling, all of which would hold a man back from his final plunge of faith in the absolute paradox” (Martin, 1946:42). Existentially, Kierkegaard is mainly concerned with the “How” of faith and not with the “what” of faith. This means accepting the absolute paradox not as a blind intellectual belief, but accepting it in the sense of placing one‟s whole existence for time and eternity upon it, even though it mocks all canons of logical and experimental possibility. Kierkegaard illustrated it with Abraham‟s call by God to sacrifice his only son Isaac in spite of the fact that He (God) had promised Abraham the birth of a child. Contrary to the widely held view, Kierkegaard maintained, faith is not the result of seeing the truth, but the living and essential factor in apprehending God‟s truth.

Hence, Ogbonna (2008:82) says, faith is thus “a leap into the \absurdity of the unknown. The soul having reached the stage where all else has failed meaning gulf, stops and dares the final bound. This final bound, if attempted, brings man into a new world. Yet, even here, there is no question of finality for one is not only saved by it, but must also live by faith.”

105 In fact, Kierkegaard was confronted with a peculiar kind of rationalism which embraces or grasps faith forcefully to itself leading to the destruction of faith in the clasp. In view of this compulsory marriage, Kierkegaard boldly declared that faith which leads to religious truth could never be reconciled with an absolute brand of research. Hence, he advanced a distinction between “doctrine or philosophical exposition of faith and an existential communication, after the manner of a subjective truth” (Kierkegaard, 1941:339). By allusion,

Kierkegaard was dissatisfied with the ordinary doctrinal treatment of faith because it failed to provoke a practical response and, also, because an ordinary apologetical method betrayed a lack of confidence in faith. To this end, he stressed that the proper object of faith is “not a doctrine but a life, a person” (Gurrey, 1991:505). Faith, to him, means complete surrender and so he argues that “to make the movements of faith, (I must) shut my eyes and plunge confidently into the absurd; I must take the risk of jumping into the abyss” (Kierkegaard,

1954:44). Consequently, he emphasized, faith requires leaping into the unknown for it to be meaningful. In other words, faith is “a leap into the absurd; confidence a jump into a void empty of reasons for hope” (Jolivet, 1946:115-116). Based on the above exposition, can we say that a relationship exists between faith and reason? Or can they be reconciled?

Thomas Aquinas‟ “Great Compromise” (Mann, 1998:326), was a beautiful attempt to reconcile faith and reason. By this, Aquinas meant to show that both theology (faith) and philosophy (reason) use reason to develop their different subject matter into a clear and comprehensible body of knowledge. But Kierkegaard rejected this attempt by Aquinas on the ground that it under-estimated the radical “leap” that religious faith requires. Buttressing

Kierkegaard‟s assertion, Mann adds that to conceive faith in the understanding of Aquinas is

106 “to succumb to the temptation to base faith on evidence, whether that evidence is historical

(such as the testimony of miraculous events) or scientific (such as the evidence that the world is only finitely old). But the evidence will always be less than conclusive whereas the passion of faith is infinite” (Mann, ibid. p.329). To this end, Kierkegaard insisted, as long as one is guided by cannons of objectivity under conditions of incomplete or unclear evidence, one will endlessly defer forming a religious conviction, refusing to take the “risk.” In fact, Kierkegaard conjectures that from the point of view of natural objectivity, faith can only appear absurd. He cited Abraham as one individual whose complete trust (reliance) in God, as demonstrated by his total resolve to sacrifice his son Isaac, at God‟s command, was an example of faith that is absolute and absurd and which further showed how unrelated faith is to objective inquiry.

Thus, contrary to Aquinas‟ position, Kierkegaard, the archenemy of absolute rationality, argued for a complete disconnection between faith and reason. According to him, faith does not require any proof from philosophy in order to qualify as faith; rather, a faith unimpeded by rational proofs is much more secured and genuine than one which looks to the proof of reason for validation. Therefore, to him, understanding destroys faith. Hence, he says:

Here is the crux of the matter and I come back to the case of the learned theology. For whose sake is it that the proof is sought? Faith does not need it; aye, it must even regard the proof as its enemy. But when faith begins to feel embarrassed and ashamed, like a young woman for whom her love is no longer sufficient, but who secretly feels ashamed of her lover and must therefore have it established that there is something remarkable about him - when faith thus begins to lose its passion. When faith begins to cease to be faith, then a proof becomes necessary so as to command respect from the side of unbelief (Kierkegaard, 1941:31).

From the above quotation, it is clear to us that faith does not require any rational proof to remain faith except it is not faith in the first place. Hence, Kierkegaard contended that, he did not need a rational proof for the existence of God before he could establish His existence because faith for him was an existential (irrational) concept. To this end, Carnell (1965:12)

107 remarked that not only is faith the leading existential determinant but it occupies such an important position in Kierkegaard‟s overall worldview that it seems to be the condition of inwardness in relation to which all other conditions are defined, but which eludes definition itself. Therefore, commenting on Kierkegaard‟s notion of faith, Lowrie (1938:319) had this to say:

Do not tell me that what I have said about S.K‟s notion of faith is inadequate. I know that very well. How could it be adequate seeing that Soren Kierkegaard without essential exaggeration affirms that the immense literature he produced had only one theme, namely, faith: and that from beginning to the end his whole effort had been to define what faith is.

The above quotation from Lowrie does not in any away affect Kierkegaard‟s argument on the incompatibility between faith and reason. Kierkegaard held that a man who wanted to be saved through faith must rise above reason. He, like father Tertullian, placed the man of faith above the man of reason. It is not faith beyond reason, but against reason. Therefore, there is conflict and this conflict means that reason does not aid faith because reason can never comprehend what faith believes. Christianity is “a mystery and cannot be grasped by human reason” (Perkins, 2004:56).This is the basis of Kierkegaard‟s argument and thus, he stressed the absurd and the paradoxical nature of faith.

Consequently, from the point of view of reason, any faith, including the faith in reason itself according to Barrett (1958:93), is paradoxical since “faith and reason are fundamentally different functions of the human psyche. But the paradoxical quality of Christian faith is further intensified by its specific content, “that the Son of God became man, died and rose from the dead.” Hence, it is interesting to know that what Kierkegaard sought to do on the issue of incompatibility between faith and reason was to contrast as strikingly as possible a living religious (or what one may call existential faith) with every kind of rational knowledge.

108 For him, faith belongs to a sphere of its own and it is higher than human reason and human knowledge. It is in view of this Kierkegaardian position that one takes his concept of paradox which he says faith entails “as an expression for what is suprarationem rather than for what is contrarationem” (Soe, 1962:209). Thus, for Kierkegaard, the act of faith implies a total break with the rationality of the immediate and requires the passage into a sphere which is absolutely incommensurable with that of the natural man even though he is the most gifted genius. The act of faith requires therefore, a leap which carries man into a sphere where the criteria of the finite world lose all value. This confirms Kierkegaard‟s assertion that faith can never be reconciled with reason because both belong to different spheres in human life. This means that Christianity cannot be united with philosophy and, as such, he says: “A way from speculation, away from the system “and back to reality” (Kierkegaard, 1941: 116). This is the point where Walter Lowrie says modern existential philosophy derives its theme from Soren

Kierkegaard.

In conclusion, we argue on our part that faith and reason need each other since man uses them to acquires knowledge of the world, physically and spiritually in order to bring about a complete personality and so, the tension is unnecessary because where reason stops there faith begins. This means that a relationship does exist between faith and reason. While faith is simply to believe against the understanding that we believe without any objective evidence, reason is to believe with objective evidence. From the exposition, does faith conflict with reason? And if so, does it mean that reason has no part to play in the passion of faith? Is all understanding rejected in favour of a “blind faith?” Is the role of the understanding concluded after it has demonstrated that faith defies reason? Kierkegaard‟s objection to Hegelianism is

109 on the ground of Hegel‟s rationalization of faith. Therefore, Kierkegaard‟s response to Hegel established the direction for a de-idealized conception of humanity and “anthropologized” philosophy by transforming the question of being into a question of concrete human existence.

Thus, Kierkegaard came to the conclusion that the search for philosophical proofs for religious beliefs was confused. Hence, he opposed unreservedly Hegel‟s attempt “to bring about a fusion of philosophy and religion” (Phillips, 974:299). Here, the question arises: how does Kierkegaard‟s notion of faith and reason engender our understanding of commitment and leadership?

The relevance of faith and reason to the understanding of commitment and leadership cannot be over-emphasized because they constitute the foundation upon which commitment and true leadership are founded. This means that commitment is impossible without faith and reason since faith itself entails reason. In the understanding that faith and reason engender commitment, it means that once a leader is able to marry them together in discharging his/her duties, it becomes easier for the leader to be committed to the basis of leadership irrespective of the challenges involved. Therefore, a true leader must have a genuine reason for making a blind commitment (faith) to the people he/she is leading. Faith and reason enhance a leader‟s degree of resolve to take risk and make sacrifice when necessary in order to accomplish set objectives. So, with the knowledge of faith and reason, a leader knows when to stop rationalizing, i.e., use human effort and embrace faith in order to make the necessary sacrifices and take the risk to address social problems of his/her administration that tend to defy human reason. This is how faith and reason contribute to our understanding of commitment and leadership. However, we must state here quickly that Kierkegaard‟s entire

110 philosophy cannot be understood without discussing Hegel, the philosopher from who he borrowed heavily. This means that knowing Hegel is a prelude to understanding Kierkegaard - hence, our next sub-topic titled “Kierkegaard‟s attack on Hegelianism.”

2.8 KIERKEGAARD’S ATTACK ON HEGELIANISM

Bretall (1946:190) quotes Kierkegaard in his Journals written in 1854 as saying that “… it was intelligence and nothing else that had to be opposed. Presumably that is why 1, who had the job, was armed with an immense intelligence.”

Kierkegaard stood “as an opponent of Hegel and all who seek to find a final, systematic, scientific explanation of human existence and behaviour and who think such an explanation will prove the panacea for all our ills” (Pojman, 1978:1). Hegel, who lived between (1770-

1831) remains one of the few real philosophical giants. He is well described as “a modern

Aristotle” (Rockmore, 1999:533). His thought, like Immanuel Kant‟s, constitutes the peak of

German idealism, a period often held to be one of the two richest in the philosophical tradition. Hegel‟s life and times were shaped by the French Revolution, arguably the most important political event of the modern period. His philosophy is both subtle and obscure, but its far reaching importance cannot be denied. Consequently, Kierkegaard opined in his

Journals: “if Hegel had written the whole of his logic and then said, in the preface, that the whole thing was only an experiment in thought, in which he had even begged the question in many places, then he would probably have been the greatest thinker who ever lived. As it is he is merely comic” (Dru, 1958:90-91).

Despite his remark, he admired Hegel‟s intellectual capacity but maintained that he and his system were totally incapable of furnishing any key to existence for the simple fact that one can never grasp existence abstractly (intellectually). He radically criticized all systems before

111 him and argued in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript that the systematic tendency

“promises everything and keeps nothing” (Kierkegaard, 1941:18). It is on record that many of the foremost philosophers of the twentieth century studied Hegel closely and, in some respects, their own systems were formulated as a reaction to Hegelianism or Hegelian views.

His thought is intellectually provoking because of its abstract nature. Hegel‟s historical importance, according to Stumpf (1977:324), lies in the fact that he “accomplished with extraordinary and systematic thoroughness what Immanuel Kant so recently held could not be done.” For example, Kant had argued that metaphysics was impossible. By this, he meant that it was impossible for the human mind to achieve theoretical knowledge about the whole of reality. Hegel (1967:10), in his reaction, set forth the general proposition that “what is rational is real and what is real is rational.” By this assertion, Hegel is implying, as cited by Omoregbe

(1991b:134), that the “absolute is reason objectifying itself and manifesting itself as the totality of reality.” This means that he can explain the whole of reality through the power of reason alone. This means that Hegel, in his brand of historical thinking, sought to incorporate the whole of history within the compass of reason. Hence, Hegel posits that spirit objectifies itself in human institutions, laws, customs, art and poetry as well as in the sciences and philosophy. By this declaration, Hegel thus immerses man within history with a completeness beyond any previous. It was this confidence in the power of reason to comprehend reality in its entirety that drew Kierkegaard‟s attention.

In view of this Hegelian declaration, Barrett (1964:10) describes him as “a philosopher very much divided against himself. He is at once the last and the first. The last audacious representative of classical rationalism and the first pioneer of a new historical mode of

112 thought.” For Adorno (1973: xv), Hegel proclaimed philosophy a “home coming” “that critically reconciled objective discord and subjective consciousness. His intent was to maintain a meaningful totality by the reflective mediations of critical reason.” This means that

Hegelianism is more than abstract thought in general. As a result, Hegel looked upon institutions not as human creations but “as the product of the dialectic movement of history, of the objective manifestation of rational reality” (Enoch and Fieser, 2003:316). In the words of

Weiss (1974:2), the “truth is the whole,” Hegel says. But this whole is only the process of spirit‟s own development realized in the world and comprehended in thought. Hence, Rohde

(1963:74) avers that “Hegel is neither one thing nor the other but represents a refined

Spinozaism.” This description is very apt since in Spinoza‟s philosophy, all things exist in an all-inclusive system, that is, apart from substance and its modes nothing can exist or be conceived. Hegel‟s thought is indeed a refined Spinozaism. In short, all philosophy, Hegel

(1892:178) wrote “is idealism”. This conceit was intolerable to Kierkegaard.

However, from an ethical point of view, Hegel‟s philosophy, as Kierkegaard shows, “is not a progression but a regression to a type of paganism which existed prior to the time of Socrates.

Pagan Socrates‟ outlook went beyond the much acclaimed views of Hegel. Socrates believed in a higher order of things than the state, and he tried to actualize this conviction in his life”

(Malantschuk, 1963:15). To this end, Hegel with his idea of the state as the highest entity, signalled man‟s flight away from the boundless (eternal) and, as a result, his philosophy created the abstract basis for the deification of the state whereby man is cut off from faith in a transcendent world. It was this Hegel‟s denial of a transcendent reality that made Kierkegaard

(1941:108) declares in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript that Hegel‟s philosophy “has no

113 ethics.” Consequently, he proceeded, “the desperate attempt of Hegel‟s decadent ethics to make the state the ultimate form of the ethical is a highly unethical attempt to eliminate the individual, an unethical flight from the category of individuality into the category of the age or generation” (Kierkegaard, ibid. p. 450). By granting absolute power to the state, Hegel‟s philosophy had supplanted the moral significance of the individual and, in so doing, made the individual feel inferior by eroding his individual moral character.

Thus, a cursory look at Hegel‟s philosophy from the foregoing will immediately reveal that

Hegel‟s philosophy is too rationalistic. First, this rationalistic tendency, according to

Kierkegaard, destroys man‟s possibility or leads to loss of possibility. “The loss of possibility,” wrote Kierkegaard, “signifies... that everything has become necessary to man”

(Olson, (1959:104). Fundamentally, Kierkegaard opposed Hegel in two ways:

(1) By the emphasis laid upon subjectivity, and by the importance assigned to intensity of individual feeling. (2) Kierkegaard‟s insistence upon the idea of possibility. For Hegel, the world is the necessary unfolding of the eternal Idea, and freedom is necessity understood. For Kierkegaard on the contrary, there are real possibilities, and any philosophy which denies them is oppressive, suffocating (Sartre, 1977:7).

By possibility, we mean man‟s capacity or ability to project himself into the future. Our actions as human beings, according to Kierkegaard, are only understandable in a world where possibilities exist. Otherwise, man‟s existential potentials will asphyxiate and, as such, he will not be able to actualize his natural gifts. Second, his philosophy left the basic fundamentals of human existence out of his thought. When examined in detail it would be discovered that there is no room for individual initiative, freedom, choice, responsibility, and, consequently, no room for individual action and commitment. The deterministic nature of his philosophy portrays a situation where man can never be held responsible for wrong deeds because “it strips the individual person of all the facets of unique existence, reducing them to a faceless

114 horde living side-by-side in anonymity” (Hutchens, 2004:14). It thus gives the individual no sense of self-worth and this inevitably makes the individual lack a sense of commitment to duty because of lack of personal initiative in pursuing any particular course of action. As a result, man‟s freedom is lost for it simply makes a mockery of man‟s individuality and uniqueness.

As an antagonist of Hegel, Kierkegaard believed that Hegel‟s fundamental error was “his undervaluation of the concrete individual” (Kenny, 2006:327). Considering that ethics is principally concerned with free actions, this means that if man is not free to take personal initiative concerning certain existential problems of life, then, he is doomed to live a drab life.

Existentialism is against this because it is demeaning. And so, Kierkegaard found it irritating because “the singular human individual threatens to vanish completely in the world-historical development” (Thulstrup et al, 1981:736). Thus, against Hegel‟s abstraction and exaggerated confidence in the power of human reason to comprehend the whole of reality, Kierkegaard

“made man, the individual man and his life experience the central point of his philosophy”

(Omoregbe, 1991b:39). This Hegelian abstraction Kierkegaard claimed has led a whole generation astray and as well reduced the individual to a cipher whereby he could not take responsibility for his deeds. Thus, we conclude this Kierkegaardian attack on Hegelianism with the observation made by Lescoe (1974:75) that:

It is true that in his anxiety to rouse men from their apathy, the Dane seems to resort to the “shock technique”; he seems to go to extremes. His opposition to Hegelianism which denied man‟s individuality and absorbed him as a cipher in the overpowering system was well taken. But in the process, Kierkegaard seemed to find it necessary to oppose all philosophy. If this judgement is correct, then it is hardly fair to condemn all the efforts of man‟s unaided intellect, as these efforts have been transmitted through the various philosophies over the centuries, because of one defective and unsatisfactory system. Certainly philosophy has had many more qualified and more representative spokesmen than George Wilhelm F. Hegel. Can Hegelianism be considered as the only valid representative of some twenty-five centuries of philosophy in the Western world? Perhaps Kierkegaard‟s role of the corrective is the answer to this problem.

115

The last sentence in Lescoe‟s observation is a further confirmation of Ussher‟s (1955:54) earlier position that we must indeed grant that “Hegelianism is wrong without the corrective of Kierkegaardianism.” Meanwhile, a detailed explication of Kierkegaard‟s attack on

Hegelianism is reserved for further research since it is not within the scope of this work to explore it to the fullest. But what we have espoused is sufficient enough to grasp why

Kierkegaard is so hard on Hegel‟s abstract philosophical thought.

2.8.1 THE CORSAIR INCIDENT AND HIS ATTACK

The Corsair incident was part of those events that contributed a great deal to Kierkegaard‟s background and that subsequently helped to shape his thought. Kierkegaard‟s collision with the Corsair (i.e. the press) taught him a greater lesson on how the press operates. The Corsair was Denmark‟s earliest political comic paper (i.e., entertainment newspaper) and it was founded in 1840 by Meir Aaron Goldschmidt. In fact, one of the characteristics of the Corsair was that it specialized in mimicking and ridiculing prominent Danes through the publishing of spicy stories and scandals from their private lives. Kierkegaard‟s head-on collision came to light when the Corsair began to praise Either/or, Kierkegaard‟s maiden work when it appeared in 1843 and the Corsair consequently declared its pseudonymous author, Victor

Eremita to be a “mighty soul,” an aristocrat of the spirit” (Hohlenberg, 1954:166). This praise angered Kierkegaard and he immediately rejected it. After Kierkegaard‟s rejection of what he called the preferential treatment, the Corsair began a massive attack on Kierkegaard‟s personality; caricaturing his ungainly walk (which was due to a spine injury he sustained in childhood), his awkward appearance and dress, and even his unhappy love affair with Regine

Olsen were made the object of public ridicule. To make matters worse, other people in

116 Copenhagen, Denmark followed suit and joined the Corsair in making sport of the great literary figure of Denmark with the result that hands of jeering urchins would follow him in the streets of Copenhagen and make a laughing stock of him. Kierkegaard was greatly hurt by the Corsair attack on his personality and his reaction was very tense and this can be gathered from his Journal entries of 1848 as cited by Lescoe (1974:32):

They have treated me scarily, disgustingly, a national crime has been committed against me, a treachery by the contemporary generation…And so I am wasted upon Denmark…My Christian name exists as a nickname for me which every school boy knows. Ever more frequently the same name is now used by authors in comedies; it appears regularly and everybody knows that is I.

Thus, it is clear from the above quotation that it was after the Corsair attack that

Kierkegaard now turned his attention more and more to religion, but not to the Established

Lutheran Church of Denmark for which he had only the deepest contempt. To him, the state supported Church was the embodiment of Christendom which represented the corruption of a living, viable, and vibrant Christianity. The Corsair affair was a blessing to Kierkegaard in disguise. He remarked that the affair of the corsair had enriched him “with many observations of human nature.” In particular, this experience fixed his attention upon the influence of the press, which had the effect of reducing individuals to a mass: “the public” (Lowrie,

1942:184). In all honesty, Kierkegaard‟s clash with the Corsair provided him with ample opportunity to let out his conviction about the disservice that the press would do to the society and individual. The aftermath of the Corsair attack made him to view journalism as an irresponsible organ for the oppression and general demoralization of public life. Swenson

(1945:198) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that:

The daily press is the evil principle of the modern world, and time will only serve to disclose this fact with greater and greater clearness. The capacity of the newspaper for degeneration is sophistically without limit, since it can always sink lower and lower in its choice of readers. At last it will stir up all those dregs of humanity which no state or government can control. Only a very few people will ever understand the fundamental falsity of the daily press. And of these few only a very small number will have the courage to speak out, since it will involve a species of martyrdom to break with the majority,

117 and with the power of the press and its enormous circulation. The press will always mistreat and persecute such a man.

From the above quotation, we can see why Kierkegaard tags the press as an inconsequential organ which debases modern man or life. Anybody with some level of reasonability will know and understand that the press publishes an immense quantity of juicy stories, which he

(Kierkegaard) did his best to avoid, seeing that he could not permit altogether with the newspaper. It was this attack that made him develop interest in the political and social difficulties that characterized his epoch. Quite fundamentally, he experienced a revolution but only on a slight scale though the effect was greatly felt in Denmark for the fact that it occasioned change from a feudal system of government to a constitutional monarchy. One of the consequences however, led to the loss of the “Duches” of Schleswig and Holstein to

Prussia.” Nevertheless, his challenge to the Corsair and the ill-treatment that ensued were to his mind his permission to spread Christianity. Hence, he became convinced that he was the

“exception” having been singled out for attack by the Corsair, the chosen one to whom a special task was entrusted. The Corsair incident actually aroused Kierkegaard„s mind by way of conviction and on how to launch out his attack on Christendom. It also made him to harbour a negative contempt for journalism and journalists. In addition, he was particularly upset by the power the journalists possessed to turn the individual into crowds and the tremendous demoralizing power which lay in the fact that one man, because he wrote in a newspaper, could get a million to think and speak as he did.

2.8.2 KIERKEGAARD’S ATTACK ON CHRISTENDOM

Kierkegaard was born, bred and nurtured in Lutheran orthodoxy in Copenhagen, Denmark.

He grew to become acutely conscious of the demands of true Christianity and the deficiency

118 of the Establishment church of his day. As one who was indoctrinated into Christianity, his early period in life was marked by desperate hard work and intense reflection upon the religious problems of his day. He grew up in a society where he was certain that his countrymen had “a false notion of what it meant to be a Christian” (Martin 1967:730). This meant that a majority of men forged their mode of existence, especially in Christendom, without feeling the anguish of what it meant to be a Christian or a human (moral) being. This attitude to Kierkegaard‟s was aesthetical in nature and left room for no genuine moral/ethical or religious commitments. In this form of life, Kierkegaard held, people simply acted unreflectively and took whatever was presented to them by the masses. And so, he was mostly disturbed by the double standards of the Lutheran Church of Denmark as well as those who called themselves Christians or believers. Coupled with this distaste was the

Hegelian philosophy that had has reduced individuals, both believers and non-believers to mere pawns in the game of chess. To this end, Kierkegaard saw official religion as a grand design to provide the faithful with the necessary compromises that would allow them to live as pagans - unbelievers under the convenient shelter of the respectability attached to the name of Christian. He particularly derided the clergy, whom he alleged did not actually represent the truth they claimed to exemplify. Consequently, he described the clergy as men of hypocrisy who said things they did not mean. Their Sunday sermons contradicted what they did in the secular world. After Sunday sermons, they would go out into the world apparently forgetting that they should bear witness to the truth they taught or preached.

Jolivet (1946: 30) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that Luther had “Ninety-five theses. I have only one: Christianity has not been made a reality.” In fact, Kierkegaard was reacting to an age when the progress of culture and the like has made it seem so easy to be a Christian.

119 Hence, he argued that Christianity, as it was practiced in the Denmark of his time was diluted

Christianity because it was devoid of risk, sacrifice and involvement. In short, he says that by making Christianity an official religion of the Danish would further weaken and castrate the once vibrant Christianity he knew. Thus, as far as he was concerned the Christianity of the

New Testament did not exist in his fatherland.

Kierkegaard maintained that it was easier for many to become politicians, businessmen and women compared to being “mindful about living a truly existential Christian life” (Lescoe,

1974: 76). Consequently, Kierkegaard posited that one characteristic of living a genuine

Christian life was self-denial and suffering. It meant to forfeit one‟s total earthly possessions and might even entail losing one‟s life. It demanded total commitment and involvement.

That, to Kierkegaard, had changed because one became a Christian by the easiest and most natural of processes. Thus, it was that kind of apathy and non-involvement and the emptying of the significance of Christianity that informed Kierkegaard‟s attack on the aesthetic way of life – “the way of feeling and enjoyment and immediacy” ((Bretall, 1946: xxii). To

Kierkegaard, Christianity should affect our individual existence, putting into practice the teachings of the Bible. Hence, he argued, Christianity “is not a doctrine but an existential contradiction” (Kierkegaard, 1941:339). As a new level of existence, Kierkegaard says, it has to do with the act of existing and it is this act of existing and existence that constitute precisely the antithesis of speculation. When a Christian lives a genuine Christian life others will be influenced. Abraham‟s action is an action of complete involvement and commitment.

120 2.9 KIERKEGAARD’S INTELLECTUAL AND LITERARY EXPERIENCE

The type of education Kierkegaard received from his father was designed to make him a writer and become a Christian. Right from his early youth, he had familiarized himself with literary forms. He grew up in an age when Denmark witnessed a “flourishing and a veritable cult of the art of writing both in prose and poetry” (Jansen, 1962:71). One of the most renowned of Denmark‟s great literary critics of the time was Johan Ludvig Heiberg, a fervent disciple of G.W.F. Hegel. Heiberg became a model for the young Kierkegaard and by 1834

Kierkegaard had made his literary debut in the critical journal published by J.L Heiberg with a highly ironical article on the Intellectual Powers of Women. Kierkegaard, in his early formative years, wrote in two distinct styles. The first was for the public while the second was for himself alone as typified by his journal written in simple and inspired language. As early as 1835, Kierkegaard had been preoccupied with writing essentially about literature with his own future, his vocation and was already “a master of language, a writer, and an artist” (Jansen, ibid. p. 12). Consequently, he was aptly described as:

A writer with a natural predilection for such ingredients as ambiguity, irony, humour, sartire and polemic, so much so that this same tendency was formalized through the usage of pseudonyms, masks, concealment, and postures into a theory of indirect communications which together with his edifying or direct communications culminated in the developing constructs that the called his authorship (Kierkegaard, 1966:7).

His mastering of language led him in 1841, when preparing for his academic dissertation, to make his personal language a literary style. In accordance with the University of

Copenhagen‟s regulations, dissertations must be written in Latin. However, in certain cases, this requirement could be waved.

Consequently, Kierkegaard explored this vacuum and formally made an appeal to the authorities‟ concerned requesting permission to submit a dissertation written in his mother

121 tongue having discovered the power of his mother tongue as a better way to express philosophical concepts. His dissertation was on The Concept of Irony with Constant

Preference to Socrates. It was indeed written to a great extent in “a language rarely found in university dissertation” (Jansen, 1962:12). In view of this development, he acknowledged the fact that he would be tongue-lashed for the freedom of his style. Either/ Or vols.1 and 2 is considered to be his first major book. In them, Kierkegaard‟s thought and arts are revealed in all their depth and variety. Either/Or was an extraordinary book. When it appeared in

Copenhagen, it immediately inspired a lively controversy both in private discussions and in the press where the book was given an understanding and friendly reception by both J.L

Heiberg and A.R Goldschmidt who happened to be the editors of the “Corsair.” Either/Or was an extraordinary book; it was unique. The ideas in it reflect the reaction of Kierkegaard the philosopher to the current opinions of his age. Either/Or bears no author‟s name though it was edited by Victor Eremita. It was pseudonymously authored in that Kierkegaard had to communicate to his contemporaries what he could not say directly in his own name. His purpose of pseudonymously authoring the book was meant to show his Hegelian contemporaries that what mattered first and foremost was to:

` „Think existence‟; that is to say, that he should stand guarantee for his thoughts with his own person and life; and that could best be done by following the Socratic method of leading his readers to the point where they themselves should discover what he wanted them to understand, without his having to say it straight out (Hohlenberg,1954:12).

To achieve this goal, he employed specific individual figures whose thought and peculiarities he could pursue to their utmost consequences by the method of experimentation. He chose to speak through the month of pseudonyms so as to be able to do his work unhindered and in a dual role. In fact, Kierkegaard created real persons with independent thoughts in many cases and with a clearly defined civil status. The pseudonyms were not just mere abstract or

122 imaginary being that we should ignore them; rather they entailed much of what Kierkegaard experienced himself and what he saw in others. Either/Or announced Kierkegaard‟s fame to the public making him the centre of interest among his contemporaries. He had the nickname

Either /Or along the streets of Copenhagen. Consequently, Either/Or became the name by which Kierkegaard himself was known till his death. His literary creativity was an outgrowth of his psychological malaise. Hence, Ostenfield, Mckinnon & Taylor (1980:222) posit that:

Kierkegaard‟s life was filled with tension all of which are explicable in terms of the tension between the Kierkegaardian nature ( the family atmosphere) and the environment, the tension regarding his purpose in life - whether he should become an aesthetic, philosophical or religious writer. All these tensions remained unresolved and became the source of the energy behind his enormous literary activity.

In spite of Kierkegaard‟s unusually sensitive and extraordinary range of complex emotional dispositions, he remained “a person of sound mind and basically balanced personality”

(Ostenfeld et al, ibid). Though Kierkegaard suffered psychological distress, the psychic stability that permeated his entire works as an author was outstanding and was never in doubt. Intellectually, he was an “aristocrat of the aristocrat” (Swenson, 1945:3). As an

“aristocrat of the aristocrat, his influence on contemporary thinkers in continental Europe was contagious. His influence has been felt in many areas of human thought: “Theology, philosophy, psychology, literature, art, and biblical studies” (Lefevre, 1956, v). In the discipline of philosophy, for instance, Martin Heidegger was a direct beneficiary. He inherited the various existentialist themes laid down by Kierkegaard even though he did not acknowledge Kierkegaard for his pioneering effort. Karl Jaspers is regarded as Kierkegaard reincarnate, followed by Martin Buber. In theology, Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann among others, owe their depth in theology to Kierkegaard. In Psychology, May Rollo, an existential psychologist, was particularly influenced by Kierkegaard‟s existentialism. His works have been studied and discussed, understood and misunderstood from a variety of perspectives.

123 2.10 KIERKEGAARD’S WORKS

Kierkegaard‟s philosophical exposition and analyses were aimed essentially at the rediscovery of man‟s moral and religious dignity. Some of his literary works are so crucial in the sense that they tend to address a particular problem whether morally, theologically, socially, politically, metaphysically, epistemologically, psychologically, aesthetically, poetically etc. In some of his plain or pseudonymous works, Kierkegaard presented his thoughts in Socratic fashion. In some cases, he adopted “indirect communication‟‟ to elicit personal choice in decision-making. Indeed, Kierkegaard wrote many books dealing with theology, philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, psychology, literature, art, politics etc. He is widely regarded as the contemporary father of existentialist philosophy. To this end, we shall enumerate only those works that are relevant to this research that we did not cite in the literature review. These additional works are chronologically presented below:

The Journals of Soren Kierkegaard (1834-1835). The Journals were written by Kierkegaard while at the university. It is a unique combination of note book and diary. The Journals detail

Kierkegaard‟s spiritual and intellectual development. It also remains a valid source for understanding Kierkegaard‟s life.

The Philosophical Fragments (1844). This book undoubtedly marked Kierkegaard‟s first philosophical work. In this book, Kierkegaard took time to clarify the relationship between philosophical idealism and Christianity. The question he raised and address in this book is :

How is a human being related to the truth, whether one possesses it with himself or does not possess it.

Edifying Discourses (1847). Kierkegaard wrote over eighty discourses in his life time,

124 published singly or together with most books being rather substantial. The discourses provide us a leeway to the understanding of Kierkegaard‟s authorship. He wrote them with the objective of exposing the ethical life in human beings, especially the regenerative aspect. It was through these Edifying Discourses that Kierkegaard clarified his specific kind of existing: that mode of subjectivity and inwardness which formed the basis of his thought.

The Works of Love (1847). This book represent Kierkegaard‟s social gospel, where his teachings on Christian ethics can be found. Thus, it is a work devoted to the explication of

Christian ethics (love). Kierkegaard in this book tells us what love (Christian love) is all about and goes ahead to discuss love from the point of duty rather than from inclination or emotion.

The Point of View for Work as an Author (1848). This work was written to throw more light on what he had in mind as a writer when he discovered that his earlier works were in need of explanation. In this work, Kierkegaard clarifies the reason behind his pseudonymous authorship.

The Sickness Unto Death (1849). This is yet another of Kierkegaard‟s works written in

1848, but it could not be published due to the revolution of 1848 until a year later. The work represents Kierkegaard‟s intellectual and spiritual maturity and he devotes this work to the treatment of despair and the anatomy of melancholy. It is a dialectic work and deals with the different successive stages of despair. In this work, Kierkegaard‟s deep knowledge of psychology is reflected.

125 The Attack Upon “Christendom” (1845-1855). This work is yet another in the series of works essentially devoted to expressing his view about the deplorable condition of Christians in Christendom. Kierkegaard‟s attack upon Christendom was directed against what is today called „‟Modern Liberal Theology.‟‟ Through this work, Kierkegaard‟s polemic against conventional easygoing Christianity was waged. In a nutshell, The Attack Upon Christendom contains Kierkegaard‟s view about what it means to be a genuine Christian in Christendom.

2.11 SUMMARY.

We summarize this chapter by pointing out that Kierkegaard‟s background had a major influence on his writings and his philosophical posture. This means that philosophy is a child of circumstance. This assertion agrees with Momoh‟s (1991:1) submission that “a genuine philosopher, like a genuine individual, is a child of experience, times and culture and all philosophizing takes place using these influential parameters.” According to Momoh, philosophizing is often provoked by specific problems in the world. In addition, human thought is conditioned by, among other things, experience. He avers:

A philosophizer can write to reflect or react positively, negatively or critically towards his experience, times and culture. A positive reflection can sometimes end up in speculative and holistic system building; a negative reflection may sometimes end up in a devastating and uncompromising criticism and rejection of one‟s experience, times and culture, but a critical reflection can build on the ruins of the latter to erect the former (Ibid.).

In line with Momoh‟s position, we conclude that all the submissions in his works, especially the Concluding Unscientific Postscript as well as the Edifying Discourses were informed by the various experiences - his experience and inexperience which have both combined together to influence his philosophical thought. These influences came from his relationship with his father – Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard his birth, his unique education, his marital experience, the moral and religious condition of his environment, his encounter with long line of

126 intellectuals such as Socrates, Hegel and Martensen in the realm of philosophy and theology, his reading of other notable scholars in order to form his notion of existentialism, his art of indirect communication, his notion of dialectic as well as his notion of faith and reason. His concept of existence and thought, as we have explained in the work, tells us how those concepts can contribute to our understanding of commitment and leadership. However, his attack on Hegelianism, his literary knowledge, his attack on the Established Church of

Denmark, his collision with “Corsair”, etc, also provided him ample opportunity to take upon himself the duty of calling the individual to become moral (human being) through a concrete ethics which he sees as a quest for an authentic life. In all, a leader with the knowledge of the art of indirect communication, dialectic, existentialism, faith and reason, existence and thought is in a better position to show commitment to duty than a leader who lacks them. It is in this understanding that we discuss them based on Kierkegaard‟s background. From the above exposition, one is no longer in doubt as to how Kierkegaard‟s art of indirect communication, dialectic, existentialism, existence and thought, faith and reason, as discussed in Chapter Two, set the stage for genuine commitment and leadership to thrive. We shall carry out a comprehensive exposition of his notion of ethics in the succeeding chapter titled

“Kierkegaard‟s Ethical Thinking.”

127 CHAPTER THREE

KIERKEGAARD’S ETHICAL THINKING AS INSIGHT INTO THE CONCEPT OF

COMMITMENT

3.0 INTRODUCTION

In Chapter Two, we dug into the background of the man called Soren Kierkegaard to see how his background influenced his thought. Indeed, his background thoughts actually influenced his entire philosophy. Some of his thoughts include his notion of existentialism, dialectic, art of indirect communication, his notion of faith and reason, as well as existence and thought.

The understanding of these Kierkegaardian‟s thoughts will put us in a position to appraise his notion of commitment philosophically and see how we can use it to attain a responsive and responsible leadership in human society. Now, we move to the introduction proper to justify the inclusion of Kierkegaard‟s ethical thinking in this work.

One of the functions of ethics is the guiding of human conduct or behaviour in order to make the existence of other human beings possible in a social setting. Therefore, this work will not be complete without discussing Kierkegaard‟s ethical thinking. This is because, apart from the fact that the “Scope and limit of Study” indicates that the research work is essentially confined to his ethics where his notion of commitment is derived and the fact that we are also more interested in much of his moral conviction about commitment, leadership itself is also a moral concept and this means that no discussion on leadership will be complete without discussing ethics. This is based on the fact that leaders sometimes face the problem of „dirty hands‟, where they must choose to use unsavoury means to “prevent imminent disaster. What is morally important in such cases is that leaders feel bad about making this sort of choice and

128 try to avoid it in the future” (Temes, 2005). The quotation above shows that a leader requires ethical knowledge to do the right thing in the right way and for the right reason. And more importantly, Kierkegaard‟s ethical thought is distinct and unique in that he made the individual the basis of morality by placing individuality against collectivity/universality, and concreteness against abstraction. Individual morality concerns why human survival matters in the first place. He asked, Aside from following rules, how should I live? Rather than defining the moral minimum, he examined the excellent, the admirable life and stressed the significance of making “ultimate commitments” thereby introducing involvement

(concreteness) into ethical life. Consequently, he rejected universal morality and introduced subjectivity and religion (spirituality) into ethics. These unique features justify the inclusion of his ethical thinking in this work.

Pojman (1990: ix), quotes C. I. Lewis in his book The Ground and the Nature of Right, as saying that:

In all the world and in all of life, there is nothing more important to determine than what is right. Whatever the matter which lies before us calling for consideration, whatever the question asked us or the problem to be solved, there is some settlement of it which will meet the situation and is to be sought …Wherever there is a decision to be made or any deliberation is in point, there are a right determination of the matter in hand which is to be found and adhered to, and other possible commitments which would be wrong and to be avoided.

Every aspect of life demands principles and order. Right actions remain the basis of genuine human development and societal progress all over the world. Ethics made this possible.

Hence, the assertion given by Jibril Sarah is worth stating here. According to her:

The challenges of crime, conflicts, crises, wars, erosion of family values, disintegration of families and moral decadence that now face the world and nations cannot be denied. This is due largely to our unethical behaviour. The world must feel greater passion for ethics than malaria and HIV/AIDS and other related diseases because people at any sphere and level will scrupulously ensure systems information and enlightenment that will prevent the spread of malaria or any other physical disease. The heart and the conscience of many human beings on this earth are so dirty, deceitful, wicked, satanic, selfish, racist, ethnocentric and egocentric. Without the well founded impartation of the science of ethics and its relevance to total human

129 development the world cannot experience positive social change that is so essential for the economic and political development of mankind and the environment (Jibril, 2006:186). The quotation above asserts that the practice of ethics is fundamental to social, economic, and political development of mankind. The quotation also implies that the non-practice of ethical norms in any nation is the beginning of that nation‟s crises of under-development.

3.1 THE VARIOUS CONCEPTIONS OF ETHICS

Before going into an exposition of Kierkegaard‟s ethical thinking, we need to undertake an overview of the various conceptions of ethics and ethics before Kierkegaard to enable us to appreciate the changes or values which Kierkegaard‟s ethical thought brought into ethics and moral philosophy generally. To this end, we must clarify the concept of ethics and its purpose to human existence before launching into Kierkegaard‟s ethical thinking. The term „ethics,‟ according to Fadahunsi & Oladipo (2004:116), is used mainly in three different senses as: “(a)

A general pattern or way of life, e.g., Islamic ethics, Christian ethics, Yoruba ethics (b) A set of rules or regulations for conduct e.g. Medical ethics, the Ethics of the Teaching profession, etc. (c) An inquiry about ways of life and rules of conduct.” They argued that it is in this third sense that ethics is usually regarded as a branch of philosophy and it is sometimes called moral philosophy.

The word ethics comes from the Greek word ethos- meaning “character or custom” (Solomon,

1984:3). Ethics is a moral concept and there seems to be an agreement among philosophers that ethics is equivalent or identical to morality since both involve human actions. Ethics and morals, for instance, are closely related in their original meanings. The word ethics comes from the Greek word “ethos,” which means “character” while the word “morals” comes from the Latin word” “moralis,” which means custom or manner. Consequently, both ethics and

130 morals mean “the custom or way of life or customs, habits and accepted ways of behaviour of an individual or a community” (Titus, 1970: 359 & Okunna, 1995:1). This is why they are sometimes used as if they were synonymous. Hence, we often use the terms „morals‟ and

„morality‟ to denote the conduct itself and „ethics‟ and „ethical‟ as the study of moral conduct or the system or code that is followed. To this end, we intend to use the term ethics and morality interchangeably in this work. Generally, the most frequent or common usage is that ethics refers to “a code or set of principles by which men live” (Popkin & Kelly, 1969: 1).

Hence, we can speak of “medical ethics” “Christian ethics,” “journalistic ethics,” etc.

Plato‟s ethics is centered on the Socratic notion that “knowledge is virtue”-which means „to know the good‟ is to do the good. The purpose of knowledge is to help man live a virtuous life. To this end, it is a means to an end for it leads you to do good, which automatically leads to happiness. Aristotle began his ethics by claiming that every action or pursuit is aimed at some good. He noted that one realizes the “Good” by “doing just and temperate acts...”

(Hughes, 2001:13). For Aristotle, happiness is the goal of ethics and as such, ethics is the doing of just acts. Both Plato and Aristotle made attempts to understand ethics in terms of the good life. These classical Greek philosophers were mainly concerned with questions such as:

“what is the good life for? And “how ought men to behave? They were basically theorizing about moral issues as they affect man and society.

In the understanding of Frankena (1942: 98), ethics “is the study or discipline which concerns itself with judgements of approval and disapproval, judgements as to the rightness or wrongness, goodness or badness, virtue or vice, desirability or wisdom of actions,

131 dispositions, ends, objects or states, of affairs.” Ethics is “the study of moral problems”

(Hospers, 1972:4). That means ethics is the “study of the reasoning behind our beliefs or the justification for the particular moral position we adopt” (Palmer, 1991:9). For Machan (1977:

30), ethics is “the study of whether there are any values each and every person should pursue, whether there is a set of virtues as a code of principles of conduct for everyone and what these are if they do exist.” To Omoregbe (1990:153), ethics is that “branch of philosophy which deals with the morality of human conduct.” Momoh (1991: 12) conceives of ethics as the

“theory of conduct.” Okunna (1995:1) takes ethics to be “that branch of knowledge which is concerned with the standards of good or bad conduct in society, using societal norms as a basis for the evaluation of human conduct or behavior.” And for Luper (2002:15), ethics “is the attempt to clarify how people ought to live.” It is not out of place to ask the question:

What then is the purpose of ethics?

Without exaggeration, ethics as a theory of human conduct plays a vital role in human life.

According to Ndubuisi (2005: 2), the needs for ethics arise “as a result of the absence of a systematic value guiding what is right and what is wrong.” This definition of ethics by

Ndubuisi is existential because, as he rightly asserts, the need for ethics arises because human beings have no automatic guidelines by which they are to regulate their lives. This means that even though our nature does not endow us with automatic guidelines like the lower animals,

“our biological make-up does exhibit certain clues as to what our existence requires”

(Uduigwomen, 2001:2). In another dimension, the need for ethics arose in that the study of ethics enables us to discover the general principle with which to guide our conduct. To this end, Hare (1963: v) asserts that the purpose of ethics “is that of helping us to think better

132 about moral questions by exposing the logical structure of the language in which these thoughts are expressed.” For Birsch (2002:1), one basic goal of ethics is “to help us live together successfully.” Another major reason why ethics is important to human life is that it helps us to better conform our conduct to the norms of morality or to influence our conduct for good.

However, the study of ethics should put us in a position to evaluate our own and other people‟s conduct. In other words, a training in ethics “should enable us to see the defects in our own and other people‟s conduct and to understand their exact nature so that if the desire is there, we are better able to set things right in our own conduct and to make profitable suggestions to others”(Lillie, 1961: 237). Lillie‟s position is well founded and it further strengthens the fact that our study of ethics should not be for theoretical gymnastic purposes but for practical consumption, that is, to tailor our conduct to ethical norms. Hare (1952: i) agrees to this practical aspect of ethics when he avers that the function of moral principles is

“to guide conduct.” To this end, we can confidently declare that ethics or moral philosophy is an acquired habit of the human intellect by means of which those who possess it arrive at true and reasonable conclusions about the rightness and wrongness of human actions as a means of attaining true happiness. Fundamentally, ethics is a philosophical thinking about morality and its problems. As a normative science of conduct, it lays down principles, norms, rules and codes etc, which should guide and regulate moral behaviour. In general, ethics is “the study of actions of people in respect to their being right or wrong” (Salisu, 2001:56).

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133 3. 2 ETHICS BEFORE KIERKEGAARD

Ethics before Kierkegaard falls within the purview of traditional ethics, otherwise known as classical ethics. The history of traditional ethics dates back to ancient Greece beginning with

Socrates down to Immanuel Kant. All the moral or ethical theories such as teleological and deontological theories that emphasize rule as absolute guide to human conduct as well as determining the rightness or wrongness of an action fall within the province of traditional ethics. By tradition is meant “what has ever been held, as far as we know, though we do not know how it came to be held, and for that very reason think it true because else it would not be held” (Newman, 2001:236). Traditional ethics or morality before Kierkegaard was mainly concerned with abstract analysis of concepts such as “good,” “evil,” “right,” “wrong,”

“immoral,” “moral,” “obligation,” „duty,” and so on. For instance, the British philosophers

Alfred J. Ayer and C.L. Stevenson (Omoregbe, 1993:18-19), moral concepts like “good” or

“bad” are mere emotion and feeling and nothing more. For them, the word “good” does not really say anything except that it conveys what one feels. Yet, the ancient philosophers were majorly concerned with “what is morally good?” Consequently, they limited the virtues to justice, temperance, courage and wisdom. The traditionalist who places permanence over existence believes that right is right even if everyone is against it and wrong is wrong even if everyone is for it. Traditional ethics valued essence (the permanence) over existence (the dynamic). Essence here implies a static immutable substance. It refers to a product and it signifies stagnation and finality. On the other hand, existence refers to possibility, growth, and development. Western ethics is generally static and does not give room for possibilities. It also leaves the subjective aspects of the human person untouched.

134 Basically, philosophers of traditional ethics who stress essence over existence are known as essentialists. For instance, Plato, a traditional moral philosopher was an essentialist to the core. Consequently, he promulgated an absolute theory of ethics. Absolutism is the view that believes:

There is fundamentally one and only one good life for all men to lead. This is because goodness is something which is not dependent upon men‟s inclinations, desires, wishes, or upon their opinions. Goodness in this respect resembles the mathematical truth which is absolute; it exists whether any man likes such a fact or not, or whether he knows mathematics or not. It is not dependent upon men‟s opinions about the nature of mathematics or the world. Likewise, goodness exists independently of men and remains to be discovered if men can be properly trained (Popkin & Kelly, 1969: 4).

According to Wild (1962:35), traditional ethics was basically concerned with “moral wholeness or integrity; it carefully studies the different qualitative components of this ideal whole and the systematic order into which they must be fitted.” To this end, Plato‟s ethics,

Aristotle‟s ethics, Stoic ethics, Kantian ethics, etc, fall within the confines of traditional ethics because their ethics are predicated on the assumption that the human person is a being with a fixed property and, thus the human being is defined in terms of rationality. In the ancient

Greek tradition, ethics was conceived as relating to the “good life.” Inquiry was directed toward discovering the nature of happiness and differences of opinion regarding the characteristics of the happiest life and the means for achieving it enlivened the writings of the ancient philosophers” (Freund; 1992:5). This quotation actually confirms that the fundamental concern of traditional ethics is happiness and the good life. Traditional ethics is basically objectivistic in nature, which means that it sees morality from an objective point of view.

Kierkegaard frowned on this position of classical ethics on their essentialist view of the human person and, as a result, he sought to locate ethics within the purview of the individual, which, according to him, is the basis of wholeness. He believed that the individual should be

135 the basis of morality. Therefore, moral choice implies human responsibility. With the above clarification, we now introduce us to Kierkegaard‟s ethical thinking proper.

3.3 KIERKEGAARD’S ETHICAL THINKING

Though Kierkegaard‟s ethical thinking is rather startling and distinct from the conventional understanding of ethics, it is a further improvement and deviation from previous or traditional ethics that stresses universality of morals. In fact, his approach to ethics is more of a dialectical and lyrical intonation. What looks like his ethical or moral views is well discussed in his most celebrated book, Fear and Trembling, a book which he said should be regarded as a “dialectical lyric” (Collins, 1935: 66). One might ask “why dialectical lyric?” It is dialectical lyric in the sense that: (i) “It is the art or practice of establishing truth by discussion between two opposing theories rather than to disprove either of them (ii) It is the art of reasoning and arguing logically and (iii) Lyric, in the sense that it is a way of expressing personal, private or individual emotions” (Robinson, 1999:369,819). As earlier said in the introduction of this chapter, Kierkegaard‟s ethical thought is distinct and unique in that he centers his ethics on the individual. Magee (2001:208) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that it is “the individual himself who is the supreme moral entity, and therefore it is the personal subjective aspects of human life that are the most important.” Thus, by stressing the individual‟s existential dynamism in contradistinction to the traditional understanding of morality in his ethics, he has succeeded in placing individuality against collectivity/universality, and concreteness against abstraction. This is how he introduced subjectivity into ethics thereby effecting a correction to the rigid separation of duty from inclination, and replaced the abstract formalism…of Kant by

“a rich concreteness.” (Bretall, 1946:21). As an existentialist, Kierkegaard‟s ethical thinking is

136 hinged on individual choice and responsibility in concrete situations. This is because he believes that all ethical theories must presuppose knowledge of the self (the individual).

Therefore, his ethics by standard and approach deviates entirely from a formal ethical theory of Kantian and Hegelian persuasions that lays emphasis on the universality of morals. These unique features justify the inclusion of his ethical thinking in this work In view of the foregoing, what does Kierkegaard mean by ethics?

In Kierkegaard‟s philosophy, the term “ethics” has more than one meaning. First, it is used to represent both “a limited existential sphere and stage which is superseded by the higher stage of the religious life and an aspect of life which is retained even within the religious life.”

(McDonald, 2006), Therefore, actions are to be in line with rules which are universally applicable to moral agent under this prevailing social norm. To this end, human sacrifice is justified in terms of how it serves the community‟s interest. Kierkegaard (1954:69) tells us in

Fear and Trembling of how Agamemnon, who considered the welfare of the community to be superior to his own interest, presented his daughter “Iphigenia as a sacrifice” required for the success of the Greek expedition to Troy. Similarly, Abraham‟s decision to sacrifice Isaac was based on choice. Abraham could have chosen to disobey God and spare his son Isaac if he had wanted. But taking the decision he took means that he was aware that there was a duty to something higher than both his social duty not to kill Isaac and his commitment to the welfare of Isaac viz-a-viz his duty to obey God‟s command. This Abrahamic action shows that there is tension between ethics and religion (i.e. Christianity). Ogbonna (2005:83) confirms this tension when he posits that “it is the state in which most Christians (i.e. religious people) find themselves; the tension existing between their duty towards God and the civil society

137 respectively.” This means that the human person has a duty both towards God and his/her fellow human beings. From Kierkegaard‟s religious perspective, however, the conceptual distinction between good and evil is chiefly dependent not on social norms but on God.

Kierkegaard noted with characteristic emphasis that every systematic moral philosophy is tilted to overlook or depreciate the personal element in moral life out of keen regard for certainty and universality. Abraham‟s action has shown that personal element in morality is what is important and not the objective or the general element. To this extent, Thomas Hill

Green agrees with Kierkegaard (Cf. Bentley, 1939:117) that the human person is “the author of his acts (i.e. freewill)” and that the moral good is that which satisfies the desire of the moral agent. Stack (1973:108) quotes Kierkegaard as presenting Socrates as “the first moral philosopher who first related the problem of the ethical to the problem of the self, and who held that ethical self-knowledge was the most important kind of knowledge that an individual could acquire.” The statement “the unexamined moral life is not worth living” is credited to

Socrates, the first great moral philosopher of Western civilization. By this statement, Socrates thus stated the creed “of reflective individuals and set the task of ethical theory in motion”

(Freund, 1992:1). Therefore, to refuse to seek self-knowledge is to live an unexamined life, or is to fall into moral indifference or agnosticism. Thus, the search for self-knowledge is a first step, according to Kierkegaard, toward taking up responsibility.

Fundamentally, Kierkegaard was reacting to the Kantian and Hegelian ethics of his time. Both

Kantian and Hegelian ethics, according to Kierkegaard, completely erode human freedom.

Immanuel Kant, for instance, is well known for his moral philosophy where emphasis is placed on the categorical imperative of duty. This principle states that “act only on that maxim

138 which you can at the same time will to be universal law” (Kant, 1964:432). By this maxim,

Kant makes his “duty ethics” a strict and absolutist ethical philosophy for stressing one universal code of behaviour. As observed by Kierkegaard, Kantian ethics places man‟s supreme perfection and end in conformity with universal law. This, to him, is wrong, because law is not an end in itself. Kant‟s categorical imperative of duty enjoins the individual to act for the sake of duty, irrespective of the individual‟s willingness or unwillingness to act. The implication of this kind of ethics, according to Luper (2002: 150), is that Kantian ethics

“forces us to conform to rigid and narrow moral principles.” Another problem with this kind of absolutist ethics is that it does not allow for exceptions to moral laws. Exceptions are necessary to take care of unique situations. This means that “effective solutions can never be merely a matter of following rules” (Birsch, 2002:82). In fact, an exception to a basic moral rule is required to make morality vibrantly effective. Thus, to every rule there is an exception and so moral laws cannot be different in this context. This means that moral requirements must be flexible to admit of exceptions. On the other hand, he also criticized Hegel‟s universalistic ethics for tying the individuad‟s will to the General Will of the State whereby individuals can only attain their “ends only in so far as they themselves determine their knowing, willing, and acting in a univocal way and make themselves links in the chain of social connection” (Hegel,1967:124). This is why Kierkegaard rejected universal morality in both Kantianism and Hegelianism for particular or subjective morality.

To Kierkegaard (1941:309), “ethics concentrates upon the individual…” This means that the individual should be the basis of ethics. He recognized the universal nature of ethics and its demands (Kierkegaard, 1954:75). Still, he was dissatisfied with the universal notion of

139 morality on the ground that it makes “man forget that he is and must be an individual, subject to his own personal duties and endowed with a responsibility which is inalienably his own”

(Cf. Jolivet, 1964:136). To Kierkegaard, the moral imperative is not an abstraction but factual, addressed to me (i.e., the individual). For example, “thou shall not kill” meaning “You” or “I” should not kill is not addressed to the universal but to me as an individual human being. This means ethical questions are specific to particular individual human beings. Since ethics did not say why should “we” live a moral life?” Ethically speaking, Kierkegaard‟s emphasis is on

“ethical choice.” The notions of “choice and decision have an importance of the first order in the philosophy of Kierkegaard. Each decision is a risk, for the existent feels himself surrounded by and filled with uncertainty; nevertheless, he decides" (Sartre, 1977:6). Barrett

(1958:165) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that the fundamental choice is not the choice between rival values of good and bad but “the choice by which we summon good and bad into existence for our selves. Without such a choice, an abstract system of ethics is just so much paper currency with nothing to back it up.” In his theory of stages, Kierkegaard enjoined the individual to “choose the ethical” sphere because it entails commitment to responsibility. The appeal to exceptional situations is Kierkegaard„s main argument against the adequacy of the ethical interpretation of existence. Kantian ethics, due to its absolutism, leads to inflexible moral demands and, as such, does not allow for exceptions. This, to Kierkegaard, limits human freedom and choice which are the driving forces of human possibilities.

Thus, by grounding his ethical thinking on religion, Kierkegaard has shown, in the words of

Warren (1941:210-211), that the ethical ideals of mankind are “formed by religion; religion gives rise to the mental trend, to the life mood of human beings.” Human beings by nature are

140 religious and their religious problems can never be resolved through human reason or wisdom alone except with the assistance of faith. Religion is above rational scrutiny. Certain decisions are based wholly on faith. This means that there are aspects of human life where reason is immaterial in solving some of life‟s most central problems, especially existential problems.

This aspect is reserved for faith. Kierkegaard, cited in Kaufmann (1956:17), averred that ethics is “not a matter of seeing the good but of making decision.” This means that life demands a response or action, and we must choose because life presents us with what William

James calls:

“Forced options.” To say that life presents us with forced options means that we must make decisions whether we want to or not (even „not deciding‟ is a decision) we cannot remain detached and disinterested: Life simply does not allow it. We are compelled to decide and to act, and reason is not a sufficient force for action. We do not act on what we understand, but on what we believe. The rationalist‟s and skeptic‟s demands for certainty cannot be met, yet we continue to live and act - without intellectual certainty (cited in Soccio, 2007: 445).

. Kierkegaard further shows that an individual can choose or decide “to be exceptions to the moral law” (Kierkegaard, 1945:165-167) because the human person is constituted by freedom and choice. The individual, Kierkegaard argues, is not duty-bound to do as others who are under the Kantian duty or influence does. Abraham‟s action in Kierkegaard‟s ethics has shown that an individual has the capacity to choose to be an exception to a universal rule. It is in this sense that Kierkegaard‟s individual is ranked “superior to the universal,” (Schrag,

1959:67) in contrast to the widely held view that the universal is higher than the individual or the particular morality. Now the question is: how has Kierkegaard‟s theory of ethics set the stage for commitment and leadership in this work?

The relevance of Kierkegaard‟s ethical thinking to the understanding of commitment and leadership is outstanding. Kierkegaard stressed the significance of making ultimate

141 commitments in his ethics, thereby introducing involvement (concreteness) into ethical theory. Commitment is revealed in leadership through doing, and that is, by involvement.

Involvement makes leadership by example possible. His notion of exception shows that a leader can be different in a country where almost everybody maintains a sense of conformity when it comes to issues of corruption. More importantly, his ethics is an ethics of involvement where moral choice implies moral responsibility. Leadership requires the participation of the leader in terms of formulation of policies and programmes to address human existential problems. In leadership, whatever the general end-values and principles for which leaders stand, they must make difficult decisions for which they will be judged responsible. In fact, whether it is expedient or not leaders must take responsibility for any decision made under their guidance. This is how Kierkegaard‟s ethical thinking or ethics sets the stage for commitment and leadership. However, it is important to state here that Kierkegaard‟s ethical thinking would not be understood in its proper context without a discussion of his theory of stages – aesthetic, ethical and religious, popularly referred to as “Kierkegaard‟s Existential

Dialectic”, which is his direct contribution to philosophy.

3.3.1 KIERKEGAARD’S THEORY OF STAGES

Kierkegaard‟s ethical thinking is anchored on his theory of stages. In other words,

Kierkegaard predicates his ethics on the three stages of human life: the aesthetic, the ethical and the religious. He advanced the stages to show that life is a constant striving. The theory of the stages constitutes a philosophy of life in the form of philosophy of evaluation. Each of these stages has its functions. For instance, “the aesthetic (esthetic) is the raw material; the ethical posits the requirement and constitutes the principle of regulation; the religious is the fulfillment, but again not once for all, but as reinstatement and impulsive energy for the

142 forward movement of existence” (Swenson, 1945:117). Thus, Kierkegaard finally comes to believe that he “had succeeded in finding the laws and directions along which a human being‟s existence moves. He widened the total view of human life in his theory of the stages”

(Malantschuk, 1963:19) and consequently became convinced that the theory of the stages encompasses and embraces all the possibilities of human existence. Consequent upon this, he states clearly in his diary that “my abiding service in literature will be to have stated the decisive determinants of the whole existential range of life with a dialectical acuteness and primitivity not to be found in any other literature as far as I know and I have not had any books to guide me” (Kierkegaard, 1948:127). To this end, Kierkegaard‟s theory of the stages, according to Malantshuck (1963:19-20), marks “the first time in the history of man that a view of man has been formulated in which all the aspects and all the possibilities of human life have been consistently worked together in a developmental sequence.” This is so because all previous attempts in this direction before Kierkegaard were only fragmentary. Thus,

Kierkegaard it would be recalled anchored his entire philosophy on a very simple and distinct presupposition that the human being “is a synthesis of two completely different qualities”

(Ibid. p. 20). According to him, the human being may live exclusively in the visible, temporal world. This constitutes the aesthetic stage. He may pursue the eternal, or when the eternal meets him he may accept the eternal, and in either event he may try to relate the two segments of the synthesis (the temporal and the eternal). This constitutes the movement from the aesthetic to the ethical stage and beyond this, to the religious stage. Fundamentally, the theory of stages which form the nucleus of Kierkegaard‟s whole authorship is constructed on the premise that man is a synthesis of two different qualities. To the stages we now turn. First is the aesthetic stage.

143 (i) THE AESTHETIC STAGE

In Kierkegaard‟s usage, the term “aesthetic” has a deeper meaning different from its common meaning in English. The meaning becomes clearer in the Danish language than in ordinary translation as “pertaining to a person‟s philosophy of life, as this is determined by the fact that the person exclusively or to a great extent values life‟s various relationship on the basis of their possibility of evoking a strong feeling of pleasure, enjoyment, and the like”(Hartshorne,

1990:5). From Kierkegaard‟s definition, it could be stated that he used the term “aesthetic” in a very broad sense indicating the “natural” phase of existence, the one dominated by physical and emotional urges and the principle of enjoyment” (Grimsley,1978:14). In other words, the word aesthetic comes from the Greek, meaning “to sense” or “to perceive” (Lescoe, 1974:34).

Kierkegaard sees the aesthetic way of life as purely egotistic and pleasure seeking. It is a stage where an individual “evades the responsibility of decision” (Schrag, 1959:66). Aesthetic life marked “a way of existing where one is not directly concerned with actively promoting the good of others” (Charlesworth, 1975:12). As one who lives an uncommitted life, the aesthetic person merely sits on the fence and pontificates on moral problems from a variety of perspectives without in any way getting him/herself involved in finding practical solutions to them.

The aesthetic individual lives a hedonistic life and consequently his motto is “the pleasure of the moment”. For Barrett (1958:164), the word aesthetic, which comes from the Greek verb meaning “to sense or perceive”, has the same root “as the words “theory” and “theater.” He explains that what happens at the theater is that we view spectacles in which we ourselves are not involved. The spectacle he says may either be interesting or boring. Therefore, the

“interesting” and the “boring” are the dominant categories under which the aesthetic

144 individual views all experience. The import from Barrett‟s description of the aesthetic meaning shows that an individual or person who lives an aesthetic life is one who contemplates or thinks existence and tries to stand outside life and behold it as a spectacle.

The aesthetic person is self-centered and, as such, he is not interested in promoting the welfare of others. The Aesthetic stage is regarded as the immediate, epicurean stage of human existence.

The aesthetic life, according to Schroeder (2005:212), is a life “devoted to the immediate, the momentary, the sensual, the whimsical, the new, and the challenging. It savours each moment but pursues no larger organizing end.” He is unmindful of moral evaluation because he “knows nothing of any universal moral standards. He has no specific religious belief. His chief motivation is a desire of the senses. His life has no principle of limitation except his own taste and he resents anything that would limit his vast freedom of choice” (Stumpf,

1977:465). In social life or affairs, the aesthetic person may be said to be interested in people, but not necessarily in their welfare. An aesthetic life is a life of enjoyment and impulse whereby an individual immerses him/ herself in the moment. This can be seen from the different kinds of attitudes displayed on how to live that he chases. Hollander (1960:12-13) quotes Kierkegaard as describing the aesthetic individual as one who has:

No fixed principle except that he means not to be bound to anything or anybody. He has but one desire which is to enjoy the sweets of life - whether is purely sensual pleasures or the finer things in life and art, and the ironic enjoyment of one‟s own superiority over the rest of humanity; and has no fear except that he may succumb to boredom.

In the words of Copleston (1963:112), the aesthetic person is characterized by “the absence of fixed universal moral standards and of determinate religious faith and the presence of a desire to enjoy the whole range of emotive and sense experience.” To Kenny (2006:32), an individual who lives an aesthetic life “avoids taking on any commitment whether personal,

145 social or official, which would limit his field of choice and prevent him from following whatever is immediately attractive.” He samples and hates anything that will limit his field of choice. His is governed by sense, impulse and emotion. Hence, Scruton (1995:193) posits that the essential aesthetic principle “is that the moment is everything.” Looking at the above quotations, we can see that pleasure is the driving force of an aesthetic individual. He lives an undisciplined and unregulated life. His entire life is pleasure-driven which ultimately leads him to despair since he abhors responsible commitment to social responsibility.

Thus, in all seriousness, the aesthetic way of life is not a life pattern that any reasonable man will want to cling to. This is because experience has shown that the aesthetic person can easily fall into despair if he suffers serious harm. It means that the satisfaction achieved by the aesthete (aesthetic person) is short-lived, unreliable and unstable. Notwithstanding the attractions of the aesthetic life, Kierkegaard says, as cited by Solomon and Higgins (1996;

228), that aesthetic life “has its perils, its built-in dissatisfactions. The danger of becoming

“Jaded.” Indeed, so did the ethical life, for the more morally sensitive and dutiful a person tries to be, the more despairing he or she would inevitably become, given the unjust and generally immoral behaviour of humanity in general.” Generally, the upholder of the aesthetic view of life is self-centered in all his behaviours. Collins (1953:55) quotes

Kierkegaard as saying that the principal charge against the aesthetic is the fact that aestheticism “cultivates imagination and concrete intelligence at the expense of the will and genuinely reflective reason. As a consequence, the aesthetic personality cannot grow to maturity and cannot even realize the full promise of the aesthetic urge itself.” To this effect,

146 Kierkegaard chose three famous characters in western literature to demonstrate and typify the aesthetic mode of existence such as, “Don Juan, Faust and Ahasuerus” (Lescoe, 1974:34-35).

a. DON JUAN: Kierkegaard describes Don Juan as an embodiment of sensuality, that is, one who is deficient in moral, spiritual or intellectual interests (i.e. carnal or worldly). b. FAUST (MAN OF DOUBT): Faust is a rebirth of Don Juan and by Kierkegaard‟s pronouncement; Faust typifies boredom par excellence. He pictures Faust as a lost soul. A true skeptic to the core and one who is not bored or tired in searching for the happy moment even though he is not sure he will get it.

c. AHASUERUS (WANDERING JEW): The last phase that marks the third and final stage of aesthetic existence is despair. Despair means a state of hopelessness. As Don Juan was the representative of the erotic (immoral), Faust the personification of doubt and boredom, so is

Ahasuerus the Wandering Jew, the exemplification of aesthetic despair. In the Wandering

Jew, Kierkegaard saw the truest character or standard of his age and the result of a closed aesthetic existence. This is the last pitfall upon which the aesthetic life degenerated or collapsed despite its many evasions of such an issue. According to Lescoe (1974: 36), “there is only the dull numbing pain of indifference which is the ultimate residue of despair.” In the same vein, Price (1963: 162) writes that “the end of the aesthetic man is despair…. Despair over himself because he no longer believes in himself… Despair over his human nature, because he no longer believes that any sort of self is possible for him ... Despair over life, because all his tomorrows will be the same as today.” To this end, he concludes: “so it appears that every aesthetic view of life is despair and that everyone who lives aesthetically is in despair, whether he knows it or not. But when one knows it (and you indeed know it), a higher

147 form of existence is an imperative requirement” (Kierkegaard, 1959: 197). And that higher form of existence is the “Ethical Stage” and to it we now turn.

(ii) THE ETHICAL STAGE

The second level of Kierkegaard‟s theory of stages is the ethical stage, “a way of life that involves making a commitment to the norms, principles, and customs of society” (Soccio,

2007:425). The ethical stage, defines “the sphere of commitment and resolute choice” (Schrag,

1959:66). It modifies our action by “the demands of duty” (Rohde, 1963:9). The ethical life is a life devoted to general principles. It moves beyond the egotistic motives of the aesthete.

Here, one plants oneself by means of principled commitment. At the ethical level an individual lives a life that entails being actively concerned with promoting the good of others in contrast to the aesthetic level. It is a stage where the human being feels a sense of duty as he or she takes responsibility for others in a sacrificial manner. It is at the ethical level that one sets oneself to duty through principled commitment. This means the ethical stage marks a great improvement in the aesthetic lifestyle of the individual. It is a unique stage in the sense that man at this level of existence begins to accept fixed moral standards and obligations. He lives by the voice of universal reason which “gives form and consistency to his life”

(Copleston, 1963:113). The ethical stage represents a universal maxim where an individual behaves rationally. It involves, according to Schroeder (2005: 213), “organizing one‟s life into a coherent whole through intense commitment to an ideal that takes account of one‟s talents and station, devotedly discharging the resultant social duties, and regarding people as absolute ends rather than as means to one‟s own pleasures.” The ethical individual, according to

Schroeder, also defines his own long-term ideals in connection to his commitments to other people, rather than simply seizing an ideal trumpeted by his culture. Thus, the ethical stage

148 becomes inevitable due to the fact that the aesthetic life is transient. To this end, Lescoe

(1974:37) writes: “The futility and emptiness of the aesthetic mode of existence give rise to the ethical or moral stage. The disillusioned man now frees himself from the transitory and fleeting aesthetic pleasures and he chooses a world of permanent values. It is this choice, freely made, that bestows upon the individual a unique dignity and purposefulness of life.”

Hence, the ethical man turns towards the inwardness of his own self and so confirms a decision towards a future which is rich with a new existence.

Essentially, the ethical sphere emphasizes the primacy of duty. It is an absolutely new sphere of life where “the aesthetician pursued sensations and aimed only at pleasure. The ethicist, that is, the man who has morality as the chief principle of his conduct and the ultimate end of his activity aims above all at obedience to duty”(Jolivet, 1946:134). One of the features of the ethical stage is that it imposes strict demands on the individual and calls for heroic sacrifice. It is a stage where an individual who lives an ethical life feels the intensity of duty by obeying the absolute of duty of the Kantian prescription, which now becomes his own personal duty.

According to Kierkegaard, it is by duty too that moral unity can be created between individuals no matter their state of difference since they are equally subject to the universal law. From the above, it is understandable how social ethics that influences social behaviour has been able to manifest as a constant principle of conduct, and how community life, and especially marriage as an example of the ethical stage in general, has been considered as the most favourable means toward morality. The ethical man is basically concerned with good- faith efforts, sincere devotion, and long-term commitment and single-mindedness. As

Kierkegaard noted, the ethical stage involves categories which are general in nature. It is a

149 question of doing as everybody does or can do. He thus regards the universal as what is valid for all at all time. It is also a stage where an individual can assert his individuality by opting to be different from others, that is, not doing as everyone does. It is a stage where the aesthetician is not prepared to let go his urge for pleasure and enjoyment. Life must not lose its varieties so long as it helps enrich his life of pleasure. Kierkegaard protests the aesthetician‟s notion of duty, which he sees as monotonous from the ethical angle. Jolivet

(1946:135) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that ethical repetition is not mechanical. Therefore, for the individual:

The force of the moral life consists in the repetition with ever renewed spontaneity of gestures which from the outside appear uniform and impersonal. The ethicist is established upon the plane of generality, it is clear. But he must in some sense individualize the general, renew the common, personalize repetition, and hence as it were stabilize the present. It is a question of seriousness, not of a seriousness bestowed by one‟s temperament, but one which everyone can and must acquire and which substitutes the peaceful and solid continuity of duration for the punctual, staccato time of aesthetic. It may be argued with justification that the ethical stage is clearly superior to the aesthetic stage. This is so because real values are preserved and transformed at the ethical stage. One arrives at the ethical through absolute choice while dethroning the aesthetical. To this end,

Kierkegaard (1941:150) states: “In the ethical, the personality is concentrated in itself, so the aesthetic is absolutely excluded or is excluded as the absolute, but relatively it is still left.” He avers that the ethical stage, apart from being characterized by one‟s adherence to duty and obligation is safe, secure, understandable and dutiful. In addition, he opines that it is at the ethical stage that the individual and the crowd can as well determine their adherence or non- adherence to the ethical norms laid down by society by his/her performance of these duties and responsibilities.

In the light of the above, Kierkegaard posits that the ethical defines the sphere of commitment and resolute choice. Socrates, according to him, remains the best representative of the ethical

150 life. To be ethical is to act in accordance with the right principles of good conduct. In

Either/Or vol. II, Kierkegaard (1959:255-258) declares that he who chooses himself ethically:

Chooses himself concretely as this definite individual and he attains this concretion by the fact that this act of choice is identical with this act of repentance which sanctions the choice. The individual thus becomes conscious of himself as this definite individual, with these talents, these dispositions, these instincts, these passions influenced by these definite surroundings, as this definite product of a definite environment. He has his place in the world, with freedom he chooses his place that is, he chooses this very place. He is a definite individual for he chooses himself. From the quotation above, Kierkegaard is telling us that an individual who chooses the self as a responsible human being acknowledges that there is a real and positive distinction between good and evil and by this, his choice will be guided accordingly. In furtherance to his position on the ethical stage, Zuidema (1960:31) paints the ethical stage as: “… does not recognize the

Absolute Paradox. It does not even recognize one‟s own abundant striving to attain one‟s own highest individual salvation…it is purely “humanistic” and immanent. It knows nothing of an encounter with the Absolute paradox.” From Zuidema‟s assertion, the point is made that the ethical individual believes that all lies within his power to do and undo and to this end, he is more preoccupied with the universal and nothing more. In view of this fact, Marcel

(1967:106) writes: “He who turns away from this world in order to seek fulfillment in himself attains to ethical existence, and this time it is Socrates who constitutes the model, for he is the man of the saying “know thyself.” Yet, he is only a witness to the truth and his doctrine was destined to stiffen into system or purely cynical attitudes.” Consequent upon what the ethical stage entails, Kierkegaard takes marriage as a paradigm for authenticating ethical life. He chose marriage on the ground that marriage requires a long-term commitment to a person, single-mindedness, sincerity and the will to make the relationship last to the benefit of both parties. However, in spite of the profound improvement of the ethical on the aesthetical,

Kierkegaard says, it remains an incomplete and inadequate mode of existence. In reaching out

151 toward the universal, ethical man is still restricted to his own selfhood. Kierkegaard‟s objection to the ethical life, according to Schroeder (2005:213), is based on the following:

(i)That the ethical life can be lived in good conscience, without angst (anxiety or anguish) or doubt though many might see this as a benefit; Kierkegaard regards it with suspicion on the ground of humanity‟s irredeemable evil. In addition, the degree of passion and subjectivity a way of life can achieve is a function of its irrationality, paradoxes, and difficulty. (ii)That since the ethical life need not be paradoxical or irrational in this way, Kierkegaard regards it as less demanding and even less serious than the religious life.(iii) Finally, that the ethical person way be divided by loyalties to conflicting values, rendering them incapable of acting as a unified whole. Only singular devotion to God can assure or guarantee such self-integration.

Kierkegaard is quite aware of the absolute nature of the moral law as well, as our limited capacity to obey its demands. Omoregbe (1991: 158) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that “the moral imperative therefore makes man aware of his moral weakness and sinfulness. He then becomes aware that he is a sinner when he realizes how far short he is of the moral ideal demanded of him.” It is this weakness that informs Kierkegaard‟s third stage known as the religious stage in his theory of human existence in order to provide a new form of existence to complement the ethical life which he said is inadequate in comprehending human existence.

The religious stage is Kierkegaard‟s most celebrated stage, and to it we now turn.

(iii) THE RELIGIOUS STAGE

The third stage, which is the final stage, is the religious stage where an individual lives a life that transcends both the aesthetic and the ethical by going beyond what is required by any principle or what obligation demands. This is the stage where Kierkegaard said one requires absolute commitment, risk and involvement as one leaps in faith to access the divine being

(God). It is a stage in which one lives a life of faith, not necessarily dictated by reason. This is the last step on the ladder of Kierkegaard‟s three stages of human existence and we will only explain what he means by the religious stage. He says that man in his striving toward self- realization will have to cope with powers beyond his control. How will he do this? He cannot

152 simply ignore the powers beyond his control, hence he needs divine assistance from a transcendent Being (God) to enable him fulfill certain moral laws. To tap into the divine power, he must leap and that leaping must be done in faith. To this end, Kierkegaard stresses the concept of the “leap of faith” as the basis for arriving at a religious level. However, the necessity for the religious stage came about when Kierkegaard discovered that the ethical man with all his talents and efforts is incapable of realizing the moral law and perfect moral goodness. Thus, this realization leads to restlessness which can only be quenched by his recognition that he needs a new level of existence, which is the religious. But this new level called the religious sphere cannot be reached by merely wishing it. Therefore, to get there one must choose to leap by faith through self-commitment. Hence, Kierkegaard (1959:355) avers that the religious stage is attained by recognizing God for who He is and when man with sorrow in his heart for his sins “chooses himself as guilty and asks for divine forgiveness.”

This confession of sins, according to Kierkegaard (Ibid. p. 348), is meant to show that “before

God the individual is in the wrong.” Each man, Kierkegaard insists, must make this personal commitment which entails a non-rational leap of faith.

In other words, the religious stage is a stage where the individual who is religiously minded becomes spirit. To be religious, according to him, means “having absolute relationship to the

Absolute” (Ibid. p.350). Expatiating further on what it means to be religious, Valone

(1983:141) delineates four controversial aspects which are often neglected. He states thus:

This is the first place where he assumes that there exists, a chasm between the transcendent and the secular which cannot be mediated, Second, this grief is reflected in the person; third, our life is a self struggle in which both the secular and the transcendent contend for being the ultimate goal of our life; fourth, the attempt to make the secular the ultimate end of life will end in failure and despair. The initial step to the religious life is to recognize all this.

153 From Valone‟s declaration, it is quite obvious that the religious sphere demands a complete change in one‟s life because faith is its ultimate. The essential category of the religious stage is faith. This means that the religious stage can only be appropriated through a leap of faith, since faith, according to Kierkegaard, always brings us face to face with the paradoxical.

Thus, to live the religious life in Kierkegaard‟s view requires an intense personal commitment outside the ordinary and one that makes one look stupid. Citing Abraham as one of his most celebrated knights of faith, he says that the religious sphere is distinctly different from the aesthetic and the ethical spheres. Thus, Abraham‟s obedience to carrying out God‟s command was seen by Kierkegaard as an act of courageous faith. Consequently, he writes:

By his act he (Abraham) overstepped the ethical entirely and possessed a higher telos outside of it in relation to which he suspended the former (ethical). Why did Abraham do it? For God‟s sake: in order that he might furnish the proof. But now when the ethical is thus suspended, how does the individual exist in whom it is suspended? (Kierkegaard, 1954:69)

Abraham‟s action was seen as a religious action based on faith. To this end, Gallagher

(1964:86) writes: “the new category to which Abraham belongs is that of faith: He existed not in the ethical sphere, not as a modern but as a believer, a knight of faith. The knight of faith becomes such because the individual is in an absolute relation to the Absolute here meaning

God.” Abraham by his act gave up the ethical for the religious in the finite for the infinite.

Therefore, the only thing that can save Abraham, according to Kierkegaard (1954:57-58):

Is the absurd, and this he grasps by faith. So, he recognizes the impossibility and that very instant he believes the absurd; for, if without recognizing the impossibility with all the passion of his soul and with all his heart, he should wish to imagine that he has faith, he deceives himself, and his testimony has no bearing, since he has not even reached the infinite resignation.

Thus, faith, Kierkegaard argues, is not an aesthetic emotion but something far higher precisely because it has resignation as its presupposition: It is not an immediate instinct of the heart, but is the paradox of life and existence. In line with Kierkegaard‟s postulation, Bourke (1970:193)

154 posits that, “the truly religious man lives the highest keynote here; without some anguish no one can be a religious person. The “leap” of faith brings one to awareness of subjectivity, and of God‟s inward presence within the subject.” In view of Bourke‟s assertion, we are made to understand clearly that the religious mode of life suspends or absorbs the ethical. And that by the “leap of faith” the homo religious imparts to the finiteness and temporality of his existence an infinite and eternal significance. Since every aspect of his life is henceforth determined and permeated by God-relationship. According to Kierkegaard, when a man or an individual enters into a life of faith he gains his selfhood and begins to exist authentically. He leaps as it were into nothingness in which the abyss of sin becomes the abyss of faith. Consequently, he writes: “by faith, I make renunciation of nothing. On the contrary, by faith I acquire everything, precisely in the sense in which, it is said that he who has faith like a grain of mustard can remove mountains” (Kierkegaard, 1954:59). Hence Lescoe (1974: 40) says:

In faith, man risks everything but he receives in return infinitely more than he has been able to give. He has abandoned the ethical and the universal. He has now chosen the religious and in faith he has transcended the finite, thereby effecting a union and communion with the infinite God. He is now leading a truly authentic existence.

Risk, which is an act of commitment, remains the basis of genuine existence. Every genuine risk is anchored on faith. Faith goes with risk and if you lack adequate faith you will find it difficult to risk even the most elemental kind of risk. Life itself is about risk. Everything we do involves one kind of risk or another.

Therefore, the movement from the aesthetic to the ethical stage requires an act of choice and commitment because it admits the individual human being into the presence of reason in as much as the moral law is an expression of the universal reason of man. Similarly, the movement from the ethical to the religious level also requires an act of choice and a leaping

155 through self-commitment in that it admits man into the presence of faith. This means that in matters of ethical and religious commitments, a choice is truly significant. Kierkegaard may have arrived at the three stages of existence because his philosophy is basically a reduplication of his lifestyle. It thus confirms the view from various accounts that the idea of the stage were original to him because we have seen according to Collins (1953: 43), that

“despite his readings of Friedrich Ernst Daniel Schleiermacher about life‟s choices and his careful study of the Hegelian dialectic of the various types of minds, Kierkegaard did not take his triple division ready-made from such sources. Rather, it seems to have been forced upon him by reflection upon his own experience.” This is evident from the vast literatures where we were reliably informed that in his bid to be different, he sought for a principle upon which to order his entire life and if possible die for it. Kierkegaard was indeed an individual human being who actually lived an aesthetic, ethical and religious life at various stages in his life before he attained authentic human existence.

In each of these stages, Kierkegaard dealt with a unique and distinct lifestyle. This tripartite division of the stages is meant by him to demonstrate the various values by which people order their lives. By this feat, he has communicated through the three stages of human existence the limited number of values available to human life. People choose to live the value system that best suit their lifestyles and personalities and this is made possible by choice.

Kierkegaard says that every human being whether we notice it or nor, lives in any of the three stages identified as aesthetic, ethical and religious. Every human being, says Kierkegaard as cited by Auden (1963:8), lives either “aesthetically, ethically or religiously.” It appears that human attitudes are governed or ruled by the ideals of one of these lifestyle Consequently, it

156 has been generally acknowledged that the three stages of human existence are Kierkegaard‟s most “influential doctrine, the one contribution with which he is usually credited by general histories of philosophies” (Collins, 1953:42). The stages simply mean a way of stating the basic choices which confront the concrete individual in his search for mature self-possession.

MacIntyre (1967:149) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that “a person‟s action will always form part of a coherent way of life: the aesthetic, in which pleasure is pursued, or the ethical, in which principles are treated as binding, or the religious, in which God is obeyed. Between these one must choose and it is this sense that behind any action there lies a choice.” As

Kaufmann (1960:190-191) declares, the stages are mere projections of what were for

Kierkegaard himself “live options.” Thus, by this live options Kierkegaard has not only shown that we live in three different compartments at different times in our attempt to realize our existential mandate, but he has equally shown that human beings has three responses to moral decision-making in the form of aesthetic, ethical and religious decisions. In addition, we posit that by him referring to the stages as existential dialectic, he has brought to our knowledge what ordinary people will not want to hear: that human beings require “difficulty, uncertainty, conflict and the like in order to develop a moral and spiritual disposition”(Pojman, 1978:1). This is an indubitable fact of life.

At this juncture, a comparison between Kierkegaard‟s three stages of human existence and that of Auguste Comte‟s Law of three stages - the theological, the metaphysical and the positive science - is necessary to show their relatedness or their differences. Comte‟s stages are called “The Law of Three Stages.” Hacking (1983:45) quotes Comte as saying that human society makes progress through three stages:

157 First we went through a theological stage, characterized by the search for the first causes and the fiction of divinities. Then we went through a somewhat equivocal metaphysical stage, in which we gradually replaced divinities by the theoretical entities of half-completed science. Finally, we now progress to the stage of science. Positive science allows propositions to count as true-or-false if and only if there is some way of settling their truth values.

From the above quotation, Comte tells us that human beings made progress in human society through three distinct stages, that is, from theological to metaphysical and finally, to the positive science stage. Kierkegaard was not a contemporary of Comte and so had no direct historical relation with him. This is why we must be wary of generalizing their doctrine of the spheres of stages beyond certain historical circumstances. In reality, Kierkegaard was much more of a concrete thinker than Comte. He did not take his triple division ready-made from other source; rather, it was forced upon him by reflection upon his own experience. They both discriminated three distinct stages. They were both anti-metaphysicians to the core. Yet, they moved far apart in their methods and results. While Kierkegaard‟s stages are concretely moral and live options, and as such represent concrete ways in which we express ourselves in human existence, Comte‟s stages are not but scientific. While that of Kierkegaard was development of the human personality morally, Comte‟s stages are not but the evolution of the human society scientifically. While in Comte‟s three stages, emphasis is on scientific development of human society. In Kierkegaard‟s stages emphasis is on human concrete moral decisions. To

Comte, theology and metaphysics as earlier stages in human development should be put behind us like childish things in a bid to move to the positive science stage. But that does not necessarily mean we should inhabit a world free or barren of values. Kierkegaard, in the same vein, also said that the aesthetic stage needs to be dethroned before one can ascend the ethical and the religious stages.

158 3.5 EXISTENTIALIST THEMES IN KIERKEGAARD’S THOUGHT

Kierkegaard was the founder of modern existentialism even though he had a host of forerunners.

Yet he was the philosopher who established the concepts and vocabulary otherwise referred to as existentialist themes that influenced subsequent existentialists. Themes such as anguish, anxiety, forlornness, despair, guilt, conscience, consciousness, freedom, choice, responsibility, irrationalism, death, commitment, authentic and inauthentic existence, temporality (time), the individual, etc.

Other themes include facticity, fallenness, existentiality, man-and-the-world, man-and-others, intentionality, etc. It was Martin Heidegger that took over the fundamental analysis of these themes in details after Kierkegaard had died. In this work, we shall limit ourselves to only of such themes.

Most existentialists are irrational in their thinking by emphasizing passion and emotion instead of rationality. Temporality depicts the past, the present and the future. Existentialist are concerned about man‟s past, present and future.

3.5.1 AUTHENTICITY AND INAUTHENTICITY

Despite our many freedoms, increased leisure, and psychological sophistication, authenticity seems rare in all works of life, not the least of which is religion. Kierkegaard‟s great virtue is

“his reclamation of the existing individual from philosophical, theological, political, and scientific abstraction as he or she struggles to make life meaningful amidst a bombardment of

“answers” and “options” (Soccio, 2007:430).

a. AUTHENTICITY

All that Kierkegaard strove to achieve throughout his lifetime was about the “subjective existing individual,” which later existentialists called “authenticity.” In the same vein,

Friedrich Nietzsche‟s overman was also known as “authenticity.” Kierkegaard, in his entire

159 philosophical and theological voyage, was only concerned with how individual human beings could become themselves or subjective, i.e. authentic and not somebody else. In Soccio‟s

(2007: 410) explication, authenticity “is the subjective condition of an individual living honestly and courageously in the moment without refuge in excuses and without reliance on groups or institutions for meaning and purpose.” To this end, authenticity, to Kierkegaard and indeed all his associates, was the hallmark of human existence and they did not play or toy with the term even though they had differing views on how one can achieve an authentic selfhood. Authenticity has been defined as “the quality of being authentic” (Hornby, 1995:67).

„Authentic‟ is the adjective form of authenticity. And it is defined as what is “authoritative, real, actual, genuine and true” (Mish, 1999:77). The word “authentikos” is from the Greek word authentic” and it is rendered as genuine. The general understanding of authentic or authenticity is genuine, truth, factual, real and worthy etc. The term “authenticity” was introduced by Martin Heidegger” (Olson, 1961:134) and was later used by the existentialists to describe the ways of living of one who takes absolute knowledge of the absurdity of the world and still consciously follows a consistent course of action. In fact, the existentialists meant by authenticity one who acts convincingly without consultation. As Unah (1996:28) noted, the concept of authenticity in philosophy is “a development out of existentialism whether Christian or atheist.” The question now is: what does it means to be authentic? To this question, there are many responses as to what it means to be authentic. But we will take few responses. For Billington (1990:115), to be authentic means “not to go along with any gusts that blow just because they are blowing.” This means that one who is authentic is one who does not hide behind a mask. Cooper (1998:504) on his part says, “the authentic person is one who lives in clear honest recognition of existential freedom.” Lescoe (1974: 12) quotes

160 Kierkegaard as saying that authenticity or authentic existence is arrived at by making “the leap of faith and by becoming totally committed to a life of subjectivity.” To Kierkegaard, authenticity means becoming a true Christian and becoming an individual human being.

Hence, he said it is possible the knight of faith might have to „transcend the ethical‟ and

Nietzsche on his part holds that authentic individuals will live beyond „good and evil.‟ It is in this light that Guignon (1998:500) regards authenticity as an “art of self-cultivation.” In fact,

Kierkegaard was a man whose life purpose was calculated to render and promote authentic human existence.

In other words, for Kierkegaard, authentic existence “comes from personal choice and from personal zeal in following it through” (Wild, 1962: 37). This personal zeal in following it through means that authentic existence must entail commitment; otherwise, it would be difficult for one to uphold one‟s chosen position. In actual fact, the “magnum desiderabile” of every existentialist, including Kierkegaard, is an authentic meaningful existence. Therefore, what the existentialist admires about the human being is “the authenticity of his existence”

(Grene, 1952:266). Experiences such as anxiety, anguish and existential guilt are basic to human existence because they disclose important truths about our own human condition. For

Heidegger, authenticity will mean that an individual human being has chosen to take over his/her being as his own responsibility and facing it squarely and unequivocally and allowing it to reveal itself fully and uniquely as his own. Unah (1996:43-44) quotes Heidegger as saying that a human being becomes authentic “when having answered the call of conscience and having realized (through angst) the radical finitude of his being lives every minute of his life in anticipation of death, the capital extinguisher of possibilities.” This anguish of death,

161 according to Heidegger, is what discloses the authentic status of being. This means that

Heidegger defines the authentic human being exclusively in terms of his attitude toward death. Following Heidegger‟s footstep, Warnock (1970:60) asserts that authenticity “consists in a realization of one‟s position in the world, one‟s isolation, and one‟s inevitable orientation towards one‟s own death.” In Sartre‟s words as cited by Olson (1961: 139), the authentic human being “is the person who undergoes a radical conversion through anguish and who assumes his freedom. He recognizes himself… as the cause of there being a world and as the unique source of the world‟s value and intelligibility.” From Sartre‟s declaration, the genuine human being is one who assumes his freedom through torture. This means that an authentic life in the broadest sense will be one that is intensely lived and one based upon “an accurate appraisal of the human condition” (Ibid.p.134). Baugh (1988:478) quotes Heidegger as saying that human beings are authentic “when they make their existence their own by deciding for themselves what it is to be a human being.” However, that one has to be authentic does not call for an eccentric kind of behaviour and action. It simply means one must be assertive on what one believes is right without being cajoled or pushed around. Ironically, Kierkegaard understood authenticity in terms of Christian and individual inwardness. This Kierkegaardian dimension of authenticity is very fundamental to genuine action. Nevertheless, we must realize that the human being‟s existence revolves around authenticity and inauthenticity, and to inauthenticity we now turn.

b. INAUTHENTICITY

Inauthenticity is simply the opposite of authenticity. Inauthenticity results when “the nature and needs of the individual are ignored, denied, obscured, or made less important than

162 institutions, abstractions, or groups‟ (Soccio, 2007: 410). This means we live an inauthentic life when we decide to follow other people‟s opinion without choosing decisively. Most often our everyday life is characterized by inauthenticity. Inauthenticity implies “forfeiting the worth of one‟s innate creative potentiality for original and independent personal decisions and choices” (Chukwu, 2006:108). Thus, Heidegger says in our ordinary busyness and social conformism we are simply refusing to take responsibility for our own lives. In throwing ourselves into socially approved activities and roles we disown ourselves and rotate a web of self-deception in trying to avoid facing up to the truth about what we are. For instance,

Kierkegaard would regard a human being as inauthentic when such a human being refuses to live a life of subjectivity based on the “leap” of faith. Becoming subjective means to be ethical and religious, which leads to an authentic life, according to Kierkegaard. In fact, when an individual refuses to face his being fully and to assume responsibility for it, such an individual, according to Heidegger, is guilty of inauthenticity. For him, inauthentic existence is best represented by burning “everydayness” and “uninteresting.” A human being, who lives or leads such a dull or uninteresting colourless type of existence, fails to live as a genuine bona fide individual. This is because he fails to exploit his truly existential possibilities. And so, such an individual is never regarded as a definite human being. Therefore, inauthentic existence is an existence that is not one‟s own. It is, according to Stack (1973:110), “a mode of being in which an individual experiences alienation from himself and endures a dispersion of the self which makes resolute choice difficult.”

Since inauthenticity is seen as a necessary condition for the achievement of a genuinely authentic existence, Heidegger, who formulated his theory of inauthenticity on account of his concept of authenticity, contends that the route to attaining authentic existence is through the

163 phenomenon of dread or anxiety and that a human being can only become authentically existential by experiencing anxiety. He asserts that most of the human being‟s life is lived in the imitation of others. This, according to him, is bad moral behaviour. Unah (1995:20) again quotes Heidegger as saying that inauthentic or unauthentic life is a situation where

Dasein (i.e., a human being) “loses himself in the anonymous crowd.” It means that the individual human being‟s choice and responsibility are taken away from him or her. Wearing a mask is another means of taking refuge by hiding behind status, or rank or profession, never to stand bare-faced and be oneself, these are clear marks of inauthenticity. This inauthenticity is what Sartre calls “bad faith.” By bad faith, Sartre meant not being true to oneself, pretending to be other than what one is. Thus, from what has been said so far, authenticity seems to have more to do with what is called the “art of self-cultivation” than it does with ethics as traditionally understood. To this end, authenticity simply means the idea of being true to yourself, that is, of owing up to who you really are. One is able to live this kind of intense life only through a total life defining commitment to something that gives one‟s life an ultimate structure or pattern and significance. To Heidegger, authenticity requires resoluteness, a commitment to some specific range of possibilities opened up by one‟s historical heritage. And basic to living an authentic life is a definite awareness of one‟s own responsibility for one‟s choices in shaping one‟s life. In fact, as Warnock (1970:55) clearly states, authentic existence can begin:

Only when we have realized and thoroughly understood what we are. Once we have grasped that human reality is characterized by the fact that each human being is uniquely himself and no one else, and that each of us has his own possibilities to fulfill, then our concern with the world, instead of being a mere concern to do as people in general do, to do things necessary for living as other members of our society live, can become authentic concern, to fulfill our real potentiality in the world.

164 The point Warnock makes from the above quotation shows that the concept of authenticity is necessary for each individual to realize his own unique being, just in the same way that the concepts of inwardness and subjectivity as espoused by Kierkegaard are to each of us.

Fundamentally, the concept of authenticity and inauthenticity denote ways in which human being behave in the world. Heidegger essentially used the terms to describe conditions that affect the individual human being‟s social existence. Thus, human beings are poised between the two possibilities - that is, the possibility of an “authentic” human existence in which the individual faces up to the limit of human existence, for example, his own death and the possibility of “inauthentic” existence in which the individual retreats from death and anxiety

(Dread or Angst) and sorge to use Heidegger‟s word, and, so become their victim. According to Grene (1952:266), what the existentialist admire, treasure or endorse is not the happiness of the human being‟s life, or the goodness of his or her acts like the ancient Greek philosophers, but the genuineness or authenticity of his existence and this, Grene says, “is the unique contribution of existentialism to ethical theory.” In conclusion, the term authenticity and inauthenticity as explicated by Heidegger and other existentialists were not used or applied evaluatively as value judgements. Both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche used the concept to write only

“for persons who shared their basic preferences and also to demonstrate their superiority since only two of them had an adequate understanding of the human condition” (Olson, 1961:26).

Therefore to be authentic, according to existentialism, an individual must take over his own existence with clarity and intensity which is made possible by deep emotional experiences through freedom, choice, responsibility, anxiety or anguish.

165 3.4.1 FREEDOM, CHOICE AND RESPONSIBILITY

As far as Kierkegaard is concerned, freedom, choice and responsibility are inseparable from existence. By freedom, we mean a state in which a person may decide for himself what is right and good, what to do with his freedom or what kind of self to become. Freedom is not exercised in a vacuum. It is meaningless except where there is an obstacle to overcome, that is, a choice which must be made. Thus, according to Barnes (1967:290), freedom “is always in situation.” It means, it is concretely realized and exercised in choice and decision. Freedom widened the range of man‟s choices and it is through choice and action that man realizes his potentialities. In recognition of this fact, May (1967:175) defines freedom as “the individual‟s capacity to know that he is the determined one”. However, one thing that aptly explains

Kierkegaard‟s position is the concept of psychological freedom. This psychological freedom is defined by Donceel (1967:371) “as that attribute of the Will whereby man can act or not act

(freedom of exercise can act in this way or in that way (freedom of specification).” In light of this definition, Donceel clears the air as to whether it is within the power of man to actualize all he wills. He argues further that “man is free, not because he can do (all) he wants to do…, but because he has it in his power either to want or not to want to do it” (Ibid. p. 376). Here, action is identified as central and fundamental to the realization of one‟s freedom.

Sartre in his most celebrated book, Being and Nothingness (1976:10), defines freedom as “the permanent capacity of self determination, self-orientation and self-detachment.” May (1981:3) quotes Humboldt as saying that, freedom is “the true end of man ... is the highest and most harmonious development of his power to a complete and consistent whole. Freedom is the first and indispensable condition which the possibility of such a development presupposes.”

166 Generally, the word freedom has many faces or dimensions. It is an elusive concept because of its diverse meanings and May (Ibid. p. 52), attesting to this elusiveness, notes that “freedom by its nature is elusive. The word is difficult to define because of its quicksilver quality.

Freedom is always moving.” On the outside, freedom is a strange and puzzling concept, for it has application in radically different contexts. In Muller‟s (1970:59) words, freedom means

“the condition of being able to choose and to carry out purposes.” This definition has moral implications for human action since man is a moral being capable of choosing what is right and good among competing alternatives. In this work, however, our concern is with existential freedom- freedom that is realizable in all situations rather than freedom in the traditional or abstract sense.

By existential freedom, is meant “a freedom that occurs in our day-to-day existence” (May,

1981:53). Existential freedom is characterized by spontaneity, choice, action, self- determination, boundedness and of course responsibility. Soren Kierkegaard, Karl Jaspers,

Martin Heidegger, Albert Camus, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Jean Paul Sartre developed the concept of existential freedom in their various philosophical literatures. For the existentialists, there is no such thing as freedom in the abstract divorced from the realities of a specific time and place. Freedom to them implies or involves a power of choice between alternatives. It means the ability to do or refrain from doing definite things at a definite moment, in definite circumstances, or it means noting at all. Dewey and Gould (1970:77) agree with the existentialists when they argue that the human person is:

167 Free in so far as he can do something or choose not to do it, can make up his own mind, can say yes or no to any given command, and can decide for himself the matter of duty. Man is not free in so far as he is prohibited from following his inclinations or is obliged to do something his own volition, whether by direct coercion or by fear of consequences, even though it might be better for him than his heart‟s desire.

This is so because a human is most human when he or she thinks, wills and acts. The individual human being is free in so far as he/she can do something or choose not to do it, can make up his/her own mind, can say yes or no to any given question or command, and can decide for himself the matter of duty. At the same time, freedom can also imply the possession of the power to achieve what is wanted. To Kierkegaard, freedom is largely indispensable for the realization of authentic existence. He held that the essence of human‟s existence is freedom and that the human being is constituted by freedom and choice. Though

Kierkegaard did not use the word “condemned” the way Sartre would latter use it, by implication, his emphasis on human freedom foreshadowed Sartre. To buttress this

Kierkegaardian position further, Breisach (1962:99) asserts that freedom “is the very core of and the door to an authentic existence.”

In fact, Kierkegaard says that freedom consists in frankly confronting situations into which one deliberately entered and accepting the responsibility that follows. The subject of human freedom is one which raises fundamental issues about the nature of humans and their goals.

Do human beings really wish to have a wide measure of freedom to choose and to determine their own lives? For instance, Karl Marx teaches that true freedom will have been achieved when men have learned to regulate material production for the satisfaction of their needs. One of the essential conditions of freedom is giving individuals the possibility of making meaningful choices. Generally, in existentialist philosophy freedom, choice and responsibility are considered indispensable values to human existence. According to Kierkegaard, choice is

168 the core of all human existence and, as such, it was central to his thought. His emphasis on choice was so tense that it became known as Kierkegaard‟s dialectic of choice. He discussed the concept and process of choice extensively in his maiden book, Either/Or (1843). In this book, Kierkegaard argues that it is as we stand at the divide (Point “Y”) that we most certainly face the opportunity for growth. And that it is by refusing to take a decision, that is, by letting someone else decide for us, perhaps that we shrink. The act of choice, Kierkegaard (1959:170) contends, is “essentially a proper and stringent expression of the ethical.” Human beings exercise what existentialists call freedom of choice. By freedom of choice, the existentialist means the “autonomy of choice and autonomy of choice means undetermined choice” (Olson,

1961, 52). Essentially, choice remains the most dynamic area of any field of being. Thus, the most agonizing choice that Kierkegaard had to make in his life was “whether to marry his fiancée, Regine Olsen, or end his engagement to her and live a celibate life” (Billington,

1990:103). Still, Kierkegaard‟s decision to end his engagement and live a celibate life was a choice and it marked the height of assertiveness of choice in the most agonizing manner. He took the responsibility for his freely chosen action even though he lamented later that it was lack of faith that led him to take the decision he took. In summing up the act of choice,

Kierkegaard (1974:181) says, “choice imparts to man‟s nature solemnity and dignity, nothing is compared with it and with it one becomes what he becomes. In it he does not become himself, consciousness unified, and he is himself … For the great thing is not to be this or that but to be oneself and this everyone can be if he wills it.”

Thus, where there is freedom and choice there we have responsibility. Responsibility constitutes the check on human freedom. It is responsibility that brings about anxiety.

169 According to Ekei (2001: 111), responsibility has to do with “acting in answer to.” It implies an ability to “respond” to an action, action of a kind.” Responsibility rises out of choice and becomes its sequence. Responsibility belongs exclusively to human beings and as such, it makes the individual human being a bearer of obligation, morally accountable and liable for moral blame or reward. This unique attribute is a predicate of human beings on the basis of his/her “reason” and “freedom.” Since responsibility presupposes freedom, it follows that to do “Z” voluntarily is to do “Z” with the awareness that one has an alternative course open to him or her. Of course, responsibility is disclosed in action since it means an “ability” to respond to an action. To act simply means to be involved or to be engaged in action. Without action, choice is merely a wish, an idle desire. Action is what discloses our humanity and defines our individuality. With action comes responsibility. And this responsibility comes with the awareness that we are the author of our decisions. We can never escape our responsibility as a being condemned to freedom. Freedom is a sine qua non of responsibility.

This means that without freedom, there can be no responsibility.

This means that individual human beings cannot have freedom without responsibility.

Freedom and responsibility are commensurable. A person cannot have more freedom than responsibility nor can one be shackled with more responsibility than freedom. Reitmeister

(1970:693) quotes Hocking as saying that “…individualism grows and spreads with responsibility. You can only make men free when they are inwardly bound by their own sense of responsibility.” It is clear that the notion of freedom and choice automatically impose some sort of responsibility upon an individual for his thoughts and acts. An individual who is actively living and existing in the existentialist sense cannot avoid responsibility. People must

170 be held responsible to some degree, otherwise chaos would result. Often times, it is this enormous responsibility that brings about anxiety. Hence, Hintz (1961:177) writes:

Each man is responsible for making the best choice available to him within the scope of his limitations and his powers. That these limitations and powers differ widely among men no one will deny. But to the extent that an individual acts or fails to act responsibly within the range of his capacities, whatever, they may be, to that extent he is praiseworthy or blameworthy. It is only because this principle is universally recognized in everyday experience and practice that any type of social order is even possible.

Fundamentally, without responsibility social existence is impossible because, as Hook

(1961:188) puts it: “no one can live in human society without learning to recognize the distinction between the action he holds others and himself responsible for and the actions he does not.” It is responsibility that makes the individual a human being. It marks the individual out of the lower animals. Moral responsibility is only applicable to a man who is a free agent. When we regard a man as morally responsible for an act we regard him as a legitimate object of moral praise or blame in respect of his acts. To this end, we agree with

Rogers (1964:40) that indeed “personal freedom and responsibility have a crucial significance that one cannot live a complete life without such personal freedom and responsibility, and that self-understanding and responsible choice make a sharp and measurable difference in the behaviour of the individual.” Rogers‟ assertion agrees totally with Kierkegaard‟s, who is well known for his unwavering emphasis on personal freedom and responsibility.

In fact, Kierkegaard chides Hegel for evolving a philosophy that robs the individual of his freedom, choice and responsibility. Hegel‟s philosophy, apart from its dehumanizing effect on the individual, makes the individuals to be seen as a mere cipher in the scheme of things.

Hegel seems to have forgotten that it is only in the atmosphere of freedom that man can choose a course of action and be held responsible for its outcome. Man is defined through the

171 choices he makes. As Sartre argues, if I am locked up in a prison yard as a prisoner, I have it within my power to choose to remain a prisoner or to decide to free myself. This means I must back my decision up with action even though the end may not be achieved. This means that man‟s freedom goes with a heavy burden. Man feels a sense of anguish when he realizes that he is to bear the responsibility for his freedom alone. The freedom to choose implies responsibility for one‟s life. Responsibility is a product of freedom. This means that freedom is necessary for responsibility and responsibility for freedom. To be free is to be able to do what one chooses to do, and this is also a limited ability.

Hence, the existentialists present choice as the central fact of human nature, meaning that choice is cardinal to human existence. In Sartre‟s words, even when I do not choose, I have chosen not to choose. Kierkegaard contends that a choice is important when it concerns ethical or religious commitment. We commit ourselves to authentic existence through the choices we make. Man is in a perpetual state of choosing and deciding among the various courses of actions that he is confronted with. As Sartre (1976:495) puts it: “I am not responsible for coming into the world, but I am absolutely responsible for whatever action and decisions I make after… in being born, I take a place, but I am responsible for the place which

I take.” The concept of “aesthetic” in Kierkegaard‟s philosophy and the concept of bad faith in Sartre‟s philosophy show that an individual may seek to escape responsibility at all cost.

Thus, where there are issues of freedom and choice to deal with, there responsibility is also.

Freedom, choice and responsibility are therefore three faces or aspects of the same being. The relationship between freedom, choice and responsibility is so interwoven and interconnected

172 that one cannot do without the other. Thus, the centrality of choice in this triad is demonstrated in the following words:

If any single thesis could be said to constitute the doctrine of existentialism, it would be that the possibility of choice is the central fact of human nature. Even the thesis that existence precedes essence often means no more than that men do not have fixed natures that limit or determine their choice, but rather, it is their choice that brings whatever natures they have into being (Maclntyre, 1967:149).

To this end, Sartre advises that it is far more advantageous for one to make free choice because the refusal to choose is already a choice. To this effect, no human being can completely free him/herself from choosing. Billington (1990:109) quotes Sartre as saying that the greatest asset man has in terms of freedom is “the freedom to say no.” Choices will always create opportunities for subsequent choice. Our choice is accompanied by anguish and we free ourselves from forlornness and despair through choice. They are human traits that contribute significantly to man‟s responsibility. To these traits - anguish, forlornness and despair - we now turn.

3.4.2 ANGUISH, FORLORNNESS, AND DESPAIR

(i) ANGUISH

Man is the only existing being that experiences anguish, forlornness and despair in his daily interaction with the world where he is constantly battling with his limitation to be this man or that man. In simple terms, anguish is defined as “distress” or extreme pain” (Mish 1999:45).

Essentially, anguish is an existentialist term which describes the human condition (i.e., man‟s suffering in the world). In Kierkegaard‟s understanding, anguish is one of the many ways by which human being relates to this physical world. By anguish Kierkegaard does not mean terror or fear, rather he meant what has no “object, for it signifies that man is destined for

173 something higher than simply being a creature of nature” (Rohde, 1963:65-66). We experience anguish when we consider the contingency (uncertainty) of our circumstances in the world. Anguish is one of the characteristic conditions of human existence. It comes as a result of reflection. When we reflect on the contingency of our being, the basic problem of life which defies any satisfactory solution, then we are seized with a tormenting anguish which, according to Omoregbe (1991c:48), is “the realization that we do not know the meaning and purpose of our existence, that our existence is fortuitous (free, unearned) and unnecessary, that we might very well not have existed and that sooner or later we shall cease to exist etc., give rise to a disturbing anguish.” Rohde (1963:152 quotes Kierkegaard as saying that anguish is

“the feeling which assails man when he discovers himself in the middle of his existence surrounded by natural forces both outside and inside himself.” Anguish is a kind of disquiet in the mind which contains something frightening and which, according to Kierkegaard, opens up wider horizons where man is led to sense a higher calling in existence.

What do the existentialists mean when they say human being feels a sense of anguish? They mean that “the man who involves himself and who realizes that he is not only the person he chose to be, but also a law maker who is at the same choosing for all mankind as well as himself, cannot help escape the feeling of his total and deep responsibilities” (Sartre,

1977:38). Man feels a sense of anguish when he realizes that he is responsible for himself and as well as to others. It gives the impression that one is like an orphan thrown into a boundless universe without a blueprint or design and direction. In this realization man, according to

Unah (2002a:102) is “cast into existential anguish.” This existential anguish is a consequence of our discovery that as human beings we have no adequate or sufficient answers to the

174 puzzling questions of life (such as death, poverty, sickness, wars, evil, wickedness, man‟s inhumanity to man, barrenness, divorce, a new born baby born blind, earthquake, hurricane of different kinds and types), and hence he concludes that he might soon disappear from the scene without accomplishing his aims. Again, the enormity of man‟s freedom and the attendant responsibility give rise also to man‟s existential anguish in his temporality. Yet, anguish is not the same thing as fear, though both are responses we express towards threats or danger. But while fear concerns the enemy without, anguish concerns an enemy within. Thus,

Kierkegaard is right for asserting that anguish and fear are two distinct phenomena and that fear is fear of being in the world whereas anguish is precisely my consciousness of being my own future, in the mode of not-being. Hence, we agree with Sartre (1958:29) that “fear is of being in the world whereas anguish is anguish before myself.” It is “in anguish that man becomes aware of himself in question. To be in question signifies that one has not yet become what he can be” (Ralph, 1958:98). In anguish man will see himself, his contradicting condition and his freedom to act “as if” he were God.

Warnock (1970:59) quotes Heidegger as saying that “it is in anguish that a human being discovers himself confronted by the nothing, which is the possible impossibilities of his existence.” Anguish is part and parcel of human existence. Therefore, no man or woman of any race can successfully exonerate himself or herself from the grip of anguish because of its ontological nature. To this end, Ndubuisi (1998:28) argues that whoever tries to run away from this feeling of responsibility “indulges in self-deception.” Anguish (existential anguish) is evident when it conceals itself in man. This is the anguish that Kierkegaard called “the anguish of Abraham” (Sartre, 1977:38). An angel has ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son, if it really were an angel who has come and said “you are Abraham, you shall sacrifice your

175 son,” everything would be alright. But every one might first wonder, “is it really an angel, and am I really Abraham?” what proof do I have?” How did Abraham know that it was God speaking to him? In this circumstance, only Abraham knows the truth whether God is the one ordering him to kill his son. Thus, the decision and choice to obey the voice speaking to him lies entirely with him. He is in anguish because he loved Isaac dearly and at the same time he loved God. This anguish was evident in Abraham‟s action as he could not tell his wife what the angel had told him in the dream. The truth lies solely with Abraham. It is in anguish that man gets the consciousness of his freedom. Kierkegaard described anguish in the face of what one lacks and characterizes it as anguish in the face of freedom. There is evidence of anguish in man even when there is the attempt to conceal it. All leaders are faced with the Abrahamic kind of anguish. It does not however keep them away from acting or action; rather it is the very condition of their action, “for it implies that they envisage a number of possibilities, and when they choose one they realize that it has value only because it is chosen” (Sartre,

1977:40). There is no absolute value anywhere, according to Sartre. Man is like a speck in an immerse universe which he does not fully understand.

Consequently, Sartre says, there is no escape from anguish for it accompanies every serious decision we take in life as is evident to anybody in a position of authority. Thus, Sartre

(1970:31-33) further writes:

When for example, a military commander takes the responsibility of an attack and sends a certain number of men to death, he chooses to do it, and basically he made the choice alone. Without doubt there are orders coming from above, but they are too rapid and an interpretation is necessary which comes from him, and on this interpretation the lives of ten or fourteen or twenty men depend. In taking such a decision he cannot avoid certain anguish. All leaders know this, anguish… it is the condition of their action; for that presupposes that they envisage a plurality of possibilities out of which they chose one, and they realize that the value of such a choice is precisely the fact that it has been chosen and they are responsible for this choice since it comes from them. This is the kind of anguish which is described by existentialism.

176 Freedom and anguish go together and they are revealed together. Harper (1958:98) quotes

Sartre as admitting that “it is in anguish that man becomes aware of his liberty,” in anguish man becomes aware of himself in question” to be in question signifies that one has not yet become what he can.” We are subject to anguish when we go about our daily affairs, even if we do not always feel it. Anguish gives birth to forlornness, a state of abandonment when we suddenly realize that we have nobody to run to for help or assistance and that whatever happens to us, is our sole responsibility as men of freedom.

(ii) FORLORNNESS.

Man, according to existentialist philosophers, is forlorn because he is in a state of abandonment, aloneness and virtual hopelessness. Thus, under this state of forlornness, man within him or without has nothing to cling to. He cannot start making excuses for himself and he cannot even live unless he or some other free being does something for him. Man‟s forlornness caught the attention of major existentialists such as Kierkegaard, Heidegger and

Sartre. Their emphasis was on the forlornness of the individual whose deepened awareness has for the time being seemed to have separated him from all others. The individual, they argue wants to be indispensable, recognized and immortalize himself. Consequently, he is put in a world which he has to make meaning out of and which also offers him neither help nor solace. Hence, man is forlorn (i.e. alone and forsaken). Therefore, to make sense out of the state of hopelessness he finds himself, he had to invent concepts such as ethics to regulate his activities within the available space he occupies.

177 In fact, Sartre (1977:40) says when we speak of forlornness (a term Heidegger was fond of)

“we mean only that God does not exist and that we have to face all the consequences of this.”

This forlornness became heightened when existentialist, of an atheistic persuasion declared the non-existence of God. This means that there is no such value anywhere by which he is to live. It is this absence of God, according to Ndubuisi (1998:80), that makes “man to be forlorn since he has nothing to cling to other than himself for all his actions and life.” And since he has nobody to turn to, he must decide within himself either to remain wretched and live an unfulfilled life or to confront the world with the enormous freedom available at his disposal.

In fact, existentialists hold that ultimately each of us is responsible for who we are and what we become. To this end, we cannot blame parents, teachers, employers, God, or circumstances. Thus, Sartre (1957:15) says, “man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such is the first principle of existentialism.” We can choose to become what we can be, or we can choose to avoid commitment and choice. But, ultimately, it is our choice.

Therefore, the only avenue open to man to transcend his state of forlornness is to apply his freedom to transform his environment and add value to his existence. However, if man is not willing to assert himself through choice to become what he wants in spite of his enormous freedom, he will find himself in the school of despair, for despair comes when we fail to choose to get what we want. To despair we now turn.

(iii) DESPAIR

The term „despair‟ was mostly used by Kierkegaard. In its verb form „despair‟ means “to lose all hope or confidence” while in its noun form, despair means “utter loss of hope” (Mish,

1999:314). In other words, despair means the state of giving up hope. In actual fact, despair

178 represents a state of hopelessness. To Sartre, life itself begins from the far side of despair.

While Kierkegaard, an apostle of despair, says that it is from despair that one begins to live because it awakens in man the consciousness to make ethical choice and be committed to it.

According to him, it is only when we experience or are in the state of despair that we realize the importance of choice to be human. In one of his psychological books, Sickness unto

Death, Kierkegaard (1954:200) stressed the concept of despair so much to the point that he described his life experience as the highest form of despair, that is, “the despair to be or the despair to be oneself.” To this end, May (1981:235) defines authentic despair “as the emotion which forces one to come to terms with one‟s destiny.” May explains further that, despair in its genuine sense, is the greatest enemy of pretense and the foe of playing the ostrich because it is a demand to face the reality of one‟s life. May portrays it as the smelting furnace which melts out the impurities in the ore. According to May, despair is not freedom itself, but a necessary preparation for freedom and this preparation starts from the acknowledgement that we must, as a matter of fact, drop all halfway measures and temporary exigencies and ways of being dishonest without ourselves, and confront our naked lives. Take, for example, an alcoholic man, a womanizer, a gambler or a lotto player (pool player) who cannot be cured until he or she is in complete despair. It is only when he or she reaches the depth of despair that he or she can give up those profitless ways of life to rekindle hopes or to reinforce his/her other expectations. This means that it is only when a person has hit the bottom that he/she will make a deliberate choice to live an ethical life in order to become human.

Kierkegaard sees despair as a fundamental apprehension that we consistently harbour knowingly or unknowingly. For him, despair is always despairing of something. A despairing man or woman, according to him, is in despair over something. An ambitious man whose

179 mission is to become “either the governor of (Y) State or nothing” and when he does not become the governor of (Y) State, he is in despair thereafter, meaning he has lost hope of becoming the governor of (Y) State. To him, all human beings are in despair in one way or another without knowing it. It is only an individual who can tell whether he is in despair or not because despair is a subjective phenomenon. Hence, Kierkegaard posits that it is a sickness of the spirit. May (1981:238) agree with Kierkegaard that despair is “a failure of spirit, spiritlessness. ... Without exaggeration, we despair over anything we could not achieve or attain. As long as there are limiting factors to human possibility, man will continue to experience despair. Because despair is an ontological concept that we as human beings possess and which shows up when the reality of our freedom is tested. From Kierkegaard‟s autobiography, we were reliably informed that he experienced a great deal of despair due to circumstances surrounding his background. This means that every human being consciously or unconsciously experiences anguish, forlornness and despair at some stage in his existence.

No human beings are immune from anguish, forlornness and despair because not everything we desire to have or become, comes to reality. The fact that one is wealthy or poor does not exonerate one from experiencing them since they are ontologically ingrained in human nature and, as such, they are fundamental to the realization of our genuine human humanity.

In conclusion, we posit that these ontological traits- anguish, forlornness and despair - assist in bringing the best out of the individual. Titus (1970:305) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that

“every man who has not tasted the bitterness of despair has missed the significance of life, however beautiful and joyous his life might be.” Despair rekindles and brings hope alive in the midst of hopelessness. To Ussher (1955:21), “we were to choose despair in order through that very encounter, to be free from its power - despair which he holds was always latent and

180 near the surface in aesthetic or epicurean living. But it is easier to leap into despair than to leap out of it.” When despair is seen as constructive emotion, then, it becomes a prelude to the greatest achievement. It strengthens one to confront the reality of life. It will lead to the disclosure of our hidden capacities and basic assets. Its role is that of wiping away our superficial ideas, our illusionary hope, and our simplistic morality. Furthermore, despair is essential in that it helps bring man up from the bottom to the point where Kierkegaard says one could give up his old uncommitted ways of living to have a firm grasp of human existence. This firm grasp of human existence is further enhanced through anxiety, guilt and conscience. And to these concepts we now turn.

3.5.3 ANXIETY, GUILT AND CONSCIENCE

(i) ANXIETY

The concepts of anxiety, guilt and conscience are basic fundamental ontological traits of human existence because they refer to the nature of being and not to feelings arising from specific situations or transgressions. Kierkegaard used all the existentialist themes that have now been taken over by subsequent existentialists, especially Martin Heidegger. Anxiety, guilt and conscience were areas that escape analysis by previous philosophers until

Kierkegaard pointed them out as objects of attention. For Kierkegaard (1957:55), anxiety is the “dizziness of freedom which occurs when the spirit would posit the synthesis, and freedom then gazes down into its own possibility grasping at finiteness to sustain itself. In this dizziness freedom succumbs.” This is because our personal freedom is a venture down paths we have never traversed before. As a result, we can never know ahead of time how the venture will turn out. Hence, we leap into the unknown (future). With freedom, one

181 experiences a dizziness, a feeling of giddiness, a sense of disordered state in which the individual seems to whirl dizzily. Dizziness, on its part, can be both pleasurable as well as painful because dizziness involves the whole body not just one‟s mind - one feels it in the stomach and limbs as well. The feeling of dizziness, vertigo, giddiness and dread are expressions of the anxiety that accompanies freedom. Furthermore, in the words of May

(1967:72), anxiety is “the apprehension cued off by a threat to some value which the individual holds essential to his existence as a self.” It is, according to May (1958a:50), “the subjective state of the individual‟s becoming aware that his existence can be destroyed, that he can lose himself and his world, that he can become „nothing.” Following Kierkegaard, May

(1998:186) opines further that anxiety “is the reality of freedom as a potentiality before this freedom has materialized,” as Kierkegaard put it. For freedom is possibility, and who is to forecast what the end result of any possibility may be?” Personal freedom, which is the focus of existentialist philosophy “is fascinating and the most prized of all human conditions. But because it is inseparable from anxiety, it is dangerous and understandably dreaded at the same time” (May, 1981:187). The acquisition of freedom inevitably leads to anxiety because freedom cannot exist without anxiety, nor can anxiety exist without an awareness of the possibility of freedom. This is why we experience the burden of freedom and the pain of responsibility that follows. May also agrees with Kierkegaard that anxiety as the dizziness of freedom can be pleasurable or painful, constructive, or destructive. The constructive side of anxiety, May noted, is what keeps life from being bored; it is stimulating and gives one energy and zest, keeps us spontaneous, stimulated and alive and if it is not controlled, can lead to destructive anxiety.

To Heidegger (1962:94), anxiety is simply:

182 The awareness of the precariousness of the human condition. It is the consciousnessof the aching void of life. Anxiety “is the very mood which neither inhibits nor bewilders” and it arises “out of being-in-the-world as thrown being-towards-death.…Anxiety springs from the future of resoluteness” and liberates man from externally determined possibilities which count for nothing and enables him to become free for the actualization of these possibilities which are authentic.

From the above quotation, Heidegger shows that anxiety, like anguish, reveals the true nature of man in its genuine form. This means that man attains authenticity through the baptism of anxiety. Hence, he concludes that anxiety is like a refining fire, a purifier which further makes the individual remain true to himself in the face of the meaninglessness of human existence.

Therefore, to him, anxiety discloses the nothingness which is at the very core of human existence. It enables man to see the world as it is and to recognize what it means to-be-in-the world in its unity and totality. Accordingly, Unah (1996:94) says:

Anxiety snatches a man out of the distracting cares of the world, encloses him in a cubicle of thought where he is urged to either own its self or disown it and take solace in the comforting delusion of the anonymous “they.” In a moment of anxiety the true being of man is revealed to him in all its porous contingencies, in all its concreteness so that hence- forth he has chosen what he will be.

From the above description, Unah tells us that anxiety is too real and too authentic to be totally overcome because we cannot really pin it down to any specific object. It is not object directed and as such, it is not about this or that object. We are simply anxious about what we do not know and when it is over and when we are asked, we say “it is about nothing.” Rather,

Unah says, anxiety brings man to the warm reality of its historical possibilities and the brute facts of the human condition where man either actualizes its own most potentiality for being or remains in the domain of the “they,” to use Heidegger‟s phrase. We experience anxiety when we become aware that our existence or some value identified with it might be destroyed.

This inevitably launches us into the realm of guilt where we become beings guilty in the

Kierkegaardian and Heideggerian senses.

183 (ii) GUILT

Guilt is yet another ontological fundamental trait of human existence because it refers to the nature of being and not to feeling arising from a specific situation or transgression. In

Heidegger‟s existential analytic work, guilt is one pole of a fundamental dichotomy between authentic and inauthentic existence. According to Heidegger, guilt is a state of „sorryness.‟ In his words, man is guilty from birth. He is guilty by the very nature of his being. The guilt that

Heidegger is talking about here is not the guilt that man incurs by his actions or inactions.

Rather, it is an ontological guilt which comes from man‟s limitedness and his inability to accomplish all his possibilities. Man is guilty by the very nature of his being and existence.

Consequently, without guilt, a rational inquiry into the meaning of existence would not be possible. Guilt is an ontological event and is a permanent state. It arises in us when each of us fails to be everything we would be and each of us is responsible for this failure. In fact, guilt as an ontological phenomenon is associated with our denial of our own potentialities or with our failure to fulfill them. This ontological guilt is universal since none of us can completely fulfill all our potential. Guilt is what makes authenticity possible even though it is not part of authenticity. Every man is guilty of all the good he didn‟t do. Moreover, Kierkegaard

(1941:470) regards guilt as “the expression for the strongest, self-assertion of existence.” That means that we can use this ontological guilt to develop a healthy sense of humility, improve our relations with others, and to creatively use it to enhance our potentialities. Though we attempt to escape this guilt through various ways, it is the duty of conscience to point man to his guilt so that he acknowledges it. We have seen leaders lamenting or feeling bad after leaving office for not being able to use the opportunity they had to make the desired change necessary for human and socio-political development of their country. Hence, the relevance of

184 conscience becomes possible when we realize that we are beings condemned to guilt to use

Sartre‟s term and, as such, need the care of conscience which remains the most subtle regulative agency in the inner most being of man. And to the conscience we now turn.

(iii) CONSCIENCE

Conscience as an existential and ontological concept involves a special union of personal immanence with transcendence. On one hand, my conscience is certainly my own, and yet it seems beyond my control and management or care. I cannot argue with my conscience or arrange it. This may be one of the reasons why some scholars say of conscience that it is “the communication from a supernatural source,” while others see it “as the expression of induced cultural attitudes” (Wild, 1962:34). Still, some scholars have looked at conscience as a courtroom scene in which deficient acts already performed are subjected to a cold judicial review in terms of fixed guiding principles. As Heidegger‟s careful analysis has revealed, none of the above explanations fit correctly with the actual position. From the existentialist perspective, conscience is a moral tool in man that tells him to live an authentic moral life.

The issue of conscience does not require extraordinary attention to clarify because the human personality always transcends himself in the sense that he is those real possibilities which he projects ahead of himself and of which he is always at least obscurely aware. For Wild

(1962:35), the voice of conscience “is a call from the real self of mine, so remote from what I already am.” This call to me from beyond myself to take over my lapsed being, to act with real decision according to John Wild, is to become what I really am. Take, for instance, when we speak of the spurs of conscience, it simply shows that it is no mere ex-post facto review but a summon to authentic action. It is concerned not only with what I do, but also with how I do it; not only with abstract static form, but with concrete form flowing into being. I may

185 listen to its distant call or argument. In either case, it belongs to me as an existential challenge which permeates the whole of my being in the world. If I listen I hear it calling me to final selfhood.

In Heidegger‟s analysis, conscience„s role in man is ontological and existential. Ontological in the sense that it is ingrained in human nature and existential because it is part of man‟s basic trait that awakens him to authentic action. Consequently, Heidegger (1967:335) describes conscience “as the call of care, care from the uncanniness of being-in-the-world, the call which summons Dasein (man) to its ownmost potentiality-for-being-guilty.” Therefore, the duty of conscience, according to Heidegger, is to summon man back from his inauthenticity to his personal responsibility of freeing himself and living a life of authenticity.

Conscience makes an appeal and summons man to retrace his steps from his drift into the everyday domain to affirm his unique character by striving to realize his full potentials. It is a call that reminds man that his true calling is not to remain or be domiciled in the domain of the inauthentic, but to relinquish the routinized, accustomed way of doing things and rise to a superior mode of being which treasures or endorses creativity, responsibility and decision. In furtherance to strengthening Heidegger‟s exposition, Unah (1996:95) defines conscience as

“the secret silent speaking voice that tells man to stop following others sheepishly.” He explains that conscience is the voice that tells man that he should cut out a way of life for himself, take initiative and vitalize his life - that is, revitalize his life. This call from within summons man from inauthenticity to authenticity. The call simply tells a man to take full charge of the responsibility for his life. This means that man should not allow himself to be blown about continuously by the windstorm of the pervading dictator of everyday life. In fact,

186 conscience tells a man to take full control of his life, accept responsibility for whatever he does and disregard the comforting falsehood of everyday human affairs.

3.6 SUMMARY.

Our x-ray of Kierkegaard‟s notion of ethics shows that his ethics is properly situated within the ambit of existentialism and, as such, it is proper to call it an existentialistic ethics - existentialist ethics in the sense that it is centered on the significance of individual choice and responsibility in concrete situations. Kierkegaard, rather than stress universal morality, stresses individual or particular morality. His ethics is a clear deviation from the Kantian ethics hinged on the idea of universality. We discovered that he interpreted his ethics existentially to account for human involvement in its concrete form. In fact, in all ramifications, it is an ethics of human involvement. His purpose of stressing subjective ethics is to show that universal morality is incapable of solving all human existential problems or individual‟s uniqueness. Thus, by stressing the lived experience, Kierkegaard has shown that ethics should be seen not purely as a theoretical enterprise, but also as a practical one which means that our action and behaviour must reflect our moral or ethical confession.

Furthermore, Kierkegaard grounds his ethics on religion saying that due to weak human nature, no moral individual can ever fulfill perfectly the demands of moral law without recourse to assistance from God. In addition, he believes that the demand of the moral is absolute and is addressed to the individual. And basic to that, ethical life has a natural mandate to religiousness since both deal with the same ethical question- Why should I live a holy and an upright life? He argues that his grounding ethics on religion is in recognition of the fact that in the absence of religion, ethics or morality risks falling into rigidity as was the

187 case was with Kantian ethics. And conversely, without ethics or morality, religion faces the threat of being alienated.

Our inquiry into Kierkegaard‟s ethics further reveals that the concepts of paradox and sin are part and parcel of human existence. His ethics tells us that we are citizens of two worlds: social and divine morality. His ethics also shows that freedom is determined subjectively and that choice is central to ethics since human is the foundation and bearer of universal morality.

In addition, the universal has relevance only to the extent that it springs from the concrete encounter of the existing individual. Furthermore, our excursion into Kierkegaard‟s ethics shows that anguish, forlornness, despair, anxiety, guilt and conscience help the individual to make ethical decisions in difficult situations. Also, Kierkegaard contends that life begins from despair because it awakens in man the consciousness to make ethical choice and be committed to it. Anguish and anxiety manifest when we consider the uncertainty of our circumstances in the world. This means that most of our actions are informed by anguish. To this end, anguish is a kind of response we express towards threat or change. According to Kierkegaard, it is only when we experience despair that we realize the importance of the choice to be human, because despair is always despair of something. However, forlornness portrays man in a state of abandonment where he has an ethical choice to make whether to remain in that state and live an unfulfilled life or choose to confront the world with the enormous freedom at his disposal.

Still, in our inquiry, we discover that Kierkegaard rejects traditional ethics on the ground that rules are inadequate to guide conduct since every rule has an exception. According to him,

188 while traditional ethics specializes in the abstract concept of analysis stressing essence and leaving the subjective where ethics take its root from the unemphasized, existentialist ethics stresses concrete human existence where freedom, choice and responsibility are regarded as cardinal. He believes that ethical consideration and decision must have a bearing on the concrete situations of human existence. Again, while existentialist ethics concerns itself with the clarification of existential values as they affect the existing individual, traditional ethics focuses on essential values that are abstract. And since existentialists are passionate about values, they make freedom of choice and individual dignity uppermost in their discussion of values.

Finally, in our inquiry into Kierkegaard‟s ethical philosophy, we discover that the authentic individual is one who exists subjectively and maintains an attitude of leap of faith while the inauthentic individual is one who exists objectively. However, we also observe in that both authenticity and inauthenticity are concepts that existentialists employ to describe human behaviour in the concrete world of human existence. Therefore, while the authentic individual is decisive in his action, the inauthentic one remains largely undesicive in his action. Thus, according to Kierkegaard, we exist only when we appropriate our beliefs by taking them up subjectively and passionately by “becoming a subject.” Rationality and objectivity are obstacles to authenticity because they distance us from our existential problems. Having given us an insight into the concept of commitment through his ethical thinking, this commitment: what does it mean? What does it means to be committed? And how do we determine a committed human being, etc? The answers to these questions shall be unveiled in detail in our next chapter titled “An exposition of Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment.”

189 CHAPTER FOUR

AN EXPOSITION OF KIERKEGAARD’S NOTION OF COMMITMENT

4.0 INTRODUCTION

We begin this chapter with an affirmative but necessary assertion that the previous two chapters adequately provide a solid background for our subsequent discussion. In Chapter

Three, we discussed Kierkegaard‟s ethical thinking as insight into the concept of commitment, his theory of stages, and his existentialist themes. However, since our concern in the work is the possibility of attaining responsive and responsible leadership, that is, political leadership through the adoption of Kierkegaard‟s theory of commitment, it is important for us to carry out a detailed exposition of his notion of commitment. Therefore, before we delve into the exposition of Kierkegaard‟s theory of commitment proper, we need to note that the concept of commitment itself is a subject matter of existentialism or existential philosophy. The notion of commitment is cardinal to Kierkegaard‟s ethical and religious thought and, as such, requires a brief conceptual clarification to promote and enhance our understanding of the entire thesis, since Kierkegaard‟s existential thought about ethical and religious life is expressed through his theory of commitment. Kierkegaard had thought that for an authentic human being to emerge, the individual human being must embrace commitment and be committed to a life of subjectivity. It must be noted that our concern in this chapter is to espouse the main themes of

Kierkegaard‟s position on commitment in order to see the extent to which his recommendation in this regard can be adopted in the reordering of human societies.

Certainly, Kierkegaard was not the originator of the concept. As a matter of fact, the notion of commitment is as old as the world itself. But as a modern father of existentialism, he was the

190 first philosopher to give commitment an existential explication. Indeed, Kierkegaard‟s theory of commitment is unique on the ground that it is understood in its “existential context.” This is a task which requires the analysis of the structure of Kierkegaard‟s submission that human existence concerning matters of moral and religious life demands commitment. Therefore, to appreciate Kierkegaard, we need to understand the meaning of the main object of his analysis of commitment. We have heard or we often hear people in both private and public functions making expressions like “I am committing myself to do this or that” or “I will commit myself to do X.Y.Z, unwittingly in contrast to its existential meaning. In other words, people verbalize the notion of commitment without regard to its existential implication, that is, what commitment itself truly entails. Hence, no meaningful progress has been made by those individuals in their chosen fields. This now leads us to ask the question, what does commitment mean? Or what exactly is the meaning of this commitment for which many people have a vague understanding? What exactly do we mean when we say a person is committed? Thus, before we discuss Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment we must first of all discuss the meaning, nature, types and the different senses of commitment.

4.1 THE MEANING, NATURE AND TYPES OF COMMITMENT

The word „commitment‟ is in popular usage in all fields of human endeavour be - it in political, legal, religious, medical, sociological or philosophical settings. In short, the term is as old as the human being. The term “commitment” has gained very wide applicability and its meaning or usage has been over-stretched to the point of losing its concrete meaning (i.e., existential meaning). In short, the concept has been abused by users because it is a concept or notion used without properly understanding its “existential” implication. This means that

191 people have only understood the concept in its abstract sense. Yet, people demonstrate commitment without knowing it. A farmer who puts all his entire being into his farming activities may not know that he or she is demonstrating commitment. Likewise, a teacher who empties all within him/her to pursue his/her teaching profession consistently with a sense of devotion and the house-wife who sacrifices self-interest to ensure her home is a comfort zone for the children and the husband. In other words, when you devote or dedicate what is precious to you such as time, resources in terms of money, effort, energy, intellect, etc, toward a chosen project, you are demonstrating commitment to, say, leadership, teaching, research, etc. Commitment as a concept is not original to Kierkegaard, but its existential emphasis was original to him. However, Kierkegaard, being the acclaimed father of existentialism, advertised the concept to the point that it gained an existential currency and assumed philosophical meaning in all existentialist literatures (both theistic and atheistic). In fact,

Kierkegaard was the first philosopher to see the concept of commitment as a means of resolving human predicaments.

In other words, he saw commitment as a means through which an individual will be able to live an upright (ethical) and pious (religious) life. This is why Kierkegaard is particularly concerned with ethical and religious commitment since he saw as the basis for arriving at authentic human existence. In the twentieth century, the concept received further boost as

Gabriel Marcel made it the cornerstone of his philosophical thought after Kierkegaard. In essence, what Kierkegaard stressed in his three stages of human existence was aesthetic, ethical and religious commitment, while enumerating the pitfalls inherent in them. Therefore, what Kierkegaard did to differentiate his notion of commitment from other existentialists,

192 especially the non-existentialist philosophers, was that he tied his notion of commitment to ethical and religious living and, more importantly, he made commitment a subjective issue.

To this end, we can say that his notion of commitment is: (i) Humanistic, because it is individual-centered in approach and orientation in the sense that he stressed personal commitment as the basis for a genuine human existence and (ii) Man–God centered, because it is the basis upon which man‟s faith in the Absolute (God) is sustained. This means that commitment is the surest way by which humans can maintain zeal in their chosen field or profession. Thus, under this sub-heading, we shall be carrying out a detailed explication of the notion of commitment.

(i) THE MEANING

The term “commitment” can properly be understood from its verb form “commit”, which means: (i) To promise or engage oneself for some undertaking; (ii) To dedicate oneself to a cause from a sense of conviction; (iii) To commit oneself to make a definite irrevocable decision (Robinson, 1999:277). In other words, the word “commit”, which is a verb form of

“commitment”, means “to do something – that is, to promise to do something in a way that makes it impossible to change one‟s plan” (Hornby, 1999:228). Yet the word commitment means many things to different people and it is the most abused or misrepresented word in our world today. The word „commitment‟ is used by everybody for every imaginable subject on planet earth. For some, the strength of their commitment varies with how they feel emotionally or physically. It is a binding pledge or promise to do something. It is a private pledge carried out to completion, running over any road blocks or barriers. It is a total giving of oneself to a cause or to another person. Commitment by nature is risky, though it makes life fulfilling. Commitment is what supplies one‟s zeal to carry on when challenges rear up their

193 head. Commitment is the act of committing to a cause, say, politics, scholarship, humanity or community service with all seriousness. Commitment is the willingness to work hard and give your energy and time to a job or an activity. It means devotion or dedication to a cause. It means standing on one‟s conviction. To be committed is to be firm and resolute in one‟s conviction. Commitment is an existentialist virtue (Barnes, 1967:298). Virtue here means power in action. Therefore, commitment means power in action, that is, the power to act in any situation.

Ironically, commitment is difficult to define and very tricky to evaluate at the initial stage.

This difficulty stems from the fact that we sometimes do not have an exact idea of the breadth or depth of a commitment until it is put into action (practice). The essence of putting it into practice is to convey the message that commitment can be demonstrated rather than simply verbalizing it. Take, for example, the groom who is truly committed to his bride will do everything humanly possible to ensure that he honours his vows of fidelity to her. The woman who is committed to her children will sacrifice her time, her comfort, her resources and even her personal happiness to see them thrive. In the same vein, the believer who is committed to his church will give his or her time and money to the progress of the church in significant ways. It is, in the light of the above, that Nyong (1995:132) defines commitment as:

A stage in the long process...by any being as such, a being who strives to fulfill his ontological responsibilities. It is the degree of resolve or sense of purpose with which the person goes about satisfying or accomplishing this ontological duty. The degree of determination or involvement will depend on the impact which a certain encounter has on him.

From the above, one is quick to affirm that commitment is essentially sacrificial, risky and agonizing because it entails extending or releasing your energy, time, resources, etc, to get a task done. This means if we have to succeed at anything we set out to do, a price has to be

194 paid. So, it is in the light of the above that we say commitment means price or sacrifice. It means you have to spend your time, energy and resources and even humble yourself in order to realize your plan and attain your ultimate goal in existence. This means that whatever you are not committed to will be unsuccessful. This leads us to ask: what is the nature of commitment?

(ii) NATURE

Generally, existentialist philosophers, theistic and atheistic alike, stress the value of commitment because it is basically the concept through which they believe human beings can enforce or ground their human freedom. Thus, the nature of commitment is such that, it remains the only viable means through which an individual can exercise his freedom to attain authentic human existence. Kierkegaard, through personal experience, believes that it is only through an act of commitment that an individual can answer to his existential condition of being human. Making commitment can be one of the most difficult things an individual can embark upon because of its demanding nature. However, when we talk of commitment, we are simply referring to worthy commitment, ethical commitment, religious commitment, political and economic commitment, or leadership commitment, etc. Kierkegaard understands commitment as a risk one embraces to accomplish a given or chosen task. For him, commitment is a concrete effort that one makes in the process of recovering oneself from the

“public” and the abstract system of reason or divine will and being committed to the goal of existence. This is why on our part we define commitment simply as the risk we undertake to accomplish a chosen or given task. Commitment is borne out of elements of human experience such as anxiety, anguish, forlornness, abandonment, fear, death, joy, sadness and

195 other conditions of life. The more intense the experience, the more total the degree of commitment. According to Nyong (1995:80-82), commitment is a remedial phenomenon since the individual who acts out his experience always comes up with a resolution to amend and remedy the past experience. It may also be seen as a concrete way of ensuring continuity in a good cause because it is dependent on the human person existing. More importantly, as an ethical phenomenon, its main goal is directed toward actions that enhance human dignity. In

Nyong‟s words, commitment as a philosophical concept finds its true meaning and value only when it is used as a means of explaining human behaviour. This means that commitment is the gateway to the understanding of human behaviour since our behaviour is a reflection of our true personality.

Fundamentally, commitment entails belief and this means that it must be based on beliefs, that is, beliefs which are ultimate. Commitment must be seen in absolute terms. For instance, commitment is not carried out in a vacuum. This means one can never be just “committed” for the sake of it. Rather, I must always be committed to something or somebody. This shows that commitment is object-directed, which further buttresses the point that one must have something that one is committed to. For example, if I structured my life around the belief that there is a God, then I will structure my life around that belief that there is a God. This means that our commitment can never be “free floating” in that it is always directed towards something. To Trigg, behind everyday commitment we make there must be a propositional element hiding that we do not see. This goes to show that I must have a grasp of what I am committing myself to. This means that I must believe in a course of action convincingly before throwing my weight behind it. Therefore, I cannot be committed to God if I believe

196 that there is no God. In the same vein, no one could be committed to the Marxist doctrine if that person believes that Marx was basically in error in his postulation about man‟s economic condition and class society. For instance, mere intellectual assent to Karl Marx‟s doctrine does not make a man or woman a committed Marxist. Consequently, Trigg (1973:45) posits:

What I am committed to determines the nature of my commitment. If my beliefs change, my commitment must. A man cannot be called a committed Christian if he holds no distinctly Christian belief. He may be a better man than many Christians. These are not, however, sufficient grounds for calling him a Christian. He may believe that he ought to love his fellow men, and could therefore be said to be committed to living a life of Love. If he holds no explicitly Christian belief, as a matter of definition he cannot be termed a committed Christian. Similarly, someone may strongly support some welfare programme advocated by socialists. If he sincerely repudiates the socialist principles underlying the policy, he could not be called a committed socialist, even if at least for a time, his actions were indistinguishable from those of genuine society!

From the above quotation, it is obvious that what we believe is determined by how we act on them. Thus, the best way to evaluate what a man believes is to ascertain what he does. Our actions are what show our level of devotion to a cause. Therefore, what a man does is a more reliable guide to what propositions he accepts than what he says. If someone says he believes that there is God but that person does not allow this belief to influence or determine his or her ways of life at all, then we are likely to see him as almost an atheist. Thus, the fact that I am committed to some cause shows that I believe that the cause is a good one and worth supporting. It simply shows that I believe it to be important in some way, even when such a cause is negative. For example, when a suicide bomber believes in a cause, he will go all out for it not minding the social condemnation his heinous action will attract.

In other words, there is what some philosophers call an “evaluative” element in commitment.

Recognizing this evaluative element in commitment, Nelson (2001: 131) argues that commitment must do more than express sentiment but “it must involve evaluative beliefs and the beliefs must be regarded as representing objective, though perhaps mundane, facts of the

197 matter.” According to Nelson, the role of commitment apart from that of coordinating action, initiating and terminating a course of practical reason and contributing to self-understanding, is that it needs to be sustained. Nelson adds that maintaining commitment requires that the person making the commitment must believe that the object of the commitment is valuable or that the commitment is worth-while. And that if the commitment is intention-like, as in devoting our Saturday to studying German or French or Yoruba, or computing student results, then we must intend that the commitment is reasonable from the point of view of others. This is meant to say that our obligation to discharge our moral responsibilities often increases our level of commitment. Therefore, without evaluative beliefs, we remain at a loss as to why some desires have power over us the way they do. An evaluative belief is important in the sense that my action and deliberations must draw on beliefs that could be defended to others.

In other words, I should be able to tell people why I am devoting all my energies to this or that particular project when the need arises. It is evaluation that gives our object of commitment the necessary approval and endorsement by others who are watching us from the other side.

Commitment, if it is to gather weight and get people‟s approval, must involve evaluative beliefs. When I start a job, I must put all my energies to complete the job and this in itself requires that I do not withdraw my zeal until I finish the task before me. Commitment demands total loyalty to a cause and it is this total loyalty that makes the difference between one who is not dedicated to a cause and one who is dedicated.

The essence of evaluation is meant to show that one has a goal and a direction which is guiding one‟s focus. When we are talking about evaluation being an object of commitment, we are simply saying that what one is committed to must be seen in concrete form and not by

198 merely verbalizing it. For instance, if a government is committed to ensuring job opportunities, that government must be seen to be creating job opportunities through the establishment of more factories, both medium and small industries to absorb the teeming unemployed graduates and also by creating the enabling environment for the existing businesses and the new ones to thrive. That government must be seen to be matching his words its actions. Again, take an individual who says he or she is committed to human rights and freedom but does not challenge any policy or actions that tend to disregard the rights of the individual. That person cannot be said to be committed in the true sense of the word. From the above, it is correct to say therefore that the nature of commitment is evaluational in that one can look back and be able to assess what one has committed him/herself to, whether good or bad. People should be able to say he/she had actually done well as a leader because he/she had impacted positively on the lives of the people by ensuring that adequate opportunities for all and sundry were provided during his/her tenure. Thus, the implication of evaluating our commitment is to ensure that we do not commit ourselves to some projects that are detrimental to human existence and social integration. Usually, though, commitment takes the form of the particular or the general and it can be measured. That means the depth and breadth of ones commitment is dependent on the impact the commitment has on the person and society at large. An individual can undertake a committed effort to carry out a particular mission. Similarly, a group of like-minded individuals can also come together to decide a particular course of action and commit themselves to it. This means that commitment can be both particular (individual) and collective (group). To this end, we shall highlight the different types of commitment as characterized by mainstream existentialists below.

199 (iii) TYPES OF COMMITMENT

On the different types of commitment, we rely on the characterization made by John

Haugeland. Heslep (2002:505) quotes him as having characterized commitment into: “(i)

Deontic commitment and (ii) Existential commitment.” Deontic commitment is “a socially grounded obligation; it is a duty one has in virtue of one‟s relations to others.” By contrast, an existential commitment is not a duty of any kind. It is, rather, like a “dedicated or even a devoted way of living: a determination to maintain and carry on.” It arises not from any social status but from “a resilient and resolute first-personal stance” (Ibid.). The question arises, what exactly is “existential” about commitment? In the existentialist manner of speaking, “existential” simply means “living, concrete” (Soccio, 2007:404). This means that it is not abstract; it is real and practical. It is a commitment you can see in action. A committed individual in the real sense of the word is easy to identify. It means that one is really living a life that involves resolve, dedication, risk, sacrifice, etc. It is a commitment based on one‟s choice, which means one has a resolve to truly dedicate him/herself to that particular way of life and take responsibility for it. Furthermore, Heslep (2002: 506) quotes Haugeland as saying that by “existential” commitment is meant “precisely a capacity for individual freedom: the freedom, namely, to take responsibility for the norms and skills in terms of which one copes with things” (Ibid.). “Existential” commitment is a commitment that is brought to bear in human activities through strength of will and firm determination. In his further explication, Heslep (ibid. p. 511-514) tells us that Haugeland explains “existential” commitment to mean “the capacity for a full-fledged human being to choose a particular way of life (say teaching or engineering) and learn about the standards, skills, and conditions

200 relevant to that way of life and commit to it.” Freedom is required for a commitment of an existential nature to take place.

Take, for instance, a student who chooses to become a medical doctor purely because of what he or she admires the career to be and not because he or she wants to devote him/herself to living by the standards and having the skills making up the career. The student will not have an understanding of the phenomena on which that career depends. This means that one must freely choose a way of life that one understands he/she will be devoted to, provided that way of life does not in any way imply a violation of any other person‟s capacity to make an existential commitment. This agrees with Socrates‟ notion of the “unexamined life.” It means that every human being making an “existential” commitment must not commit to way of life that threatens the existence of another person‟s capacity for existential commitment.

Existential commitment involves sub-concepts such as being, existential freedom, self- assumed responsibility, standard, skill, and condition, to show what one‟s actual existential commitments will be like. A life of “existential” commitment as Haugeland and other existentialists avers, is by far superior to any other kind of life because it is practical.

Therefore, people who live such a life are superior to those who do not. In fact, “existential” simply refers to living or concrete. Living is not a simple, zero-sum, clear, obvious best- choice game (Soccio, 2007: 404). It means to engage one‟s whole being in the path of life one has chosen.

From the above clarification, it is obvious that “existential” commitment is only possible for those who know what it means to be a free being, that is, a full-fledged human being. Therefore, it is

201 different from the ordinary language of commitment in the sense that it is a commitment that is lived, that is, related to real-life situations as a mark of being a full-fledged human being.

The existentialist philosophers used the word “existential” to differentiate it from the ordinary meaning of commitment which lacks action. The ordinary meaning of commitment is abstract and theoretical, lacking in practicality. In fact, most people that talk about commitment in the ordinary sense do so in the non-existential sense without knowing it and that is why they can not live or relate it to issues of practical life. It is called lips service commitment. Its efficacy is felt when we make it a way of life, and that is, bringing it to bear in whatever we do. This is where the difference between the ordinary meaning of commitment and the “existential”

(living or concrete) meaning of commitment lies. From the above exposition, once is no longer at a loss as to what we mean by “existential” commitment or how is it different from the ordinary meaning of commitment.

Overtime, commitment has lost its “existential” meaning in that leaders get discouraged easily when things are not going their direction. Spouses are no longer committed to their marriage vows if after several years of marriage they fail to have children or the man-of-the-house loses his job. The government is not committed to the masses that voted them into power. Parents are not committed to the proper upbringing of their children in a moral and godly manner.

Church leaders are not committed to feeding their sheep with the right doctrines anymore.

Everybody seems to be in a hurry. What commitment stands to benefit us is that it will provide us the conviction and resolution necessary for the accomplishment of a task irrespective of obstacles. Therefore, it does not matter the level we find ourselves; what is worth doing is worth doing. You need commitment to fight against anything that stands

202 between you and your success. Consequently, the question is asked: In what sense can commitment exist in human society? And in what sense can one be said to be committed?

Commitment can exist in different senses in any human society. And one can also be said to be committed in these different senses as well. We shall briefly explain these different senses of commitment in our next sub-topic titled “Different Senses of Commitment.”

4.2 DIFFERENT SENSES OF COMMITMENT

Spending a great deal of one‟s time and energy on something, loyalty to do what is required by someone, willingness to do what is required by someone and enthusiasm for willing to do what is required by someone and also, being totally occupied by something, may be a way of demonstrating one‟s level of commitment to a cause. In other words, commitment, from its verb form “commit”, means to perform that task which one has undertaken to do. In view of this, the notion of commitment has been expressed in different senses. Nyong (1995:79) had identified quite a number of senses of commitment in his unpublished Ph.D work, titled

“Commitment in Gabriel Marcel‟s Philosophy: An Examination.” This is of great help to this research. Thus, we have:

(A). Commitment in the Sense of a Promise or Pledge.

(B). Commitment in the sense of Obligation.

(C). Commitment in the Ideological Sense.

(D). Commitment as Raw-Material, and

(E). Commitment as Risk and Sacrifice.

203 (a) COMMITMENT IN THE SENSE OF A PROMISE OR PLEDGE

Commitment, as a promise or pledge, is a decisive moral choice that involves an individual in a specific course of action. A promise or pledge is a preparation towards sacrificing what is dear to you in order to accomplish a set goal. It is a resolve to be faithful, loyal and honest in the face of a daunting task to serve one‟s country, for instance, with all of one‟s strength, to defend one‟s country‟s unity and to uphold one country‟s honour and glory both in times of peace and war. It is one‟s resolve to be there for his or her friend or neighbour in time of wellness and challenges. Take, for instance, as Nyong suggests, an army officer or a general who had assumed a position of responsibility for his country or unit, being asked to recite his or her commitment to his or her unit and the entire country. His responsibility may include that of defending the territorial integrity of his or her fatherland, that is, his or her country.

This means that the army officer or the general in the army requires absolute resolve to be able to shoulder all the inconveniences that may arise in course of fulfilling his/her ontological responsibilities as distinct military personnel. This commitment in form of promise or pledge to defend and uphold the country‟s territorial integrity requires that one may lay down his or her life as a means of ensuring that the country‟s interest is protected both in times of war and in peace. It involves dying for one‟s country if the need arises and that makes commitment risky, sacrificial and real (existential) in nature. In most cases, this pledge or promise is mostly expressed by the officer taking up new responsibilities in form of an oath of office or national anthem. It is simply a resolve to do everything humanly possible within their ambit of authority to ensure the survival of their fatherland when encroached upon by adversary. Commitment, understood in existential terminology, is a seal to carry through a cause of action no matter the obstacle that one encounters.

204 (b) COMMITMENT IN THE SENSE OF OBLIGATION

Commitment, in the obligatory sense, means that one has the duty as required either by law or social morality regulating human conduct in the society to carry out one‟s civic responsibilities. Obligation arises when the individual asserts to the fitness of applying certain moral relations to certain situations. By asserting to them, we are by the same action acknowledging our duty to act according to those truths. For example, as a citizen of a nation, it is obligatory on one‟s part to answer the call of national duty to defend the country‟s territorial boundaries in time of war or emergencies in a society where one lives. Thus, when commitment is seen in the sense of obligation, it means one cannot run away from responding to the call. Also, when extended to the area of marriage, it means one has the responsibility as promised or pledged to protect, love and cherish both in health and in sickness or in wealth and poverty. It means one must never look at the tides and trials along the way but to resolve to surmount them no matter what it takes - meaning that one has to sacrifice pride and one‟s integrity and to see the marriage through. What about a pledge or promise to having children?

It requires one‟s resolve to be there for them, that is, providing nourishment and guidance to them till they can stand on their own to fend for themselves when they have become mature enough to take responsibility for their own welfare or destiny.

(c) COMMITMENT IN THE IDEOLOGICAL SENSE

Commitment becomes ideological when one deliberately and consciously chooses to uphold and promote a particular ideology over and above other ideologies - Say, for instance, the political or economic ideology of Marxists. One cannot be said to be a committed Marxist if one does not subscribe to the ideals, goals and objectives of that ideology. Subscribing to the ideals and goals of the Marxist ideology means that you will help spread the ideas across

205 national frontiers. To promote Marxist ideals requires some level of sacrifice and determination to see that people buy into it. Hence, a Marxist or Communist is committed to the Marxist or communistic ideology. This attitude of upholding a given ideology - be it religious, economic or political ideology - shows that one has a declared commitment to it which will make the person to also promote such ideology beyond bounds. Again, take the rebranding of Nigeria in an attempt to promote our positive image abroad or before the international community and Nigerians in the Diaspora. This is ideological and those who believe in this rebranding are doing everything possible within their power as a matter of commitment to see that the ideals and goals of rebranding get across national borders.

Professor Adora Akunyilli, the one-time Minister of Information and Communication believed that rebranding Nigeria and Nigerians was the only way to project or sell the country‟s enormous potentials and attract foreign nationals or communities to Nigerian and gave the ideology of rebranding total commitment. She was very much passionate about the rebranding project because she believed that rebranding Nigeria and Nigerians would not only do the country proud and make the people of Nigeria to be respected abroad, but would also bring about growth and development. This will mean that those countries of the world who had earlier perceived Nigeria and Nigerians as a bad nation and people will now have a change of mind and, as such, will begin to see the country as a good one inhabited by good and lovely people. This rebranding crusade became necessary as both Nigerians abroad and those who travel abroad were being treated disrespectfully. Therefore, in order to see that the project of rebranding Nigeria and Nigerians get the support of all Nigerians, young and old, the former minister committed all within her to see that the project succeeded. Thus, her level of commitment could be seen and felt in the way and manner she drove the ideology even

206 though there were deliberate attempts from some quarters to distract her from the crusade.

This is commitment in the ideological sense that is demonstrated through courage. It is through commitment to “a worthy cause that man gives meaning to his life” (Omoregbe,

2001:20).

(d) COMMITMENT IN THE SENSE OF RAW MATERIAL

In another sense, commitment can be seen as a raw material needed to accomplish a given task. Nyong (1995:81), apart from seeing commitment in the promise or pledge, obligatory and ideological senses, also sees commitment in the raw-material sense. To him, commitment as a way of life stands as a raw material with which one can achieve a desired goal or end.

The end or goal can be negative or positive, but that is immaterial because commitment in its determinate manner or form is conditioned by the end or goal one aims at. Commitment is simply the drive to achieve a mission. Therefore, the extent or degree of one‟s commitment enriches the zeal with which the end or goal is followed through. For Nyong, failure can be a raw material for commitment to spring forth. This further confirms the saying that necessity is the mother of invention. For example, a student who had repeated a class twice may resolve to overcome that failure by taking his studies more seriously and devoting all his energies to study in order to move away from the shore of failure for he or she will want to be in the next class where those who have passed belonged. This means that commitment is not an abstract concept that jumps on us from the sky, but rather it is something we all can see and feel because it is realized in human projects. This means that commitment is something we individually resolve to imbibe in order for us to be able to accomplish a chosen task. The quantum of success we want to achieve is what naturally determines the degree of our commitment toward ensuring we move out of the domain of failure to the domain of success.

207 It is this craving for success that determines human action towards any particular cause. In the above light, commitment, according to Nyong, is man‟s means of trying to minimize his existential limitation.

(e) COMMITMENT IN THE SENSE OF RISK AND SACRIFICE

Kierkegaard understood commitment from the perspective of risk and sacrifice. Risk is a venture one undertakes to explore the unknown, and sacrifice is the resolve or willingness to abandon self-interest for the sake of duty to someone else. Abraham took the risk of sacrificing his son Isaac as a mark of his obedience to God. In this sense, the giving of one‟s life in rare cases to accomplish a set goal is what commitment entails. Thus, that may explain why Jesus Christ gave his life as a ransom for mankind which is a demonstration of his degree of absolute commitment to see that humankind is redeemed from sins and eternal damnation.

Similarly, Abraham Lincoln was another individual and yet a leader confronted with a herculean task: the task of keeping the union of America at a time when the Southern States wanted to secede over the issues of slavery and states rights. His conclusion was that the nation of America would not be divided and also that the slaves would be freed. Even when it led to civil war, Lincoln was committed to his vision of a unified country and the freedom of the slaves. In his maiden statement when he was sworn in as American President in May

1861, he made his aim crystal clear in a famous letter to Horace Greeley, editor of The New

York Tribune that:

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the union without freeing any slave, I would do it and if I could do it by freeing all the salves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some, and leaving others alone, I would do that. Furthermore, he says I have often inquired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy (Union) so long together….It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men. This is a sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence….I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, die by (Basler, 2001:577-578; Cf. Adair, 2002:306).

208

In addition, he announced before Lincoln‟s Emancipation Proclamation took effect his purpose and passion for his action in his annual message to Congress in a telling manner thus:

The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honour or dishonour, to the latest generation …. We – even we here-hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slaves, we assume freedom to the free - honourable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just – a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless (Basler, ibid. p. 688).

Consequent upon his commitment to see the unity of America maintained and slaves freed,

Lincoln encouraged the people to bring an end to the war and to restore the unity of the

country, even though his commitment to this unity eventually led to his death. Yet he

wrote and declares thus:

Fondly do we hope – fervently do we pray – that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away…. With malice toward none: with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation‟s wounds…to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations (Ibid. p. 793).

Lincoln achieved the unity of American states and at the same time abolished slavery and got

the slaves freed because of his degree of commitment even when his life was at stake.

Socrates was yet another courageous individual in ancient times who sacrificed his self-

interest to please the Athenian government and who in the process demonstrated an

uncommon act of commitment in his self-defense. Consequently, in course of his courageous

self-defense, he says:

You too must be of good hope as regards death, gentlemen of the jury, and keep this one truth in mind, that a good man cannot be harmed either in life or in death, and that his affairs are not neglected by the gods. What has happened to me now has not happened of itself, but it is clear to me that it was better for me to die now and to escape from trouble. That is why my divine sign did not oppose me at any point. So I am certainly not angry with those who convicted me, or with my accusers. Of course that was not their purpose when they accused and convicted me, but they thought they were hurting me, and for this they deserve blame. This much I ask from them: when my sons grow up, avenge yourselves by causing them the same kind of grief that I caused you, if you think they care for money or anything else more than they care for virtue, or if they think they are somebody when they are nobody. Reproach them as I reproach

209 you, that they do not care for the right things and think they are worthy when they are not worthy of anything. If you this, I shall have been justly treated by you, and my sons also. Now the hour to part has come. I go to die, you go to live. Which of us goes to the better lot is known to no one, except the god (Plato, 1975: 42).

From the above quotations, one can see commitment as a risk and sacrifice at work. It takes one who is willing to lay down his/her life or self-interest in form of sacrifice to take risk and be committed to it in spite of all the odds. To this end, we can say that commitment signifies an enormous sense of involvement in a given or chosen course of action. It implies the resoluteness to promote a certain course of action for the purpose of accomplishing a given or chosen goal. Thus, when commitment is seen as a promise or pledge, as obligatory, or as an ideological effort to make something happen, it becomes a way of life printed in one‟s conviction that what one has chosen to do and be committed to would lead to a determined end. Also, if commitment is seen as a raw material, as a risk and as a sacrifice for achieving set goals, it means it is worth imbibing because without seeing commitment in the above light, it will be impossible for any individual, nation or society of any kind to experience development, growth and progress. This means that if people in a nation or society are unwilling to sacrifice for their tomorrow, no progress will be made because growth and development would have been impaired by lack of risk - a consequence of commitment to sacrifice for the future. The point is that, whether it is to friendship, marriage, relationship, leadership, teaching, etc, commitment is crucial. To ground leadership or teaching in its proper context, a price has to be paid. In other words, if we have to succeed at anything we set out to do, a price has to be paid. Commitment means paying a price, or making sacrifice. You have to spend your time, energy, resources, even your pride in order to reach your aim and accomplish your final goal in life. Whatever you are not committed to will fall short of your expectation. In the light of the above, the depth and breadth of one‟s commitment is gauged

210 by the amount of effort (involvement) in terms of intellect, energy, risk, sacrifices in terms of resources (money and time) that one has resolved or is willing to inject into one‟s chosen endeavour. In other words, the depth and breadth of our commitment is measured by or dependent on the impact such the commitment has on us. Now, the question is, how does commitment come about? What are the conditions necessary for one to be committed? Again, to what extent and in what sense can one be said to be committed? Are there conditions necessary before commitment can be present in a society?

Commitment occurs under certain conditions in the life of any individual. For instance, when demanding freedom from oppressive government, or fighting for your right, acquiring a degree in the university, preparing to settle down as a family man or woman, etc. To be able to meet one or all of the above, commitment is required. In other words, commitment arises specifically as a result of the basic necessities of life and the social security to be met by either the individual or the government. Before an individual can talk of committing him/herself to a particular course, such an individual must be free, rational, must be in an either/or situation, must be in a state of subjectivity, must have an aim in life, there must be responsibilities to tackle, etc. Take, for instance, a believer who wants to make heaven. It is that there is a place called heaven and that making heaven is not a matter of wishing or dreaming. It takes time and this is why the Lord Jesus Christ said only those who endure to the last will make heaven.

Commitment will provide the believer the wherewithal to endure and take the risk involved and make the necessary sacrifices required to make heaven, because commitment is an irrevocable resolve to hold fast in the face of difficulties. With this example, one can see that the desire to make “heaven” will automatically engender commitment in the life of the

211 believer to the observation of the commandments and the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ here on earth. Again, say the need to acquire a university degree. A university degree is earned through effort, that is, you have to work for it. It has to be earned and this automatically engenders commitment to observe the rules governing the attainment of a university degree. Only commitment can keep you focused and get you devoted to study, which will eventually lead to the award of the university degree to you on completion of the relevant requirements. Commitment helps you to bring chosen goal (s) to completion. This tells us that truly there are certain conditions necessary for commitment to occur and also that there are states in which human beings should be before they can make commitment possible.

The above explication leads us to further ask the question: Are there conditions necessary for commitment to take place? The answer is in the affirmative: Yes. The conditions necessary for commitment to take place are: the existence of a human society; availability of basic amenities and necessities of life; social security measures, the management of the diverse constituents in a state; equitable distribution of resources, etc. A leader‟s depth and breadth of commitment is determined by the degree of sacrifice and risk the leader has resolved or is willing to inject into his/her duties in rendering service to the people. This now lead us to an exposition of Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment proper.

4.3 KIERKEGAARD’S NOTION OF COMMITMENT

The most conspicuous feature in Kierkegaard‟s philosophy is his notion of ethical and religious commitment which permeates his ethics. But it is more pronounced in some of his celebrated principal works, such as Either/Or vols. 1 and 2, Stages on Life’s Way; Fear and

Trembling; Works of Love, etc, as pieced together from these principal works. Fundamentally,

212 Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment means that commitment should be seen essentially as involvement, engagement, sacrifice, risk, responsibility and self-denial. In other words, commitment should be seen as what gives human being anguish or inflict pain on human beings in the process of exercising their freedom to attain a chosen goal. He says that commitment is the basis upon which we can assume our individuality, as a social, political, moral and religious being; is the basis upon which we can make the leap of faith, is the basis upon which we are able to exist authentically; is the basis upon which we are able to live a true moral and Christian life; is the basis upon which we are able to stand out from the crowd and be different, is the basis upon which we are able to maintain deep personal relationships between persons; and finally, is the basis upon which we are able to live as a genuine parent, student, medical doctor, engineer, footballer, teacher, cook, leader, etc. As a cardinal feature in Kierkegaard‟s philosophy, without it, it is impossible for any human being to make any positive impact in human existence. Commitment, to this end, remains a virtue exhibited in concrete reality. His entire philosophy is focused on human existence where he is fundamentally concerned with the restoration of the dignity of the individual human being, morally and religiously. It was Kierkegaard‟s commitment to the restoration of the individual human being morally and religiously that led him to launch a polemical attack on Hegelianism that stresses abstraction in place of concreteness.

In fact, Kierkegaard gave the concept an “existential” explication in his ethical philosophy like no one has done before him. He was much more concerned about how we can make the concept real in human activities. How we can deepen it and make it serve as a tool for human orientation to social responsibilities of all sorts. How we can use it to organize society,

213 enhance social relations, live a moral and religious life, etc. Commitment is an existing concept which people utter often without bringing it to bear in their daily lives. Its efficacy is only felt when we make it our guiding principle in our day-to-day activities or in driving our actions. Basically, Kierkegaard understands commitment as an “existential” (i.e. concrete) concept realizable in human projects. More importantly, his understanding of commitment is well demonstrated in his analysis of the “three stages.” According to him, when an individual is faced with a catastrophic situation, one must appropriate the either/or decision. The individual in either/or situation puts everything in him or her together to get the situation addressed and transcend it. Stumpf (1977 : 465) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that, for instance, in a sinking boat, and to transit that situation according to Kierkegaard, cannot be done or made by thinking alone, but the transition must be achieved by “making a decision, or by an act of will, by a commitment.” For example, in his analysis of the three stages,

Kierkegaard says that a human being who is deep-seated in aesthetic life and is heading toward perdition will not fold his or her hands, but will rather, out of a careful and deliberate choice decide to change status and move to a more realistic stage. This choice can only be made possible through an act of commitment that is existentially based on one‟s effort to escape despair. And also, to move from the ethical stage where commitment and responsibility inheres to the religious stage, one must leap, that is, make the leap of faith to get to the religious level. This Kierkegaardian leap of faith is a blind one because it is devoid of rationality. The leap of faith involves personal commitment and great risk because one does not know what lies ahead. This, perhaps, informs Kierkegaard‟s assertion that “without risk, there is no faith, not even the Socratic form of faith is possible” (1941:188). This means that commitment helps an individual sustain the leap of faith. We can confidently infer from

214 Kierkegaard‟s exposition that commitment does not happen automatically, you have to personally choose to either be committed or not to be committed. It means that commitment is entirely dependent on choice. It is not meant to be done out of compulsion; otherwise it ceases to be an “existential” commitment.

In the light of the above, Kierkegaard maintains that the human being requires an act of commitment to be able to live an ethical and religious life. This means that one must be ready and willing to dethrone aesthetic principles to be able to live an ethical and religious life.

Thus, according to Kierkegaard, commitment is a virtue individuals require to be able to live a life of responsibility because living in the existential sense is the most difficult task confronting mankind. Therefore, man needs the tool of commitment to coast continually the contingencies of human existence. This means that life itself is a risk that requires total involvement arising from commitment. No meaningful achievement can be recorded by anybody, group or corporate, in any undertaking without imbibing the tenets of commitment.

As an existential virtue, commitment remains the weapon through which mankind can breakthrough, whether positive or negative. Genuine or true success can only be achieved in an atmosphere of dedication, risk and sacrifice as a consequence of commitment. Thus,

Abraham‟s decision to sacrifice his only son was a consequence of his resolve arising from his commitment to obey God‟s command. Though Abraham is widely acknowledged as a man who treads the path of the absurd by risking his life to the obedience of God‟s command,

Abraham gave up the self (sacrificed self-interest) to please God in order to establish a relationship with God. This Abrahamic action is an exception and therefore, it could be seen as entailing ethical and religious commitments. How? Before Abraham got to the religious

215 level (the realm of faith) where he attempted to offer his son, he had suspended the ethical through the torture of anguish which is a manifestation of a committed individual. It was not an easy task for him but because of his ethical resolve and his commitment to please God, he sacrificed his personal interest. This means that Abraham was more concerned in pleasing

God at his own expense, though it was a difficult task for him. If today‟s leaders can reinvent this Abrahamic commitment, then the failure we are witnessing in leadership circles would be laid to rest. Kierkegaard‟s bitter protest against his age was that of smug complacency and uncommitted lifestyle as people were simply living the easy way of life devoid of involvement, anguish, engagement, risk and responsibility. He thus, viewed this state of affair as an enemy of human destiny because it tends to erode the individual‟s level of responsibility and responsible living. Hence, he says that a committed individual is not swayed here and there since he is focused and in total control of his will towards attaining his set objectives.

4.3.1 COMMITMENT AND FREEDOM

The notions of commitment and freedom have been well stressed by Kierkegaard as the kernel of human action. Kierkegaard was particularly enthused by the role freedom plays in human commitment and in human realization of his possibilities. He believes that it is only through an act of commitment decided under the umbrella of freedom that man can truly exist. Thus, freedom makes commitment possible because one has to be free in order to be able to decide which course of action he or she wants to throw his or her weight behind. Commitment is impossible in an atmosphere of unfreedom. Kierkegaard‟s polemic against Hegelianism was hinged on the premise that Hegel‟s philosophy forecloses human freedom and as such, it does not allow the individual the ample opportunity to be dedicated and be committed to his

216 responsibility of being human. Just as freedom is identified with human dignity, so also is commitment, in that a man who carries the aura of dignity cannot but be committed to a chosen cause. Commitment and freedom, like freedom, choice and responsibility are inseparable because our freedom will be useless and meaningless if we fail to translate or commit it to action. This means that it is better to understand the idea of commitment in connection with action. Existentialism has expressed action as the basic definition of the true man. I am my acts. You are your acts. A man will have been what he will have done, not what he kept as a day dream or potentiality. For it is by his actions that man defines himself as this or that. In other words, by his act a man may define himself as being in good faith or in bad faith. Our freedom is made real through an act of commitment as evidenced in our action. In clarifying the concept of freedom, Harper (1958:101) quotes Beauvoir as saying that “we hold that man is free; but his freedom is real and concrete only to the degree that it is committed to something.” Our freedom will become valueless, useless and meaningless, if we fail to commit it into action.

For example, freedom to reject evil or what will endanger human flourishing. Action is the bedrock of human existence because without it, nobody can tell who he or she is. Through action man makes or mars himself. Hence, Sartre (1970:75) says: “For human reality to be is to act and to cease to act is to cease to be.” And to Kierkegaard, commitment and freedom are basic tools toward self- realization and basic condition to human existence. Consequently,

Omoregbe (1991c: 46) defines freedom “as the permanent capacity of self-determination, self- orientation and self-detachment.” This capacity of self-determination, self-orientation and self-detachment can only be realized when an individual makes good use of his freedom by

217 committing it to action. Hence, Omoregbe avers that anybody seeking freedom without commitment is only deceiving himself and that for our freedom to have value and make meaning to our existence; one must commit it as a matter of necessity into action.

Commitment requires one‟s personal decision. What I commit myself to is entirely my decision. Commitment is personal and as such, is subjective. The relationship that exists between commitment and freedom is akin to the relationship that exists between air and life.

Without exhaling and inhaling, life or human existence would be impossible. Freedom itself is the mother of all values and it remains so, so long as without it meaningful life is impossible.

And other values like honesty, courage and commitment derive their values from being free.

This means that honesty, courage and commitment are dependent on freedom. For instance, as we have argued earlier, one must be free to be honest, to love, to exercise courage and commit him/herself into action of any kind. One has to be free so as to be able to give out love to someone. Love is given in freedom. What about honesty? When a person is free to act against the monetary interest of his or her company, that is the authentic value of honesty. Unless honesty presupposes freedom, it loses its ethical character. Courage also loses its value if it is supposedly exhibited by someone who is coerced into it. To be honest, exercise courage and extend love to someone requires one‟s commitment; otherwise, they will remain abstract and only on papers. To identify commitment with freedom is a simple way of saying that both are human values which enable man to attain his chosen goals in life. You cannot have freedom without putting it into use and the means of putting our freedom into use is commitment.

Commitment in this regard serves as a means to an end and not an end in itself. It is the driving force to the actualization of human possibilities. When you divorce commitment from freedom, freedom becomes useless and valueless, waiting to be discarded or thrown into the

218 dustbin. The commitment to say yes or no entails freedom and no value exists a priori independent of human freedom. This means that human freedom is the source of all values.

For it is man who confers value and meaning on things by his free choice through an act of commitment. We are free to choose to commit or uncommit ourselves to any particular course of action, if we are indeed free and if we are not free it will be difficult to talk about commitment. In other words, commitment is only possible in an atmosphere of freedom.

It is in the above sense that Hare in his moral theory argues that though we have freedom to form or develop our own opinions about moral questions in a moral context, we are free “in a much stronger sense than we are free to form our own opinions as to what the facts are”

(Hare, 1963:2). In other words, we are free to choose moral principles with which our conduct should be guided. In this sense, there is no amount of pretense shown in exercising our freedom when we make a moral judgment that will make anyone force us to hold any particular moral belief. Even our acceptance of a moral position because of our respect for the authority of an individual or an institution must still be based on a decision we make. This means that whatever the facts are, we are not forced to make any particular moral judgment.

The point being made here is that we would not be forced to make the judgement even if it did logically follow from the facts. We are free to be illogical just as we are free to be irrational.

We are free to reject what is in fact conclusive evidence for something just as we are free to refuse to recognize the truth when it is presented to us. We are free to contradict ourselves and to be inconsistent. In fact, the concept of commitment is fundamentally an existential one. To grasp its import, we must analyze the notion according to existentialist understanding.

Basically, it will be difficult for man to realize himself as a unique individual without the

219 element of commitment. As Omoregbe (1991b:50) declares, “the theme of commitment is dear to existentialists. They insist that man should not be afraid to commit himself. Freedom must be committed in action. Anybody seeking freedom without commitment is only deceiving himself”. The existentialists want men to commit themselves to their freely chosen goal since that is the only way through which they may experiment their freedom. The existentialists believe that freedom without commitment is meaningless and redundant.

Hence, Sartre (1970:57) says: “The existentialist does not recognize love except the love that constructs itself, no freedom except the freedom that commits itself in action, no moral except the moral that expresses itself in action, no genius except the genius that expresses itself in works of art. „For human reality, to be is to act and to cease to act is to cease to be.” Our dream, song, and talk of freedom can only be realized through commitment. Sartre believes that man cannot rest on his freedom, either; it is not enough to know that one is free to act. I am my freedom, but I lose my freedom if do nothing. To be free is to be free to change, to do, to act, to inflict oneself on the world, to change the world. To this end, Harper (1958:101) again quotes Beauvoir as saying that “we hold that man is free but his freedom is real and concrete only to the degree that it is committed to something.” “It is in the nature of human existence to assert itself against the inertia of the given by dominating things, by invading them, by incorporating their structures into the world of man.” This means that there is a necessity to act implied in man‟s freedom. Man‟s freedom is not for nothing. Man cannot rest on his human nature; it is not enough just to be. One must be someone; one must make oneself continually in order to be real. One must make one‟s self felt, throw one‟s weight around.

Stressing the position of Sartre on man‟s freedom and commitment further, Harper argues that

220 “a man cannot become the person he wants to be merely by thinking about himself, but only by doing something with himself. This requires involving himself to social pressures, in transforming his environment “what counts is total involvement” (1bid.). The point being made from the above quotation is that our freedom becomes useless and redundant if we fail to utilize it in transforming our very own existence and that of others as well as the society in which we live. The essence of our freewill is to enable us to take and initiate actions that are value- laden and project them to the world in which we live. Man, as earlier explained, is defined through his acts. Man is identified to be a good footballer, dancer, singer, lecturer, organist, entertainer, leader, organizer, producer, tribalist, humanist, etc, through his actions.

Our true self is revealed when we commit our freedom to actions that are either positive or negative.

4.3.2 COMMITMENT AND FAITH

The role of faith in the actualization of commitment cannot be over-emphasized. Certain human projects or actions become a lot easier when faith is involved. Faith helps fertilize commitment by making it more convincing and a way of life. When we see faith as a very important element in commitment, then it makes the conviction more real and concrete.

Lescoe (1974:109) quotes Marcel as saying that faith can be understood in two different senses, which is, “as conviction and as commitment.” Furthermore, concerning faith as conviction, Marcel (1965:89) writes:

Let us express ourselves once more clearly. When I believe in God and when one asks me a question about this faith or I question myself about it, I would of necessity, have to declare that I am convinced of the existence of God. But on the other hand it seems this translation (believing as being convinced), which in reality is unavoidable, lets escape that which is original, and this is precisely its existential character.

221 Conviction makes faith possible and as such, you are able to commit yourself to a cause without wavering. Again, if we understand faith as commitment from the point of view of

Marcel, commitment will make faith more enriching and productive because it carries with it the richness of a binding obligation. Accordingly, Marcel (1bid.) again writes:

When I believe in, that means I place myself at the disposal of or rather, that I conclude a formal obligation not only with regard to what I have but also to what I am,…if I believe in, I attach myself to with a certain kind of gathering together that this act carries with it. Seem thus, one might say that the strongest faith or more exactly the liveliest faith is that faith which most completely bundles together all the forces of your being.

The implication of understanding faith as commitment, as further explained by Marcel, is that it makes genuine commitment possible because of its binding obligation on my part as the one undertaking the commitment to carry out certain existential responsibilities. My commitment may include time, risk taking, energy, money, intellect, etc, put together towards the realization of a particular goal. Genuine commitment always carries with it a necessary partnership, namely: faith. This means that it is faith which gives a man a meaningful commitment to his existence. And so, the indissoluble connection which binds faith and commitment together is what makes human projects of all kinds possible. Faith, whether in the concrete sense or in the spiritual sense, is what makes human endeavour and venturing worthwhile. Kierkegaard actually stressed practical faith in all his dealings. For instance, when I believe in a cause of action, that means I have undertaken to place myself at the disposal of that chosen cause and I am bound to ensure that that cause (i.e., say fighting human rights abuse) is pursued with zeal to its logical conclusion. It is easier for one to be committed to God, if one has faith and trust in God. Total or absolute commitment becomes a routine to us when we have an unwavering faith in whatever we are doing.

222 Thus, faith engenders genuine commitment. This means that once you have faith in any cause of action, it becomes easier for you to be dedicated to that cause irrespective of the challenges involved. Abraham, for example, had absolute faith in God and hence he took God‟s command very seriously to the point of agreeing to kill his only son, Isaac. It was an act of faith executed out of his genuine love for God. His measure of faith in God led to his degree of commitment to the point of killing his son. Abraham‟s example reveals paradoxical commitment, which means faith is primarily a commitment and a way of life in an atmosphere of conviction. When we act in faith, we are simply expressing the non-rational aspect of commitment. To this end, Kierkegaard says, for instance, “to adopt a new belief is not merely to adopt a set of propositions which intellectually seems more plausible or more defensible, but rather, a belief must be accepted as something true for the individual, as something by which he is prepared to live, and to which he has non-rational commitment” (cited in

Warnock, 1970:7). Once a belief is accepted in faith, it becomes very easy for an individual to be committed to its execution. Belief, faith and trust are very vital to commitment and, as such, they constitute the foundation upon which commitment is founded. To this end,

Roubiczek (1966: 103) quoting Kierkegaard, adds that “we must be willing to commit ourselves to what we believe so as to understand its meaning through the actual experience which it gives us.” In accentuating the vital role of faith in commitment, it is instructive for us to bring in the Biblical dimension to further buttress our argument.

In The Holy Bible, The Bible says in Hebrews chapter ten verses 22-23 of the King James

Version: “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the

223 profession of our faith without wavering; for he is faithful that promised” (Thompson,

1988:1279). To be committed, one needs to hold fast to his or her object of faith without going left or right. Faith without work is dead. What one believes by an act of faith one must put into action (work). Therefore, if faith is seen as a thing hoped for and the evidence of things not seen, then one must be seen to be acting as one who is hopeful. Genuine faith will make one give his best to serve a purpose or a cause. Faith enhances our degree of commitment. Kierkegaard, in actual sense, stressed the existential aspect of faith with its subjective assimilation as an existential message. It is a faith that is completely dominated by the reality of God in existence. In other words, he meant by existential faith that faith can be concretely demonstrated as we found in Abraham, Jesus Christ and other apostles who died for the cause they believed in. Faith, he says, rests on a free decision – which answers to a new and paradoxical situation, the existence of the God-man in time. For him, commitment and faith form the basis of man‟s relationship with God and his fellow human being because it is a movement or leap from inauthentic existence to authentic existence. This means that existence is impossible without faith. Hence, he posits that it is “in faith man begins to exist”

(Kierkegaard, 1941: xix). This Kierkegaardian assertion shows that faith is a vital element in commitment.

Fundamentally, faith means giving approval to something that appeared intrinsically contrary to reason, which Kierkegaard regards as an offence to the understanding itself. In fact, faith as commitment itself involves risk which can only be undertaken through an act of commitment.

The relevance of faith in commitment lies in the fact that it drives away anxiety and intellectual disorder as well as the despair engendered by the contingency of human existence.

224 Genuine commitment is made possible only because of my complete and unquestioning faith in what I believe in. Thus, commitment is impossible without faith, for faith is the highest expression of commitment. Lescoe (1974:109) quotes Marcel as saying that faith is “the force of invisible truths.” Indeed, faith is the force of invisible truths that we see and which gives us the courage to embark on a project whose result we have not grasped concretely. For instance, if I have great faith in God and believe that God will heal me of high blood pressure, this faith will engender commitment on my part to trust God in spite of all odds in waiting or even when it tarries. Every American is always prepared to die for the country. Why? It is because they have faith in their country. With commitment to this faith, anywhere an American is found, he or she is seen protecting the image of America. That faith in their hearts automatically spurs them into commitment to protect and preserve the integrity of the

American nation. They go all out to sacrifice for the preservation of American society at whatever cost. This means that faith is the driving force of our belief and commitment and without it; it might be difficult for any meaningful life to be lived in this concrete world of temporal beings. The only enemy of faith and commitment is doubt. Doubt has the capacity to alter your focus and thereby slow down your degree of commitment to a particular cause.

Trigg (1973:54) quotes Wittgenstein as saying that “faith and doubt are incompatible is significant.” In fact, faith determines our degree of commitment to whatever we do. Faith, to this end, remains the kernel and the driving force of commitment. Hence, without faith it will be impossible for anyone to be committed to any cause whether major or minor, positive or negative. Again, there is no faith without a content toward which it is directed. According to

Trigg, there is always something meant in the act of faith. In other words, he is saying that

225 faith in common with many mental states needs an object. I must have faith in something or somebody, just as, when I am afraid, I must have an object of my fear. I cannot just fear. My fear can be something which is in fact totally imaginary. That people are afraid of ghosts, for instance, does not prove that there are such things. It only shows that they believe there are.

Even if the object of my fear does not exist, my fear may still be unjustified. I might be afraid of a real cow but that does not make cows dangerous. On the ground that our commitment cannot be justified or unjustified, right or wrong in the sense that for someone to have had faith in “X” does not prove that his faith in “X” is justified or unjustified, right or wrong, or even that it exists. Even the objective side is still firmly subjective. The element of faith in commitment cannot be ignored; otherwise, commitment ceases to be commitment. Either one is committed to “K” or one is not. Commitment is not a half-way thing. It is something total.

Commitment demands the entire being of man. Therefore, nothing can count for or against genuine commitment. Our commitment must be ultimate for it to achieve its desired goal.

Thus, the importance of faith in commitment lies in the fact that it dispels discouragement and doubt as well as uncertainty. In fact, with faith Abraham had to withstand both the moral and natural odds to which he was subjected by offering Isaac, that is, the frightening consequence of his paradoxical commitment to a cause. Faith as commitment is a risk but the risk in

Abraham‟s case was and is still easily misunderstood to say the least. Hence, according to

Macquarrie (1993:170-171), “belief at any level carries an element of risk, and in the case of belief at the transcendent level, the stakes are high indeed. But I do not think any of us can avoid accepting one belief or another at that level, even if we do so only implicitly or in a half-hearted way.” And concerning faith as risk, Macquarrie further argues that:

226 Sometimes, our faith has a critical or uncritical outlook and history is full of examples of people and even nations who were destroyed by false and sometimes cruel beliefs, yet belief must be there undespised for “if people had not allowed their minds to be captivated by visions beyond what they could prove or guarantee to themselves at the time, they would have made a little progress (Ibid).

This means that it will be improper to sit down and wait until faith has been converted into knowledge, because objective knowledge destroys faith and transcendent faith never will.

They belong to our finite human condition and all the actions we undertake imply such faith and commitment.

4.3.3 COMMITMENT AND SUBJECTIVITY

As an apostle of subjectivity, Kierkegaard equates subjectivity to commitment. Commitment according to him inheres in subjectivity and to be subjective is to be committed. In fact, he was one of the most profound subjective philosophers that ever lived. For him, the subjective individual is the real human being who exists authentically. He saw commitment not as a group affair but as a subjective phenomenon because he believed it was difficult to ask the crowd to be committed. This means that commitment is more effective and result-oriented when it is made subjective. That means for commitment to have practical bearing in human affairs, it must be made subjective. To this end, it is argued here that subjectivity, like faith and freedom, is vital to the actualization of our commitment. Thus, his emphasis on subjectivity and commitment was basic in that it is founded on his understanding of man as a unique being and self-determining participant in the existential process. In short, Kierkegaard emphasizes subjective commitment in the attainment of existential truth. Consequently, he argues as cited by Dupre (1967:175) that “existential certainty is acquired only through personal commitment.” According to him, Socrates‟ action to stake his life for an objectively uncertain affirmation is a clear demonstration of subjective commitment to what one believes.

227 The nature of commitment is such that it is subjective and as such, can never be made objective. It is this subjective nature of commitment that makes it more fruitful, meaningful and actionable in human existence. All human decisions are inwardly taken. In other words, action springs from within and is manifest in the open. Kierkegaard understands subjectivity as the capacity of a particular individual to exist inwardly and commit his freely chosen projects to action. It takes commitment to be subjective (i.e., to be different where others find relevance in the crowd). Abraham‟s decision to obey God‟s voice and sacrifice his son Isaac was a subjective decision based on his commitment to the trust he had in God. It was not a mob or group decision. Though our commitment may have objective value, it remains in the realm of subjectivity.

May (1969a:6) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that truth is a subjective affair and by that

Kierkegaard meant that “truth exists for the individual only as he himself produces it in action.” In other words, people find the truth by living honest and authentic lives and not by armchair contemplation. My commitment is determined essentially by what I value or cherish.

And if that is established, then all commitments spring from subjectivity (i.e. within). For instance, if I am not prepared to devote my time, energy, talent and material resources to a certain project, no matter how someone else tries to make me do it, it will not work because the decision to commit whatever it is to that cause is not coming from within me. There is the saying that you can lead a horse to the river but you cannot force it to drink water from the river. Therefore, it is difficult for anybody to rule out the relevance of subjectivity in commitment. In short, commitment becomes more effective when it is subjectively-motivated.

Hence, Kierkegaard posits that commitment can only be appropriated existentially in a

228 supreme exercise of subjectivity because it is an inward thing which involves one‟s total being. That is what makes commitment more subjective-oriented. Thus, the subjective element in commitment makes it mandatory that no judgment can be passed beyond one‟s personal commitment to a particular cause. Therefore, it is individually or subjectively motivated. And when Hare builds up a whole moral theory on an individual‟s ultimate commitment to a basic moral principle, he is actually dealing with questions concerning the individual‟s subjective moral action. Even in the talk of modes of life, one cannot remove the possibility of an individual putting the question forward thus: “Why should I accept this mode of life?” At the end of the day one cannot run away from the fact that commitment is a subjective phenomenon that has to do with a personal decision whether to carry out a particular action or not. One‟s decision to commit oneself to a particular way of life is subjective because the decision to do so is personal and one cannot query it to be right or wrong. This is particularly so because commitment to a way of life that one chooses does not require a universal approval. The subjective element in commitment is what makes commitment worth its salt and undertaking. We all know that the decision to devote one‟s attention to a particular cause is borne out of one‟s personal decision. No one forces it on one and that makes commitment a subjective affair, though one might be tempted to speak of its objective side. It is quite obvious that commitment is a subjective phenomenon which confirms Kierkegaard‟s emphasis on the subjective nature of commitment.

4.3.4 COMMITMENT AND RESPONSIBILITY

The next most important element in the notion of commitment is responsibility. So significant is this element of responsibility that to define commitment as responsibility will not be out of

229 place. Commitment and responsibility in Kierkegaard‟s philosophy are inseparable. Freedom, faith, and responsibility: each of them derives its value, essence, prospect and sense of purpose from being identified with the notion of commitment. My responsibility towards my study as a student is to see that I attend my lectures, do my assignments, read my books on a consistent basis and write all my examinations. This responsibility automatically enhances my degree of commitment toward my studies as a student who wants to excel. This is why it is argued here that commitment is borne out of responsibility. It is on this basis we should understand Kierkegaard‟s rejection of aesthetic life in place of ethical life because the

“aesthetic life of enjoyment that immerses itself in the moment and refuses responsible commitment leads to despair and meaninglessness. A fulfilled human life requires commitment that in turn presupposes social relationships and roles” (Rudd, 1995:593). In other words, once there is a responsibility to fulfill commitment naturally follows. Therefore, it is difficult for you to see a man with a sense of commitment without responsibility. In fact, responsibility engenders commitment. Responsibility means knowing and doing what is expected of you or to be accountable. More importantly, responsibility can also mean the ability to personally accept the consequences for one‟s choices and actions. It actually means, as Portny (2002:62) has pointed out, “the obligation to ensure certain results are achieved.”

This calls for accountability. And once the consciousness of accountability is there, commitment follows. According to Kierkegaard, responsibility is what makes man truly human. This means that a man without a sense of responsibility cannot show commitment.

Essentially, man‟s existential nature is determined through his action which makes responsibility inevitable. Responsibility oils or lubricates the wheel of commitment. To be committed is to responsibly assume a position of accountability. In view of this, you do not

230 give responsibility to people or individuals that lack the spirit of commitment. This means that responsibility and commitment belong exclusively to man and not to animals. This unique attribute, according to Ekie, is predicated on humans on the basis of his/her reason and freedom and, as such, it makes the human person a bearer of obligation, morally accountable and liable for moral blame or praise. In the words of Ekie (2001: 111), responsibility has “to do with „acting in answer to.‟ It implies an „ability‟ to „respond‟ to an action, action of a kind”. Hence, it has to do with the action of a thinking-being. Therefore, what makes man human and authentic, according to Kierkegaard, is his degree of responsibility and commitment to an ethico-religious life because responsibility and commitment are disclosed in action.

In the words of Fingarette (1967: 6), moral responsibility which is the core emphasis of all existentialist philosophers emerged where the “individual accepts as a matter of personal concern something which society offers to his concerns.” It is only on the basis of humans‟ dynamism and freedom that he is a moral being, fit to be considered as “responsible.” To act means to know “why” and “how” to act. Knowledge comes before action and to act means to be involved or to be engaged in action and be committed to it. In a more modest understanding, responsibility connotes duty or obligation. Parents, for instance, have the responsibility and commitment to take care of their children or wards until they are mature enough to fend for themselves. This means that the question of responsibility and commitment towards one‟s children or wards is absolute and not negotiable. For, it is this mark of responsibility and commitment that identifies the parents as human beings. Again, a high office of leadership that entails enormous responsibility, for example, requires commitment if

231 the leadership is prepared to serve in truth and in spirit. To be committed and responsible is to be duty-bound. This means that commitment makes responsibility possible, hence, the emphasis that a human being should assume full responsibility for his/her deeds, be they reward or punishment. An individual or a leader who is prepared to do that is one who accepts responsibility for his/her actions. Responsibility is discussed here in the sense of taking one‟s duties, promises or obligation seriously. Or, as the ability to respond and undertake certain actions. It is in this sense that we refer to some people as responsible while describing others as irresponsible. Hence, Omoregbe (1993:123) writes:

A responsible man is a man who takes his duties, obligations, promises seriously and does everything possible to fulfill them promptly and efficiently. Such a man is a man who can be trusted, a man who can be relied upon or a dependable man. On the other hand, a man who does not take his duties, obligation or promises seriously is an irresponsible man. He lacks credibility.

From the quotation above, we are made to understand that a responsible person is identified from the way and manner he handles the duty, job or any work entrusted to him or from the way he fulfills his promises or pledge. All these generally involve commitment (dedication, sacrifice). A responsible individual is one who is prepared or one who has resolved to undergo inconveniences in order to discharge his duties promptly and efficiently. This means that a pleasure-seeking and care-free man who is unwilling to make any commitment in the interest of others cannot be a responsible person existentially. To this end, an undisciplined person is also an irresponsible person. An irresponsible person is one lacking a sense of commitment and responsibility.

Thus, commitment and responsibility come with the awareness that each man is responsible for making the best choice available to him within the scope of his limitations and his powers.

Therefore, responsibility would be what a person has placed upon himself as a moral being to

232 express or fulfill certain commitments because he has realized that if he/she does not fulfill those commitments, there would be some kind of personal loss to himself/herself as a person.

But when an individual or a leader acts or fails to act responsibly within the range or frame of his capacities, whatsoever they may be, to that extent, he is praiseworthy or blameworthy.

Responsibility rises out of commitment and becomes its consequence (sequence). What makes social order possible and practicable is responsibility. Responsibility is a product of commitment and commitment is borne out of responsibility. The two concepts are intertwined and they make existence meaningful. Our commitment must be based on the premise that we are ultimately responsible for whatever we commit ourselves to. Commitment means willing to risk all for one‟s belief. It means to be single-minded. It means an unwavering steadfastness and decisive attitudes of mind toward a cause. Commitment endows us with the conviction and resolution necessary for the execution of a purpose irrespective of how difficult that purpose may be. Fundamentally, commitment engenders a sense of responsibility in us. It was the commitment to attain independence from the British Government in 1947 that led

Mohandas K. Gandhi to embark on the non-violent protest approach as a means of challenging the British authority in India. Consequently, Gandhi (1942:2, 44,109-110,335-

336) says:

I am not a visionary. I claim to be a practical idealist. The religion of non-violence is not meant merely for the rishis and saint. It is meant for the common people as well. Non-violence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the brute. The spirit lies dormant in the brute, and he knows no law but that of physical might. The dignity of man requires obedience to higher law-to the strength of the spirit.

I have therefore ventured to place before India the ancient law of self-sacrifice. For Satyagraha and its offshoots, non-cooperation and civil resistance are nothing but new names for the law of suffering. The rishis, who discovered the law of non-violence in the midst of violence, were greater geniuses than Newton. They were themselves greater warriors than Wellington. Having themselves known the use of arms, they realized their uselessness, and taught a weary world that its salvation lay not through violence but through non-violence.

Non-violence in its dynamic condition means conscious suffering. It does not mean meek submission to the will of the evil doer, but it means putting of one‟s whole soul against the will of the

233 tyrant. Working under this law of our being, it is possible for a single individual to defy the whole might of an unjust empire to save his honour, his religion, his soul and lay the foundation for that empire‟s fall or its regeneration.

I do justify non-violence, and consider it possible in relation between man and man and nations and nations; but it is not a resignation from all real fighting against wickedness. On the contrary, the non- violence of my conception is a more active and more real fighting against wickedness than retaliation whose very nature is to increase wickedness. I contemplate a mental, and therefore a moral opposition to immoralities. I seek entirely to blunt the edge of the tyrant‟s sword, not by putting up against it a sharper-edged weapon, but by disappointing his expectation that I would be offering physical resistance. The resistance of the soul that I should offer instead would elude him. It would at first dazzle him, and at last compel recognition from him, which recognition would not humiliate him but would uplift him. It may be urged that this is an ideal state. And so it is. The propositions from which I have drawn my arguments are as true as Euclid‟s definitions, which are nonetheless true, because in practice we are unable even to draw Euclid‟s line on a blackboard. But even a geometrician finds it impossible to get on without bearing in mind Euclid‟s definition. Nor may we dispense with the fundamental propositions on which the doctrine of Satyagraha is based.

As Gandhi further explains, the non-violence project is made of sterner stuff. It was never conceived as a weapon of the weak, but of the stoutest hearts. Non-violence cannot be learnt by staying at home. It needs enterprise. In order to test ourselves we should learn to dare danger and death, mortify the flesh and acquire the capacity to endure all manner of hardships.

A non-violent person will lay down his life in preventing such quarrels. The bravery of the non-violent is vastly superior to that of the violent. The badge of the violent is his weapon- spear, or sword, or rifle. God is the shield of the non-violent.

The point to note from the above quotation and the subsequent explanation by Gandhi is that only a sense of responsibility with absolute commitment and faith in what one believes in could have made the principle of non-violence crusade achieve its set objectives. If not for an act of commitment and a sense of responsibility, the decision to lay down one‟s life to ensure certain injustice is addressed through a non-violence approach without arms to wage war against someone who is armed and yet achieve one‟s goal will be an impossible task.

Commitment makes one become persistence towards a cause. Most heroes of the world today did not just become heroes without sacrificing something. For instance, Martin Luther King

234 Jr. sacrificed his life to pave the way for a just, fair and equitable society in America where both blacks and whites alike can have equal access to social amenities. This act of Luther was achieved through a resolute act of commitment and a deep sense of responsibility. Also,

Nelson Mandela of South Africa had to go to jail for twenty-seven years to put an end to the apartheid government and demand freedom for the blacks. He sacrificed his comfort, inclinations, his family and friends to be confined behind bars for a good twenty-seven years.

He affirmed that the struggle was my life and that he was committed to that struggle for freedom for his black brothers in South Africa. He had the conviction that true freedom would not come easy and would only come when something was given out (sacrificed). We can see that commitment is shaped by the end one aims at. It is simply the push to accomplish a purpose. And more importantly, it is the measure of one‟s responsibility and conviction in that purpose that furnishes the commitment with which the end is pursued. Thus, we can say categorically that in such a moment a man cannot retreat from the deep sense of responsibility that trails his courageous act of commitment. Luther, Mandela and Gandhi were held accountable for their respective actions. For Mandela, his action landed him in jail; for Luther, he was assassinated and Gandhi also paid dearly with his life. This means that one cannot be committed without taking responsibility for the consequences generated by that act of commitment.

4.3.5 COMMITMENT AND TRANSCENDENCE

Commitment, apart from being an existentialist virtue, technically speaking, is what makes transcendence possible. As Barnes (1967:299) argues, self-transcendence alone involves “true commitment.” Genuine self-transcendence means a new goal and new values. In fact,

235 existentialists affirm that human existence is set off from non-human reality by the note of transcendence. According to Collins (1953:157):

Man is not content with the given situation in which he finds himself, and in which he is but one thing along with innumerable others. He seeks to assert his own self-hood over against the solid reality of things and to assume his dominance over his natural environment. His cultural and technical achievements attest to this uneasiness and constant need for self-affirmation on the human spirit.

From the above quotation, you will discover that the inability of man to be satisfied with the given makes transcendence inevitable. Fundamentally, the human being is a transcendent being in the sense that he is a being who is always projecting into the future. This future projection is made possible through an act of commitment. As a future-oriented being, the human being is ontologically a transcendent being and that is why the human being always aims to be what the human being is not at every material time. Transcendence shows the imperfectability in the human being and the incompleteness of the world since the human being is always striving towards transcendence. It is impossible for human being to lose transcendence without ceasing to be human because transcendence is only applicable to human being in the sense of being restricted to the human being‟s nature. Hence, the search for transcendence is regarded as an essential constituent of human nature. Thus, what is transcendence?

Transcendence is a concept that deals with all human existence that goes beyond experience.

Though commitment goes beyond human experience, in existential inquiries, commitment is regarded as a this-worldly phenomenon realizable in this life as opposed to being a transcendental ideal to be fulfilled after death by rejecting human existence. Therefore, transcendence simply means surpassing the limits of ordinary experience. It means exceeding usual limits. In other words, transcendence is whatever goes beyond every possible

236 experience. According to Streller (1960:126), transcendence “is the capacity for transcending something, for refusing to take something for what it is in itself and for surpassing it toward what it is not.” The human person is truly a transcendent being for he/she goes beyond every possible experience. In the words of Karl Jaspers, the human being is fundamentally more than can be said about him/her. According to him, human existence is “oriented not only toward immanent contacts with being but also toward Transcendence” (Jaspers, 1957:131). In other words, the human experience is oriented toward Transcendence. For Unah (2006:13), transcendence is “the projection of the mind into nothingness as a field or region of encounter to establish and re-establish what is.” It also refers “to the indigent hunger or native dynamism in man which makes him restless and eccentric, and which propels him to move from one state of affairs to another; from now to not now, from what is to what is not” (Ibid.). This means that man is a being who is endowed with the capacity for transcendence. The human being transcends each thing as soon as he/she makes it his/her object; the object of his/her judgement, knowledge, or acts and in so doing alienates the object itself. But, for Kierkegaard, transcendence is fundamentally religious and genuinely founded in being. Kierkegaard‟s study of transcendence begins from man‟s search for an endless happiness and, hence, happiness can be seen as an existential problem. Collins (1953:159) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that

“serious and reflective men seek their abiding happiness in some eternal reality.” This

Kierkegaardian assertion is Augustinian in nature. Kierkegaard argues that transcendence is a characteristic of existence itself and as such, he believes that the deepening of existence depends upon the manner and degree of transcendence. To him, the human being has an unquenchable search for both transcendence and a justification of the human condition of existence.

237 From his works, it appears that Kierkegaard was the first philosopher to give transcendence a religious grounding from the standpoint of his theory of existence because he believes that existence has a definite religious import. In short both Sartre and Marcel, in the

Kierkegaardian spirit, also gave a religious interpretation to human transcendence. For Sartre, transcendence is human aspirations to reach out for God and is specified by a hunger for him.

This means that he/she must transcend his/her present position through an act of commitment, to put it in Kierkegaard‟s way. And for Marcel, human communion with God is made possible through transcendence. Thus from the foregoing, we can conclude that from the point of view of Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Marcel, it is in the realm of religion that we experience transcendence because “it founds man on God‟s revelation. It points paths of faith in revealed reality, in mercy and salvation and it gives guarantees” (Kaufmann, 1956:152). Therefore, the commitment to strive further to attain a higher goal is the driving force that enhances human transcendence. This is where the relation between commitment and transcendence meet.

Commitment makes the act of going beyond (i.e. transcendence) possible and real.

4.4 COMMITMENT AND WILL, CONSCIENCE AND CONSCIOUSNESS

It will be out of place and a grave omission to have discussed commitment in Kierkegaard‟s philosophy and its implication for leadership without espousing the notion of will, conscience and consciousness and how they make commitment possible. Genuine commitment is impossible in the absence of will, conscience and consciousness. This means that a responsive and responsible leadership would be unthinkable without the involvement of the will, conscience and consciousness. Thus, for our commitment to be meaningful and achieve its desired goal, it must involve the human will, human conscience and human consciousness.

238 The human will is expressed through the faculty of conscience and consciousness to make commitment possible and attain its purpose. The human will, conscience and consciousness are concerned with human behaviour and this shows their moral nature. This means that will, conscience and consciousness constitute the basis of genuine human commitment. Having made that brief remark, we shall briefly explain them one after the other. First, we shall deal with the notion of will.

4.4.1 COMMITMENT AND WILL

By way of definition, will is “the power of conscious decision and deliberate choice of action”

(Robinson, 1999:1624). In the words of May (1969:220), a healthy will means “action following vision.” In this light, May argues that the lack of will is much more than merely an ethical problem, but rather a faith problem. Consequently, May (Ibid. p. 218) defines will as

“the capacity to organize oneself so that movement in a certain direction or toward a certain way takes place.” This means that the will provides us with the courage to make difficult decisions. Hence, it is widely regarded as the mainspring of action. Sigmund Freud describes the will as the “unconscious” because he believes that man‟s action is propelled by the unconscious. The will is a mental organ with freedom. But this does not mean that will and freedom means the same thing. A difference exists. While “freedom” stands for the capacity to do what one chooses, will means the power of conscious decision and deliberate choice of action. This means that the power of doing a thing and not doing a thing lies in the will. A person‟s greatest asset is his/her will to do whatever appeals to him/her and refrain from whatever does not. This means that the will is the power house of human action and it often reflects in our commitment to any endeavour. Failure in any human endeavour is always

239 attributable to lack of will and commitment. Courage, for instance, can only exist in the service of will. Arendt (1978: 20) quotes Max Schiller as saying that “there is no other power in man but his will, and will as “the ground of faculty has power over both, reason and sensuality” whose opposition, the opposition of two necessities, truth and passion provide for the origin of freedom.‟‟ The will of the human person is sovereign. It frees the person from slavery and subjection. In the human being, the organ capable of command is not reason but the will. The power of the will rests on its sovereign decision to concern itself only with things within man‟s power, and these things reside exclusively in human inwardness. This means that the power to actualize thoughts lies in the will because the will provides the push needed to put our thoughts into concrete action. This is why the will is referred to as the spring of action. To will X-Y- Z is to do X-Y-Z. Will is actualized in the doing. It is an action thing. To will means one has the capacity to back it up.

This is where commitment comes in. This shows that the weakness of the will is due mainly to a lack of commitment to actualize it in action. An individual needs commitment to activate the will in him to action. This means that the will oils our degree of commitment. This is where the relationship between will and commitment become glaring when viewed from the dimension of action. Now, the question is: how does the will as the spring of action carry out its duties? Arendt (1978: 101) quotes St. Augustine‟s Confession Book xii Chapt.3 as saying that the will as the spring of action does its work by: “Directing the senses‟ attention, presiding over the images impressed on memory, and providing the intellect with material for understanding, the will prepares the ground on which action can take place. The will, one is tempted to say, is so busy preparing action that it hardly has time to get caught in the

240 controversy with its own counter-will. We often hear people saying that as a leader, somebody lacks the political will or moral will, to enforce compliance in X.Y.Z situation. However, will, like conscience and consciousness, is ontological and that means every human being possesses it. What happens is that the majority of men and women in leadership and non- leadership positions are afraid to exercise this will inherent in them in carrying out their responsibilities. For instance, a leader is expected to implement laudable programmes and also be able to contain any assaults on his/her leadership with all the instruments of state apparatus. And when such a leader is not able to do all that is required of him/her, such a leader can be said to lack “The political or moral will and commitment” that he/she needs to do the job of leadership. Most legitimate governments have been accused of lacking the political or moral will and commitment needed to carry out tasks of national importance.

Thus, any individual or leader who lacks the will and commitment can never be an achiever.

In fact, will is the function of the whole person and lack of will power not in the Nietzschean sense is the reason why most human beings cannot make quality decisions in their day-to-day social existence. The possibility of human commitment is a function of an active or healthy will. Will as an ontological concept is part and parcel of human nature. It represents a distinct faculty in man responsible for human activities of all sorts. As the will takes the place of reason, it becomes man‟s highest and mental faculty. To Immanuel Kant, the will is simply

“practical reason”. To St Augustine, the first Christian philosopher, widely regarded as the first philosopher of will, the will is the power house of decision. Duns Scotus and Fredrick

Nietzsche understood the will as a kind of power. While Arendt (1978: 37) calls it “the totality of mental activities”. Kenny (2006: 323) quotes Schopenhauer in his book The world as Will

241 and Idea (1844), as describing the will as what looks like “a magic spell which discloses to us the inmost being of everything in nature.” Our commitment is powered by will just as our will is powered by commitment. This is shown in our ability to carry out certain herculean tasks that would ordinarily not have been possible. What ignites and propels commitment in the human being is the will. The will serves as a back-up and a propelling engine to enforce our commitment. As the mainspring of human action, it has been viewed by scholars as an executive organ necessary to execute what it wills. The notion of will is ontological to man because every human being is endowed with it. Thus, it is at every human being‟s disposal whether to exercise it or not. The will serves as engine room or power-house that empowers us to carry out what we have set out to do. Will is the locomotive engine in every human being. Its function is that of propelling man into action, to act in certain ways that ensure self- confidence in odd situations. Will makes human commitment possible. This means that without the exercise of the will, commitment is not possible and vice-versa. The lack of one will automatically jeopardize the efficacy of the other. From what we said so far, can we really say a difference exists between will and commitment? Yes. Of course, there is. While will is firmness of purpose or the power of conscious decision and deliberate choice of action, commitment is the irrevocable resolve to perform an action. Again, while commitment is a virtue, will is ontological. By virtue is meant the power in action. Another difference that exists between commitment and will is that while will require self-consciousness; commitment does not. The will we are referring to here is not the will power as expressed by

Nietzsche, because when the will is seen as will power, it becomes self-serving and lacking in commitment. The only thing that stands between a human being and what he/she wants from life is merely the will to try it and the commitment to carry it through. By implication, human

242 beings need commitment to involve their will in whatever they do. In other words, you need commitment to power your will. Similarly, an area of similarities exists between commitment and will. Both involve human action. Both require responsibility to function and both mean a reaching out toward the object. In fact, commitment helps the will to function and perform its role effectively. Therefore, it is argued here that every act of human commitment is engineered by the will since will represents the mainspring of action. This means that in every course of action, human beings need the combination of will and commitment - meaning that without commitment one‟s will cannot be put to use or engaged. This means that commitment without will is empty as will without commitment is devoid of result.

4.4.2 COMMITMENT AND CONSCIENCE

The word “conscience” comes from the Latin word conscientia – which means “knowledge within oneself.‟‟ The word conscience has attracted different philosophers and other scholars of note who have variously described it in light of their own understanding of how it functions in human life. Fundamentally, conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of man. The notion has attracted a figurative description of different connotations, for instance, in the

Gospel “Jesus Christ of Nazareth referred to it as “the light” in man; Adam smith, the social and political philosopher calls it the “interior light.” Joseph Butler sees it as a “judge” and still others regard it as “the voice of God,” the impartial spectator” (Omoregbe, 1993:88-90). For the Stoic, conscience is the principal and independent judge of human actions. Jean-Jacques

Rousseau describes it, as cited by Omoregbe (1bid. p.89), as “an innate principle of justice and virtue by which we judge our own or other men‟s actions to be good or evil”. In reaction to Rousseau‟s description, Omoregbe avers that conscience is “an innate feeling, a strong

243 natural impulse which urges man towards good action and sways him away from evil actions”

(Omoregbe, Ibid.). Consequent upon the above descriptions, conscience has been defined as

“the moral sense of right and wrong that determines someone‟s thought and behaviour”

(Robinson, 1999; 291). Seeing conscience in the context of moral sense agrees with the title of this work.

In fact, both Perry (1968: 184) and Omoregbe (1993: 90) define conscience from a “moral sense” perspective. However, one philosopher who exerted so much influence on the concept of conscience is Bishop Joseph Butler, the distinguished Scottish philosopher. Butler, like

Perry and Omoregbe, regards conscience as the ground of morality. Zeuschner (2001:201) quotes Butler‟s definition of conscience as “the reflective or rational faculty which discerns the moral characteristic of action.” One major function of conscience is its ability to tell us which action is right and which one is wrong without stress. Perhaps, this informs Butler‟s declaration that conscience is reason functioning as the author of and the authority for our moral obligation and which also prompts us to the performance of our duties. This means that in matters of moral nature conscience is still very widely used, meaning that it has not lost its oracular quality.

As an ontological concept, conscience is part and parcel of human nature and to this extent, is so intermingled or connected with other parts of human content that it is difficult to disentangle it. This means that conscience is the most fundamental aspect of our being (i.e., human nature). It shows that every human being has a conscience. Conscience has its own voice which tells man what the right path is and what the wrong path is at every stage and at

244 each decision point. This is why conscience is seen as an inner voice which acts as an ethical compass. This means that the right and wrong actions are etched in the conscience of each individual. And so, at every cross-road of decision making the inner voice tells “the right path.” Therefore, one who hears the inner voice and acts according to it seldom goes out of the ethical path. Frederick Copleston agrees with Butler that there is a principle of reflection in men by which every human beings distinguishes between the internal principles of his/her heart, as well as his/her external actions; which passes judgement upon himself and them: pronounces determinately some actions to be in themselves just, right, good; others to be in themselves evil, wrong, unjust. The understanding that the conscience is the knowledge of right within us which makes us moral agents made Butler proclaim the unconditional obligation on our part to follow the dictates of conscience because it carries with it the “light of self attestant”.

Conscience, acting as an internal sanction or mechanism, serves as a mode of social control and that is the moral purpose of social harmony. The obligation to follow one‟s conscience and act upon it is an affirmation of the indispensible role of conscience in human existence.

Darwall (1983: 43) quotes Butler as saying:

But allowing that mankind hath the rule of right within himself. Yet it may be asked, “What obligation are we under to attend and follow it (conscience)? I answer; it has been proved that man by his nature is a law to himself without the particular distinct consideration of the positive sanctions of that law: the rewards and punishments which we feel and those which from the light of reason we have ground to believe are annexed to it. The question then carries its own answer along with it. Your obligation to obey this law is its being the law of your nature.

What Butler meant to convey from the quotation above is the very fact that we are ontologically a conscience being and as such, our obedience to the dictate of conscience is only natural for the mere fact that it is the law of our human nature. Man is naturally a

245 conscience being, which means that conscience is an innate quality that man naturally possesses from birth. In buttressing Butler‟s assertion, Omoregbe (1993:90) opines that man has “a moral obligation to obey the decision of his conscience. It is never morally right to go against the decision of one‟s conscience. Nor is it morally right to compel anybody to act contrary to the decision of his conscience. To act contrary to one‟s conscience or to compel anybody to go against his conscience is immoral.” The significance of conscience is greatly felt in moments of conflict while it is trying to lead us to taking the right decision in that particular situation. However, conscience because of its fragile nature can be impaired or weakened to the point that it will not be felt any more through our unbearing negative attitude to adhere to its repeated instructions. This is why Obioha and Bassah (2008: 43) posit that when this man‟s greatest gift for self-direction is weakened and lost “the repercussion is evil.”

When a conscience is weakened or impaired, it means it has lost its vigourness as well as its moral purpose. Consequently, it degenerates into a sick conscience. A sick conscience is amenable to corruption and other forms of social vices that are antithetical to sound conscience. Therefore, ignoring the ethical purpose of conscience will automatically lead to a tyranny of conscience which, according to Perry (1968:197), is “the most potent danger that threatens human existence.” A healthy and sick conscience is both revealed in human action.

Therefore, no individual gets committed to a cause without approval or a conviction from his/her conscience. This means that our conscience does not leave us blank as to what to do in any situation. This tells us that human commitment is a function of the dictate of his conscience. And from a philosophical point of view, our commitment is enforced by one‟s moral conscience. Conscience aids our degree of commitment towards any chosen or given task.

246 4.4.3 COMMITMENT AND CONSCIOUSNESS

The term „consciousness‟ has been discussed by philosophers in various topics such as knowledge in general; intentionality, introspection, and phenomenal experience. However, our main concern here is to espouse the word as it concerns human existence in its concrete form.

The word “conscious” is a derivation from the Latin words “cum”, meaning “together with” and “scire” meaning “knowing” (Lormand, 1998: 583), while in its original sense, it stands for two people who know something together. It means that two people who know something together are said to be conscious of it to one another. In other words, to be “conscious of” or being “conscious of” something simply means knowing it or knowing it well. In its adjective form, the word conscious suggests a “knowing” being. That is to say, a normal person is a conscious being and this means that consciousness is a consequence of normality in man‟s mental state, though that person may have deformed legs or eye-balls as the case may be. Like

Will, nothing is the cause of consciousness. Consciousness is the cause of its own way of being” (Sartre, 1956: Lvi). To Dietrich (2007:3), consciousness is “the quintessence of philosophy, psychology, neuroscience and several other fields of study.” In the words of

Dennett (1991:21), consciousness is “the last surviving mystery.” Apart from the fact that consciousness is traditionally known as the mind-body problem, whereby in the Platonic tradition it means “mind or understanding” (Olson, 1962: 29). Contextually, consciousness is defined as “the physical and mental state of being awake and fully aware of one‟s environment, thoughts and feelings” (Robinson, 1999:291). By this definition, consciousness simply means the state of being aware of oneself and of happenings in one‟s environment. But when Dietrich used the word “quintessence” to describe consciousness, he meant by it the essence of a thing in its purest and concentrated form.

247 In fact, consciousness is the quintessential of human life in its original make-up. This means it is ontological - meaning that it is part of human nature in its primordial form. Consciousness underlies human life for without it no man can truly exist in its physical and spiritual form.

Consciousness makes one human. This is where the assertions of Heidegger and Sartre become very instructive and apt. For them, it is the fact or reality of consciousness which radically distinguishes man from other beings. The existential nature of man is the reason why man can represent beings as such, and why he can be conscious of them. To be conscious is to be aware of your self, your existence and all its associated risk, pain, anguish, freedom, suffering and the responsibilities that go with it. The assertion by Sartre (1945: xxvii) that “all consciousness as Husserl has shown is consciousness of something shows that it is object- directed.”In view of this, Sartre says that a consciousness that would cease to be consciousness of something would for that very reason cease to exist. In fact, existentialist philosophers agree that consciousness has a kind of intentional mental state. In a broad sense,

“mind” and “consciousness”, as some scholars have agued, are synonyms in the same way

“being mindful of” something and “being conscious of” is stressed, so that any kind of mental state is a state of consciousness.

Thus, consciousness is characterized by intentionality and subjectivity. The notion of

“intentionality” was introduced into philosophy by Edmund Husserl. According to him:

All my conscious acts are intentional, that is to say they are not just psychological processes which take place within me in some inner, private “subjective” world: rather they are all directed outward to the objective world. To think, for example, is not for some psychological process to place within the privacy of my psyche. And the same is true of all our conscious acts: they are object-directed or intentional”: they ipso facto involve us in the world outside ourselves (Charlesworth, 1975:21).

248 This is the position of the existentialist phenomenologist, which is why intentionality is defined as “the idea that mental states make reference to something, that is, they are about something” (Dietrich, 2007:7). Intentionality is at the heart of consciousness. Intentionality begins as an epistemology, a way of knowing reality. Intentionality is what gives meaningful contents to consciousness. Without intentionality we are indeed “nothing” because without it we could neither choose nor act upon our choice. Action implies intentionality, just as intentionality implies action. The two are inseparable: “The act is in the intention and the intention is in the act” (May, 1969c:242). In intentionality, the dichotomy between subject and object is partially overcome. According to May (1bid. p.308), intentionality “is an imaginative attention which underlies our intentions and informs our actions.” It is possessed by every existent being and it is always directed toward something.

Consciousness has a profoundly personal unique importance and minus life itself, it has been well documented to be man‟s most valuable possession. Therefore, as Dietrich noted, suppose one loses it, what happens? Will other concepts that define us as existent beings such as individual freedom, memories, free will, self-hood, will, conscience etc, still make meaning?

How for example, are we to regard a person in a vegetative existence? It is in this context that

Dietrich portrays the stream (i.e. flow) of consciousness as a never-broken succession of thoughts and feelings that accompanies us throughout life. Consequently, he concluded that consciousness is really the heart-beat and the crown jewel of human existence. The term consciousness is “identical or synonymous with “experience”, conscious awareness”, and

“awareness” (Dietrich, 2007:6). This general definition is in consonance with the everyday usage of the word. Basically, we are conscious when we experience something and this is

249 perhaps why some scholars take consciousness to be awareness while others take it to be stream of thoughts, feelings and actions. In view of this development, the point must be made that “if a person is not conscious of something, he or she is also not conscious” (Guzeldere,

1997:1-67). Guzeldere‟s assertion is in tandem with existentialists‟ position that says consciousness is never void of object. In Sartre‟s words, all consciousness is positional because it transcends itself in order to reach an object. It is by this transcendence that it establishes the fact that the object is present.

Existentially, life would be meaningless in the absence of full consciousness. It is consciousness that makes human freedom possible. Even ethics would not be possible because man will not be rationally sound to make ethical choices and take responsibility for his deeds.

A conscious human being is one who is truly existing and aware of all that existence entails.

All human beings are endowed with the data of consciousness, which enables them to respond to external stimuli and without which human existence becomes drab and meaningless. In fact, existentialism is very much interested and concerned with the human individual as a conscious self, a responsible agent, a subject and a thou. This is why consciousness is very central in all existentialists‟ thought. To them, man becomes truly existent only when “he lives an intensely conscious life in which he is vividly aware of all the exigencies, decisions and problems of human living” (Martin, 1967:731). This means that it is consciousness that enables a man to live a life that is vibrantly alert to all the anguishes, burdens and cares of his existence. Consciousness is what actually defines human existence as Rene Descartes has showed while he was trying to doubt the certainty of his own very existence. It was the reality of consciousness that prevented him from doubting his own existence as a thinking being.

250 Man becomes fully alive to the richness inherent in each experience through consciousness.

The real man, according to the existentialists, is the conscious man. This further confirms

Ame Dietrich‟s view that consciousness is indeed at the heart of our existence. Sartre captures this aptly when he says: “consciousness is the being of man” (Sartre, 1956: iv).This means that consciousness is “a plenum of existence.”

In linking consciousness to commitment, we must bear in mind that without consciousness or our conscious state, it will be difficult to think of commitment. Consciousness is the heart- beat of human existence and it is what makes human life meaningful and worthwhile.

Therefore, losing it would automatically mean lifelessness because without it, all other concepts make no meaning. All human commitments must be intentional because they are object-directed. One who is committed is committed to something, say X.Y.Z. This means that man‟s level of consciousness determines his degree or intensity of commitment toward a cause. In order words, it is only a conscious being that pledges or binds him/herself to a task by involving every department of his/her being. Our level of commitment largely depends on our state of consciousness. When a man is in a state of unconsciousness, life at that time is meaningless and, as such, he or she cannot be talking about commitment to A.B.C. Therefore, consciousness is a prerequisite to human commitment of any sort. On the whole, will, conscience and consciousness are moral concepts that aid human commitment because they contribute significantly in helping an individual, whether in position of leadership or not, to approach his/her responsibility with the seriousness it deserves.

251 4.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF COMMITMENT

From what we have learned in our discourse on commitment, we have discovered that commitment is important in three respects, namely: “in self-forming, self-transcending and self-limiting” (Macquarrie, 1993:42). On the plane of self-formation, commitment is very important in that it is the task or duty of every person to form the self, though heredity, cultural, and environmental factors also play important roles. Each person has to establish an identity in order not to suffer the fate of engulfment. There is a call for the authentic self or ego ideal, according to Hauewas (1975:17), that “our character should be formed by our own effort rather than as a passive responsive to our particular environment.” This is where

Kierkegaard‟s ethical stage becomes instructive in that it is a stage where our effort in form of commitment is required to build up and sustain our degree of responsibility to our chosen tasks. Secondly, no human being finds full satisfaction and happiness purely within himself.

Therefore, self-transcendence as an a priori condition arising from the very way in which human beings are constituted must include ethico-religious factors in order to strike at a proper balance. Perhaps, whether true or false, self-formation and self-transcendence go together, and as Niebuhr (1965:107) puts it, “consistent self-seeking is bound to be self- defeating; on the other hand, self-giving is bound to contribute ultimately to self-realization.”

Thirdly, in self-limiting, it must be clear that a human being is limited or finite but has a yearning for the infinite, though he always remains himself finite. He cannot become infinite no matter how hard he tries to transcend. He can never become God, even if in some sense he might eventually participate in the divine life. Consequently, Ogbonna (2008: 20) points out that Kierkegaard‟s conception of this matter is an “existence filter” that is, Kierkegaard

252 filters” from existence in order to make the same existence meaningful.” This meaningful existence culminated in becoming a Christian.

Ogbonna further explains that as a human being, man has limited time, limited experience, limited resources, limited capacities, and limited wisdom. This means that he must also limit his commitment, and that every commitment if it is properly made in any depth, must also be a renunciation, (i.e. self-denial) for if one‟s time, energy and capacities are limited, one only commits them in a certain direction by diverting or channeling them away from another direction. In view of this, Zimmerman (1981: 80) posits that “the more steadfast I am in my resolve, the more I understand my finitude.” Commitment, seen from this angle, is destined to be painful because it is self-denial. Energy is spent in it as a matter of ultimate concern, to use

Paul Tillich‟s phrase. The most crystal example of this character is one in which a life is dominated by one all-consuming purpose or direction. Abraham sets an example of this commitment. In it, equality, justice and dignity, for instance, are ideal, not regarded as unattainable absolutes but as goals and guidelines in developing proper human behaviour and guiding the stages of one‟s development on the social and personal level. Thus, the significance of commitment as a phenomenon cannot be over-emphasized because one can only remain loyal to a cause through an act of commitment. The commitment to remain loyal to a goal is the committing of all. Committed people are not double-minded; rather, they are single-minded which is why they are able to accomplish their set objectives.

For our commitment to yield the desired result, we must be passionate about it. Kierkegaard has always stressed the necessity of passionate commitment as the basis for authentic

253 existence. However, some people have misplaced this passionate commitment to perpetuate evil. To be passionate about our commitment does not necessarily mean to engage in activities that are harmful to mankind or destructive to our environment. Though passionate commitment is of prime importance to existentialists, they are however conscious of what we are passionate about and committed to. Existentialism arose in the first place to canvass for the reinstatement of man‟s moral dignity which he lost in the era of moral decadence arising from abstract consideration. What one is committed to is of utmost importance since the existentialist philosophers did not advocate a blind commitment. Genuine commitment is a commitment that is motivated with the intention of benefiting oneself and others. It is recognizing one‟s responsibility for every single action one is committed to. Self- transcendence alone involves true commitment (Barnes, 1967:299). Commitment is the willingness to give all to accomplish a goal or a set target. Genuine self-transcendence means a new goal and a new value. Thus, the significance of commitment to human existence can never be over-emphasized because without imbibing the tenets of commitment no individual or group can get to the next level. In this sense commitment can be seen as an essential virtue that makes human existence possible and meaningful. The question then arises: What is the relevance of commitment to leadership? Or how does commitment contribute to our understanding of leadership?

The relevance of commitment to leadership cannot be over-emphasized in that commitment will guide the leader‟s focus and direction. In political leadership, whether of a liberal, communist or socialist setting, a leader needs commitment to drive his ideology and also to guide his/her political action to arrive at the path of national development. In fact, without the

254 right commitment the best ideology will however forever remains mere paper work if it finds itself in the hands of an uncommitted political leader, that is, uncommitted leader. This means that a political leader requires commitment to drive the political ideology that defines his/her goals and aspirations and provides a formal structure for political action. Therefore, any leader seeking a leadership position without commitment is only deceiving him/herself and as such will not be able to achieve set objectives.

4.6 SUMMARY

In this chapter much has been said about commitment. From what has been said about commitment, we find that it has existential meaning which makes the exercise of freedom to achieve human development possible. Fundamentally, we also see that commitment can take a particular or general form. This means that an individual can undertake a commitment effort to carry out a particular project. In the same vein, we discovered that a group of like-minded individuals can come together to decide a particular course of action and commit themselves to it. From our inquiry, we realize that commitment is the degree of resolve or sense of purpose with which an individual goes about accomplishing his ontological duty. This is perhaps why Kierkegaard noted that no existential meaningful life can be lived without commitment. For him, commitment is a concrete effort that one employs to recover oneself from the “Public” and the abstract system of reason, to get him/herself committed to the goal of existence. In fact, in this chapter it is clear that Kierkegaard stressed genuine commitment in its practical, risky and sacrificial form. More to that, Kierkegaard shows that commitment as a philosophical concept finds its true meaning and value only when it is used as a means of explaining human behaviour.

255

Also, from our inquiry, we discover that commitment entails belief and action and that it is borne out of the elements of human experience such as anxiety, anguish, forlornness, joy, sadness and other existential conditions of life. We have also come to know that the more intense the experience, the more total the degree of commitment. Kierkegaard made it abundantly clear that responsibility strengthens our degree of commitment towards any cause.

In other words, commitment is borne out of responsibility. This means that responsibility engenders commitment. Responsibility oils the wheel of commitment for it to achieve maximum results. For Kierkegaard, it is the degree of responsibility and commitment to ethico-religious choice that makes an individual a true human being. Furthermore, from our inquiry, Kierkegaard shows that commitment has a deep affinity with subjectivity, faith, freedom, transcendence, will, conscience and consciousness respectively. For instance, he argued that commitment could only be made more effective when personalized (i.e. made subjective). Commitment, he contended, is an inward phenomenon because it comes from within. Faith also enhances our degree of commitment to a cause because it is easier to be committed to a cause when one has faith in that cause. In other words, faith engenders genuine commitment and makes it more binding. This means that in the absence of faith, human commitment becomes difficult. Kierkegaard also adds that existential freedom is what makes commitment possible because one has to be free before one can commit to any cause of his or her choice. Thus, we make freedom meaningless if we fail to commit it to action.

From our inquiry, we also discover that commitment can be discussed in different senses such as pledge, promise, obligation, ideological, sacrifice, risk, etc, as it affects individuals‟ conduct. Kierkegaard has shown that the relationship between commitment and transcendence

256 lies in the fact that transcendence involves true commitment. Human by nature is naturally a transcendent being, always aiming at something higher. Finally, our inquiry also shows that will, conscience, and consciousness are equally important to the notion of commitment because commitment itself will not be possible without bringing the will, conscience and consciousness to bear in its operation. The will remains the engine room of our actions.

Conscience helps us to evaluate our level of commitment while consciousness enhances our level of commitment. Fundamentally, will, conscience, and consciousness contribute significantly to one‟s level of commitment in that they go hand-in-hand to enable human beings fulfill their ontological responsibilities as ethical individual. In view of the fact that the subject of commitment is about the individual human being, an exposition of the notion of the individual will be undertaken in detail in the next chapter titled “The Notion of The

Individual in Kierkegaard‟s Theory of Commitment.”

257 CHAPTER FIVE

THE NOTION OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN KIERKEGAARD’S THEORY OF

COMMITMENT

5.0 INTRODUCTION

In Chapter Four, we analyzed and discussed the meaning, nature and types of commitment, the different senses of commitment and Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment. We found that for an individual or a leader to be able to achieve set goals, commitment is required. However, since our concern in the work is the possibility of attaining responsive and responsible leadership, that is, political leadership through the adoption of Kierkegaard‟s theory of commitment, it is important for us to carry out a detailed analysis of his notion of the individual in his theory of commitment. This is necessary since the subject of commitment is about the individual human being. This means you cannot talk about commitment without discussing the individual human being. Consequently, this chapter is made up of the following sub-headings and we shall discuss them in the following order: What is the meaning and nature of the individual? Who is the ethical individual? Who is the subjective individual?

What are subjectivity and objectivity? And what are individual and the masses? And how do these concepts contribute to the understanding of commitment and leadership? It is these questions that this chapter tries to answer. Now, let us begin our introduction proper.

Humanity regards the universal to be more real than the particular human being (i.e. the individual human being). This was the crucial emphasis of Platonism that was visible in the platonic celebrated reason. As a result, Western thought made its calculations, as it were, without the individual. Kierkegaard was the first philosopher to reverse this Platonic scale of

258 value to establish “the individual, the single one, precisely in the way in which he is an exception to the universal norm, as taking precedence over the universal” (Barrett, 1958: 85).

As a matter of fact, he revolted against the wisdom (rationality) of the Greeks, both in philosophy and in Christianity, because it was heavily influenced by a profound respect for mathematics. Therefore, Kierkegaard in this sense was by no means anti-Plato, no less than anti-Hegel, and anti-Thomas, no less than anti-Copernicus. He thus by his revolt swept away the whole conception of a cosmos as a mere distraction. The saying that once you know a philosopher‟s metaphysics it becomes easier to determine his epistemology, ethics and logic is true. In this sense, Kierkegaard is unique in that the concept of “The individual” runs through his entire philosophy. In his metaphysics, this individualism reflects itself in the proposition that “the only reality is the individual‟s own ethical reality; and that this reality is grasped, not by thinking it, but by living it. Reality is concrete and individual, and thought cannot assimilate the concrete in its concreteness, nor the individual in its individuality” (Swenson,

1945:28). This means that his notion of the individual actually informs his metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and logic. Hence, he discusses his metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and logic within the context of the “Individual.” This he did in consonance with his belief that a free and morally responsible individual is primarily one who understands the world in which he or she lives and who has sufficiently mastered it over him-or herself to accomplish his or her chosen goals. In Kierkegaard‟s philosophy, the individual is cardinal because he believes that the individual is the gateway to understanding reality. Consequently, he rejects all systematic thought of the abstract, the necessary, and the universal for the sake of the particular, singular and unique experience of the individual. This means that restoring morality and integrity to our society will be shadow chasing if each of us does not become

259 single and individually take responsibility for our actions as Kierkegaard advised. One cannot change the outside world unless one‟s inside world is changed. In the words of Collins

(1953:175), Kierkegaard‟s position about the individual person won him bitter notoriety in his own day earning him the customary charge of “excessive individualism.” Kierkegaard defines his mission in modern Europe as the “restatement of respect for what it means to be an individual human being.” Now, let us start with the explication of the meaning and nature of the individual in Kierkegaard‟s theory of commitment as this will lead us to the answers to the remaining questions.

5.1 THE MEANING AND NATURE OF THE INDIVIDUAL

The word individual is a derivation from the Latin word “INDIVIDUUS” translated in Greek as

“atomon”, meaning “an indivisible entity” (Ahisjahbana, 1966:16). In the Adlerian context, the “Individual” means both “unique and indivisible” (Feist, 1990:119). It is in light of the above that Kierkegaard says an individual is an irreducible entity. This individual that

Kierkegaard talks about is the existing individual who relates his or her life to the concrete reality of human existence through an act of commitment. By existing individual Kierkegaard meant the real or actual human being that is free, that chooses, that makes commitments and that take responsibility for those commitments. Furthermore, he meant an individual who sees him/herself as standing alone and believes that his destiny is in his or her own hands. It is the individual that knows well enough that he or she is a unique human being. The individual that knows he or she must do his or her own believing and his or her own dying alone. The individual that understands the contingencies of human existence. In the existential sense,

Kierkegaard does not mean the social individual who is agitating for social freedom such as

260 economic and political freedom as we find in the theory of individualism. Instead, he meant the individual existing morally and religiously, existing not as a spectator but as a participant, striving consistently to distant him/herself from the crowd and, finally, the individual that maintains a “possibility-relationship with God” (Kierkegaard, 1941:139). This is a relationship which freedom makes possible. Though becoming an individual is the most fundamental issue in life, yet it is the most decisive issue confronting Kierkegaard as a philosopher of human existence. Consequently, he writes:

„The individual‟ is the category through which, in a religious, respect, the age, all history, the human race as a whole must pass. My task is to provoke, if possible, to invite, to stir up the many to press through this defile of „the individual‟, through which, however, no one can pass except by becoming the individual … „The individual‟- that is the decisive Christian category, and it will be decisive also for this future of Christianity (Kierkegaard, 1962d:128-133).

From the above quotation, it is obvious to us why Kierkegaard made it clear from the outset that his mission was to single men out to be themselves as this particular individual. Pattison

(1997:90) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that “only as individuals can we live subjectively, primitively, existentially, ethically and religiously.” This, perhaps, made him to desire that

“That Individual” be written as an inscription on his “grave” when he dies. To this end, the question is asked, “what is the nature of this individual that Kierkegaard held in high esteem in his philosophy?

The nature of this individual in Kierkegaard‟s thought remains what other moral philosophers are yet to come to terms with, because Kierkegaard took what it means to be an “Individual” to be central to his thought. The nature of such an individual in Kierkegaard‟s thought would be one that takes the challenges of human existence as his/her own task and accepts responsibility for every of his deeds, pleasant or unpleasant. It is an individual characterized by freedom, choice, responsibility, subjectivity, faith, action, anguish, forlornness, guilt,

261 commitment, involvement, etc. And finally, his/her nature is to exist concretely while choosing concrete situation to realize his/her existential possibilities. Charlesworth (1975: 9) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that it is “the individual human being who is of central importance and it is the “lived experience” of the individual that is the touchstone of all knowledge.” Morally or ethically, the “lived experience,” that is, the actual experience of the individual is what is relevant to Kierkegaard and other existentialists. In fact, Kierkegaard regards the lived experience as the valid criterion of truth because he believes that the individual is the living center of all thought and life. Again, Charlesworth (Ibid.) writes of

Jean Paul Sartre, Karl Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel and Soren Kierkegaard as follows:

I must always ask, Sartre says, “what does this mean to me, this individual human existence.”Karl Jaspers says “I cannot verify anything save through my personal being, and I have no other rule than this personal being itself” OR as Gabriel Marcel puts it in a striking epigram, “we do not study problems of philosophy, we are those problems.” OR again as Kierkegaard says, “Does not the vanity of our age come from the fact that, with all its theories, it forgets these two little things which are so simple, the meaning of existence and the meaning of inwardness?

From the above quotation, it is very obvious that the individual occupies the center stage in both Kierkegaard and other existentialists‟ thought. It is on this basis that his view about the individual existence has become the basis for modern existentialism. Essentially,

Kierkegaard‟s concept of the individual derives its sense from the Christian religious thought which opts for the rejection of dialectical conformity whether rational or historical. Colette

(1968: 35) noted that, outside this perspective “one can only misunderstand the direction of

Kierkegaard‟s thought either as a psychic phenomenon, pathological sort or as a literary episode in the individualistic reaction against the great rationalist utopia or against the idolatry of science, history or society.”

Fundamentally, Kierkegaard‟s major problem was on the re-moralization and redefinition of the individual. In confirmation of this mission, he expressed his individualism when he said

262 first as a philosopher that “for me - not personally, but as a thinker - this matter of the individual is the most decisive thing” (Kierkegaard, 1941:122). This expression shows the degree of his resolve to market the potentialities of the individual which includes: “Personal choice, freedom, responsibility, commitment and involvement” (Omoregbe, 1991b:156).

Therefore, it is quite in order to say that Kierkegaard‟s concern with the individual‟s existence is based essentially on his understanding that the individual is a conscious self and a responsible agent that chooses, risks and makes the leap of faith as a subject. Thus, when

Kierkegaard talks about this or that individual, he does not mean an individual in the context of political, economic, liberal or laissez–fairer senses. Rather, it means, according to

Kierkegaard, one human being unique and important, and at the same time inseparably linked with every other person and every part of the universe. And so it does not mean an individual who is self-centered, but an individual in the ethical sense and purely from an existential point of view. Consequently, Kierkegaard focused his philosophy on the existence of the ethical individual. This will lead us to our next sub-topic, “The Nature of the Ethical Individual.”

5.2 THE NATURE OF THE ETHICAL INDIVIDUAL

Kierkegaard‟s thought revolves around the ethical and religious individual. He strenuously criticized the tendency of his age to elevate the results of objective reflection

(scientific/historical research) and the categories of absolute idealism over “the standpoint of the ethically-existing, finite individual” (Stafford, 1998). In fact, the ethical question he asked was: “How am I to become a Christian?” In short, we can broaden this question to accommodate more fundamental issues such as: “How can I become a true moral being?” Or

“how am I to become a committed individual in my chosen field?” Or “How does one exist as a true human being?” Now the question is: “What is the nature of this ethical individual in

263 Kierkegaard‟s philosophy? What is his driving force? Why is Kierkegaard so obsessed with the ethical individual? All these questions and many more will form the basis of this sub- topic. The word ethical as used by Kierkegaard should be understood purely from an existential angle. By ethical individual is meant an individual who has resolved to commit his entire life to a pursuit of truth that is morally right to its logical conclusion. It also means an individual that is impartial, that acts in accordance with rules, that is principled, upright, duty- bound, responsible, committed, honest and virtuous. In fact, an ethical individual, according to Stack (1973:116), is “one who has continuity, who has a history, who is guided in his choices and actions by a telos which is repeatedly projected as a possibility.” To Kierkegaard, resolute, rational choice sharpens the character of the individual. As he puts it, “determination, decision also open, and therefore it is also called resolving; with resolution or in the resolution the best powers of the (self) open up” (Kierkegaard, 1967:419). This Kierkegaardian view, according to Stack, is reminiscent of Aristotle‟s notion that choice is significant for the development of character. This means that only the person with the potentiality for rational choice can attempt to realize the ethical possibility. In the realm of morality, we regard an action as right because it has value for a person or because it promotes the welfare of society as a whole. To be ethical (i.e. to act with a sense of principle) is to uphold what is right and what society values and cherishes.

Kierkegaard‟s emphasis on the ethical individual was borne out of his genuine belief that the springs of human conflict cannot be eradicated through institutions alone, but also, through the reform of the individual human being. This means that the individual needs to be morally and religiously redefined. In the existential sense, an ethical individual, according to

264 Kierkegaard, is the one who has resolved to commit his entire life to a pursuit of the truth and to the realization of that truth. And that truth represents what is morally or ethically right.

Individuals and societies can only be liberated on the bases of the truth they pursue. To this end, Kierkegaard says, in shunning unethical craving an ethical individual needs to imbibe ethical consciousness in his day-to-day social existence, because he knows that the moment one engages in an unwholesome and unethical craving for greedy rewards, one misses the mark of being ethical in his action. Consequently, he kicks against the world historical individual who for instance looks for honour and misses the essence of his calling in the delivery of quality service to the people.

According to Kierkegaard, the ethical individual, in contrast to the world historical individual, embarks on positive actions that will affect the world out there for greater transformation and change. He or she has no time in priding himself on the results of his or her actions, but instead chooses to remain in ignorance (i.e. innocence) of his or achievements for him-or her not to lose focus and skid from his or her ethical standpoint to a non-ethical level. An ethical individual can only maintain his momentum through a genuine resolution of the will, conscience, consciousness and commitment. The ethical individual is principally concerned with ethical striving to enhance the development of others and the society. Hence,

Kierkegaard describes such an ethical individual as an ethical enthusiast who, in desiring to reach the final limits of his or her power, does not disturb him/herself with achievements made. But that when he or she begins to expect rewards from both left and right, he or she instantly leaps into immorality. As the ethical individual begins to act immorally, he or she

265 crashes into an unwholesome and unethical craving for rewards because he or she wants to keep up with the joneses having lost his/her ethical compass.

Therefore, instead of the ethical individual to free him/herself from unwholesome and unethical transactions, he or she leaps instead into unethical acts dressing it up deceitfully with the aim of benefiting others. This attitude depicts the state of affairs in most human societies in a contemporary setting. In fact, we have some individuals in public institutions who claim that they are into immoral acts with the intention or aim of benefiting others. This is an alibi (excuse) that is not tenable anywhere because one does not need to soil one‟s hands in an immoral act with the objective of enriching others, since it is very well possible to engage in ethical acts (i.e., honest acts) and still benefit others. Kierkegaard had stressed the need for an individual to be guided by ethical enthusiasm so as to negate every form of deception in indulging in an unethical act in the guise of profiting others. He says that we should will the ethical enthusiastically because it is the highest; and that for the ethical individual to remain in motion and maintain the momentum, he or she must strike out from his or her record the word “but” if he or she is ever prepared to fulfill the condition of being an ethical individual. In actual fact, it is not in the nature of an ethical individual to pursue self- interest schemes but to make other people great through honest means.

In the light of the above, Kierkegaard (1941: 124) declares that the resolved ethical individual says: “I will this, but I also will that my efforts should prove to be of benefit to other men; for let me tell you, I am a very benevolent fellow, and anxious to do good to others, even to the extent of improving the whole human race.” The import from the above quotation shows that,

266 a resolved ethical individual‟s main mission is the adding of values to other people‟s life. To be ethical is to be faithful to one‟s confession in pursuing set goals. This means that an ethical individual does not make demands; instead he makes efforts to keep his ethical tenets intact in order to refrain from unethical actions or acts that are capable of truncating the bond of social cohesion. In fact, the ethically oriented individual is:

Prone to look at himself in an altogether different light. Both his motivation and behaviour are responsible to a self-image „likeness to which he has to form himself‟, his particular aptitudes and propensities being seen as subject to the control of his will and as capable of being directed to the realization of demanding projects that reflect what he truly aspires to become. It is commitment to such projects which endows the ethical life with a coherent and self-sufficiency that its aesthetic counterpart conspicuously lacks (Gardiner, 1998:239).

Fundamentally, the need for the ethical individual arose because every society, whether developed, underdeveloped or developing, has its ethical or moral problems. Most societies in the world today, for instance, are filled with all sorts of ethical maladies which have defied all known cures over the years. This is happening because the quest for materialism has redefined social morality to the point that materialism has become the measure for determining the social acceptance and recognition of individuals in society, no matter how ill-gotten the wealth is, and how glaring its immoral sources are. The spate of corruption in most human societies today is a clear testimony and a vivid manifestation of how unethical human beings could be in trying to get rich by all means. For instance, embezzlement of public funds, smuggling, profiteering and hard drug trafficking are some of the prevalent ethical problems ravaging most countries of the world today.

Another ethical problem plaguing contemporary society is indiscipline. Indiscipline is an ethical issue which Kierkegaard had to tackle in his day through his Theory of Stages and the

Edifying Discourses. Indiscipline is an umbrella word which encases a number of major and

267 minor types of unethical behaviour in any society, developed or underdeveloped. Indiscipline simply means “the absence of discipline” (Okunna, 1995:48). To Achebe (1983:27), indiscipline is “a failure or refusal to submit one‟s desires and actions to the restraints of orderly social conduct in recognition of the rights and desires of others.” Both Achebe and

Okunna have shown by their definitions that indiscipline is an unethical act that leads to irresponsibility and loss of human dignity. This would mean that an ethical person is a man of discipline who has chosen to live a life of responsibility with a sense of commitment.

According to Kierkegaard, living an ethical life must be a decision borne out of one‟s resolute choice to do away with the irresponsibility that hinders the manifestation of one‟s true personality. Discipline is the ability of the individual human being to demonstrate or exhibit self-control and behave in an appropriate manner in any given situation without waiting to be instructed or otherwise. More than ever before in human history, the problem of indiscipline is probably the most pervasive and tenacious ethical issue confronting most contemporary societies. Our undisciplined attitude is often seen in our lack of patience and self-control in

“minor acts like jumping the queues” and in major acts like getting involved in armed robbery and advance fee fraud. Only by becoming the ethical individual whom Kierkegaard stressed in his philosophy can all these vices or ethical maladies be checked in any human society. To

Kierkegaard (1941:135-136), “the ethical is and remains the highest task for every human being.”… The ethical alone is certain, to concentrate upon the ethical yields the only knowledge which may not possibly in the last moment transform itself into a hypothesis; to exist in the ethical constitutes the only secure knowledge, the knowledge being rendered secure by something else.

268 Therefore, to exist as an ethical being, according to Kierkegaard, is to be a particular individual whose ethical orientation commends a purposeful personality since the ethical represents the mirror through which an individual who exists ethically makes moral commitments his guiding principle. Until one is ready to be an individual, it will be difficult to make the difference and bring about the desired change. Individuals who had impacted positively on world affairs are those who have detached themselves from the crowd or the masses to make their mark in the sands of time through daring to becoming an individual ethically. In fact, Fullinwinder (1995:499) tells us that Young, like Kierkegaard subscribes to

“ethical individualism” to justify the moral base of her “politics of difference.” Thus, an individual who has developed himself ethically does not bother himself/herself with success or failure. Therefore, he is like a man of Jen in Confucius ethics whose main agenda is to make society possible by doing good deeds through an act of commitment. This is perhaps why Kierkegaard stressed the ethical individual so profoundly in his philosophy. Therefore, the truth of his entire philosophy lies in placing the individual in a position of commitment to ethical responsibility. Ethical responsibility is very vital to the individual if he or she is to live a fulfilled life. Existentially, the nature of an ethical individual in Kierkegaard‟s sense of the word, means an individual who relates his or her life responsibly to concrete realities of human existence. It means an individual or one who shuns immoral and irresponsible acts that portend negative grave danger for humanity. Socrates, Kierkegaard declares, was a prototype of a committed ethical individual who lived a disciplined moral life. He lived and committed himself to what he preached. This means that an ethical individual is a human being governed by principles and who has a sense of commitment. Thus, if we have such ethical individuals at

269 the helm of affairs, especially in leadership positions, those countries suffering from certain ethical issues will become the most sought after countries in the world.

For example, Nigeria needs committed, principled ethical individuals at the helm of affairs.

Ethical individuals live by example rather than by deception. Their commitment is to the welfare of others. The world is in dire need of ethically committed leaders in all spheres of human endeavour because the complex, uncertain, uncharted waters of our contemporary setting have further led us into a world of globalization, terrorism, economic uncertainty, famine, health epidemics, social transportation, corporate compromises, moral and ethical experimentation, religious conflicts and cultural clashes. All these conditions demand the highest quality of ethically committed leadership that any nation and our generation can produce. To be ethical in the Kierkegaardian sense, one needs to be subjective and be committed to subjectivity because it is in subjectivity that our ethical nature and commitment are defined. We shall discuss this in detail in our next sub-topic, “The Nature of the

Subjective Individual in Kierkegaard‟s Theory of Commitment.”

5.3 THE NATURE OF THE SUBJECTIVE INDIVIDUAL

Kierkegaard‟s metaphysics is situated within the ambit of the individual. Every bit of

Kierkegaard‟s thought is centered around the individual morally or religiously and the focal point of his entire philosophy is founded on the subjective individual. To him, the subjective individual is one who understands the goal of existence concretely. In other words, in

Kierkegaard‟s philosophy, the subjective individual remains the driving force. The subjective individual by nature occupies a significant position in Kierkegaard‟s philosophy and his

270 theory of commitment because he makes existence his own responsibility by living it, rather than thinking it abstractly or objectively. Thus, in Kierkegaard‟s usage, to be subjective is to be individual, real, concrete, personal or actual. This means that every existential attitude is

“subjective” for it is the attitude of the subject” (Geiger, 1963:259).What, therefore, “is the nature of this well emphasized subjective individual in Kierkegaard‟s theory of commitment?”

The answer is simple the way Kierkegaard put it.

The nature of the subjective individual in Kierkegaard‟s theory of commitment is that of existing concretely and existentially and probing to understand the abstract determination of being human in terms of this particular existing human being. To this end, he posits that the duty of the subjective individual “is to transform himself into an instrument that clearly and definitely expresses in existence whatever is essentially human” (Kierkegaard, 1941:318).

What is essentially human will be what is gracious, affectionate, well-intentioned, benevolent, humane, etc. When we truly bring out what is essentially human in us as individuals, our society will be enriched with good behaviours because a transformed society is the harvest of ethically minded individuals who are committed to righteous actions. It is Kierkegaard‟s cardinal point that each person possesses an essential self, which he or she ought to actualize.

This essential self is something that cannot be taken away from each of us because it is permanent. Kierkegaard‟s main goal in life is dealing with the existential issues of the life of individuals. This self (individual), according to him, possesses imagination, feeling and dialectics in existential inwardness in conjunction with passion. Passion, Kierkegaard says, is very essential because it is impossible to think about existence without passionate commitment. He writes:

271 All existential problems are passionate problems, for when existence is interpenetrated with reflection it generates passion. To think about existential problems in such a way as to leave out the passion, is tantamount to not thinking about them at all, since it is to forget the point, which is that the thinker is himself an existing individual (Kierkegaard, 1941:313).

From the above quotation, Kierkegaard is stressing the inevitability of passion in dealing with existential problems of some sort. Thus, the nature of the subjective individual who

Kierkegaard dubs a thinker is one who should not abandon existence in the process of thinking it, because to do so will amount to shirking one‟s existential responsibility of living concretely. This is why Kierkegaard argues that existence involves a considerable contradiction from the subjective individual who thinks and who does not have to abstract from existence but to live it even though he is at will to do so.

The subjective individual strives to apprehend the abstract concretely. And still, ethics demands that he remains a subjective individual on a matter of obligation. Otherwise, should anything else be allowed to come in; the existing individual (i.e. thinker) disappears no matter what rescue effort is made. Kierkegaard meant by the above statement that when a human being lacks ethical and religious vigour, becoming an essential individual automatically becomes a futile mission. In recognition of this fact, he moralized on existence and made it real for the actualization of the individual‟s true personality. In his words, the subjective individual is first and foremost an existing individual and more of an artist because existing is an art. In this sense, he posits that the subjective individual has the responsibility of understanding himself/herself in his/her existence because he/she knows existence is characterized with difficulties. To this end, the subjective individual is not required to detach himself/herself from the contradiction existence entails, which Kierkegaard (1941:314) says is the gem of existence and from existence, but lives in it while at the same time thinking

272 because thinking is natural to him. According to Law (1993:115), the most crucial task for

Kierkegaard, and, he believes, for anyone, is living “the truth” by becoming a subject, a proper, authentic self or person.” He said if we do not, then, we remain, in Kierkegaard‟s caustic phrase, “a subject of sorts.” In spite of his thinking, the subjective individual is very much conscious of the fact that he is an existing individual because he is the one who has chosen to become a particular existing human being with a sense of commitment. By the way, who is this existing individual that Kierkegaard spent so much energy discussing emphatically?

This existing individual, in Kierkegaard‟s description, is one who has made the ethical or religious choice to exist uniquely. He or she is the one who does not abstract from existence in order not to remove the contradiction. He or she is the one who has chosen to be committed to the goal of existence in spite of the difficulties involved. Kierkegaard noted that existence is the most difficult of all subjects to penetrate when the individual (i.e., the thinker) has chosen to remain in it. Thus, it is this contradictory nature of existence that made Kierkegaard to posit the either/or formula. It will be a misnomer for a man to be dead and at the same time to be alive. He is either dead or alive. He cannot simply be both. It is this “both and” that Hegel introduced into philosophy that caught Kierkegaard‟s attention and which he corrected with his maxim, either/or. It is simple logic that one cannot possibly be in Abuja and Lagos at the same time. It is either one is in Abuja and not in Lagos or in Lagos and not in Abuja. Thus, it will be a contradiction and an impossible task to be in Abuja and Lagos at the same time.

Therefore the difficulty in existence lies, according to Kierkegaard, in trying to think one thing and at the same time have the opposite in mind and uniting these opposites in existence.

273 Hence, he said his age was an age that forsook the individuals in order to take cover in the universal or collective idea. The implication of this state of affairs is that such a person has not discovered the ethical which entails the realm of commitment and responsibility. This means that he is still operating at the aesthetic level dominated by pleasure where commitment and responsibility are lacking. This aesthetic position is maintained by those who feel it is meaningless to be distinguished and committed as an individual. Consequently,

Kierkegaard (1941:319) once again declares:

To wish to live as a particular human being (which is what everyone undoubtedly is), relying upon a difference, is the weakness of cowardice; to will to live as a particular human being (which everyone undoubtedly is) in the same sense as is open to every other human being, is the ethical victory over life and all its illusions. And this victory perhaps the hardest of all to win in the theocentric nineteenth century.

The import of Kierkegaard‟s declaration is an affirmation that, first and foremost, we live as a particular human being whether we know it or not and, therefore, it is not a matter of wishing it, even though in the contemporary setting nobody wants to live a distinctive life aside the universal. And that is the more reason why institutions of governance have failed woefully because people prefer to conceal their true nature and do something unethical, rather than being individuals with a difference. Perhaps, Kierkegaard was right to have stressed that the most important thing is that every human being must be assumed to be in essential possession of what essentially belongs to being a man. Then the question follows, “why the subjective individual in Kierkegaard‟s theory of commitment?”

Fundamentally, Kierkegaard‟s philosophy is a philosophy of subjectivism. For, he believes that one can only live a genuine and committed moral life when one becomes subjective because to be subjective is to be this particular individual. Ethical norms, he says, are addressed to the individual and not to a multitude. Again, commitment and responsibility are

274 personal and it is only an individual in a subjective standpoint that is capable of commitment and responsibility. This was the case with Abraham, a man of exceptional commitment to his subjectivity. Commitment to a decisive choice, coupled with commitment to decisive action, is more fruitful when one is in a subjective standpoint. More importantly, to be subjective is to be morally inclined. The subjective individual is a human being with a sense of commitment and responsibility in that he is able to bring his thought to bear in existence through his actions because action itself is a product of one‟s thought. Moreover, it is this existential action that actually shows forth the essential humanness in every individual who prefers to put into use his existential prowess. Our freedom is made possible through commitment to action.

Otherwise, they remain dormant and one will not be known as this or that individual. Here lies the emphasis on the subjective individual in Kierkegaard‟s theory of commitment.

In fact, Kierkegaard‟s philosophy is a subjective one meant “to draw man‟s attention from the abstract universality and objectivity of the idealist philosophers to the uniqueness individuality and subjectivity of the individual man” (Omoregbe, 1991b:158). Fundamentally, when Kierkegaard‟s philosophy is compared with those of non-existentialist philosophers, as

Omoregbe‟s quotation shows above, it will be discovered that:

Most of the non-existentialist philosophers start from things, then include the person, but only as an abstract entity, as an abstract thinker, and return to the things again, so as to gain objective knowledge. Kierkegaard starts from the person, then include the things in order to gain and clarify personal experience and returns to the person again so as to achieve the right kind of subjectivity. He wants to turn over our attention to inner experiences; his aim is inwardness (Roubiczek, 1966:105).

From the above quotations, you will agree with our position that Kierkegaard‟s philosophy is a subjective one, specifically designed to recall the individual from his universal or objective world to his subjective world in order to make him or her a committed individual who relates

275 his life to concrete life situations and takes responsibility for his or her actions. Kierkegaard believed so much in action than thinking. Action has to do with ethics or morality and, as such, it is a subjective phenomenon. Merely thinking about something does not bring that thing to reality because to think is one thing and to act is another thing altogether. Action,

Kierkegaard says, belongs to the sphere of the subjective. For example, when I think I will do this or that act – say, to help a particular person - this thought is not yet an action but a possibility in which the interest of action already reflects itself. However, the real action is not the external act, but an internal decision in which the individual puts an end to the mere possibility and identifies himself with the content of his thought in order to exist in it. This is the action. Thinking is objective while action is subjective because it springs from within. To think of something good or bad that one intends to do is not identical with doing it because the external is not the criterion or does not constitute the basis of action.

Again, the fact must be stated that Kierkegaard‟s philosophy begins and ends with the individual. The essence of this individual lies in subjectivity because subjectivity is the very essence which objectivity negates. More importantly, subjectivity deals with issues or questions of values such as ethical and religious values. According to Kierkegaard, the subjective element in man is what makes up each person‟s unique existence. Therefore, to him, the most acidic moments in one‟s life are the personal moments where the individual becomes aware of himself as a subject. Stumpf (1977:463) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that since objectivity denies the subjective element in man, it means that it “cannot give the whole truth about the individual self. That is why rational, mathematical, and scientific thought are incapable of guiding man to genuine existence.” In fact, the truth about objectivity is that it

276 only considers man‟s objective features, that is, those characteristics that all men have in common while neglecting the most essential - the subjective. Ethically speaking, it is the duty of every subjective individual to become a whole man. Therefore, the rationale for repudiating

Hegel‟s immanentism of reason in history by Kierkegaard was meant to stress “the irreducibility of human subjectivity. For him the suffering of the individual is not justified in a panlogism of history” (Adorno, 1973: vii).

5.4 SUBJECTIVITYAND OBJECTIVITY

As a profound subjective philosopher, Kierkegaard‟s philosophy revolves around subjectivity rather than objectivity. In fact, his response to Hegel‟s abstractionism which disregards the individual‟s dignity is subjectivity. Subjectivity is a characteristic sign of an existentialist philosopher, which Kierkegaard represents. Existentialism had always been a concrete moral philosophy in the sense that its acceptance was meant to affect conduct and the image of the post-war. The notion of subjectivity is central to existentialism. Traditionally, the word

„subjectivity‟ in philosophy refers “to opinion or personal beliefs, rather than objective knowledge” (Igbafen, 2006:55). Subjectivity itself is the very antithesis of philosophy which deals with abstract ideas. In Hegel‟s (1967:109) word, subjectivity is the ground wherein the concept of freedom is realized. Notwithstanding this fact, at the level of morality subjectivity is quite different from freedom. This means that subjectivity is not freedom as freedom is not subjectivity. The essence of man‟s being, according to Kierkegaard, lies in subjectivity and the concrete or real subject is the ethically existing subject. Subjectivity is completely opposed to abstractionism. Lescoe (1974: 48) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that subjectivity means “the practising and living of Christianity.” In other words, Kierkegaard says that

277 subjectivity connotes human action and is therefore ethical. According to him, ethics always implies commitment to putting something into practice. Therefore, it entails or embodies choice under existential conditions. In fact, to Kierkegaard, moral tenets are not merely to be known and obeyed or endorsed theoretically, but to be lived. It is on this acknowledgement that he equates subjectivity with ethics (i.e., the ethical sphere), since ethics or the ethical sphere, according to him, deals with action.

Consequently, he went on to describe subjectivity as “the realization of an immanent teleology within the personality, the choice of one‟s own self” (Kierkegaard, 1959: 229-230).

By this description, he meant to say that the highest ethical duty for every individual is that of becoming subjective. Therefore, to genuinely live a moral life one has to be committed to a life of subjectivity in the Kierkegaardian sense. In the widest perspective, Kierkegaard‟s thought shows a change of emphasis from the objective world of reason and culture to the moral and inward sphere (the subjective). Hence, he posits that “subjectivity is the truth, the truth is subjectivity” (Kierkegaard, 1941:169). That is to say, truth lies in subjectivity. Does it then mean that truth rests in subjectivity? No. On the contrary, Dru (1958:24) quotes

Kierkegaard as saying that “subjectivity is the starting point, “the choice” in and through which man becomes “the individual”, for whom maturity consists not in cultural humanism with its accent on the externals of personality but in the depth and richness of the inward life, which is the spring of action.” Ultimately, for Kierkegaard, “subjectivity” alone is „untruth.‟ It must have objective truth as its correlate or it must give the predicate truth” (Pojman,

1978:10). In the light of the above, Kierkegaard contrasts subjectivity with objectivity with

278 the consciousness to free humanity from the illusion (i.e. error) of objectivity. But before we expatiate on that, let us see how objectivity became his problem.

The pursuit of objectivity and the passion for totality began with the Greeks but gained their most explicit formulation and articulation in Hegelianism. It was this Hegelianism that

Kierkegaard spent the better part of his literary activities refuting. Hegel by Kierkegaard‟s assessment, is the most abstract and objective thinker that ever lived. An abstract or objective thinker, according to Kierkegaard, is one who does not relate his thoughts to the concrete realities of life, but instead, stands and remains indifferent to what is around him. To this end, he writes:

It is necessary to be thus careful in dealing with an abstract thinker who not only desires for himself to remain in the pure being of abstract thought, but insists that this is the highest goal for human life and that a type of thought which leads to the ignoring of the ethical and a misunderstanding of the religious is the highest human thinking” Again, “It is on this point about existence, and the demand which the ethical makes upon each existing individual, that one must insist when an abstract philosophy and a pure thought assume to explain everything by explaining away what is decisive ...I shall be equally proud, insistent, fearless, and even defiant in standing by my thesis: that the Hegelian philosophy, by failing to define its relation to the existing individual and by ignoring, the ethical, confounds existence (Kierkegaard, 1941:273-275).

What the above quotation means is simple: It is that Hegel‟s philosophy by virtue of its abstractness and objectivistic inclination, omits the essential – that is, in relating and taking the real living individual into consideration. By so doing, it has disregarded human freedom and ethics which lies in subjectivity. Socrates was Kierkegaard‟s most adored ancient thinker and this led him to model his philosophy after him. Socrates, Kierkegaard admits, was one of the most outstanding committed subjective thinkers. How? He, Socrates, related and committed his thoughts to real-life situations. He was not a speculative or objective thinker of some sort. He was the first philosopher to posit that moral ideas do not possess objective and absolute value because goodness, justice and truth are dependent on the individual. In

279 Kierkegaard‟s view, the objective philosophers of the modern tradition had omitted something vital to human existence because the subjective is a mode of existing that entails commitment.

He argued that by evading or avoiding the “subjective,” modern thought has been avoiding the act of existing. Wild (1962: 24) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that by ignoring the subjective:

We have been ignoring existence”.The lived existence cannot be squeezed into a private corner” of some vast objective framework or into a momentary now in time. It is far too basic and pervasive for this, and is bound to explode with devastating consequences. We cannot escape from subjectivity by evading the so-called subject. We must rather go into this “subject”, and find out what and how it really is.

According to Kierkegaard, to know how the subject really is, we must begin to live subjectively because subjectivity is “the standpoint of the actor who is himself involved in the drama while objectivity is impersonal, it does not involve the subject and does not commit him” (Omoregbe, 1991b:155). Consequent upon his existentialistic and subjectivist posture, he rejects organized Christianity (i.e. objective Christianity) and that made him, according to

Maclntyre (1967: 151), to be classified as “a rigid reformer and a rigid conservative, who viewed with approval the monarchical repression of the popular movement of 1948.” We must not forget the fact that Kierkegaard‟s attack on Hegel was, at bottom, a religious one. To buttress this position, Lescoe (1974:51) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that “only by stressing subjectivity and the ethical can he hope to present Christianity as a practical way of life, an essential involvement to avoid a situation whereby everyone professes to be Christian but no one actually lives the true Christian life.” Kierkegaard posits that subjectivity is the root of decision and action and that for any individual human being to show his or her worth, that individual human being must become subjective in whatever he or she does. To this end, he argues that the choice of oneself is a subjective one and that subjectivity is the only essential expression for personality and human existence. He thus equates subjectivity with truth and

280 admits that ethical (ethics) and religious truths cannot be grasped objectively, but only subjectively because they are inwardly or internally discerned.

Consequently, he says:

The difficulty that inheres in existence, with which the existing individuals is confronted, is one that never really comes to expression in the language of abstract thought much less receives an explanation. Because abstract thought is sub specie aeternis it ignores the concrete and temporal, the existential process, the predicament of the existing individual arising from his being a synthesis of the temporal and the eternal situated in existence. Now if we assume that abstract thought is the highest manifestation of human activity, it follows that philosophy and the philosophers proudly desert existence, leaving the rest of us to face the worst (Kierkegaard, 1941: 267).

From the quotation above, it is obvious that Kierkegaard shuns objective thought (i.e. abstract thought) because it ignores the concrete individual and the existential problems which he or she is confronted with in the world. That Kierkegaard stressed subjective procedure does not mean that he jettisons objective process or there is no objective reference to reality. This criticism, Swenson says, is rather a misunderstanding of Kierkegaard‟s position on the issue of subjectivity and objectivity because in actual sense, by objectivity Kierkegaard meant that:

He rejects, an impersonal and disinterested temper of mind on the part of the subject; he does not mean that reference to an object which is the universal character and distinguishing mark of every intellectual function one which professional empiricists and logical positivists tend altogether to neglect, to the confusion of their epistemology. But Kierkegaard assumes that there exists in the world of finite ends and values, namely, a one-to-one correspondence between object and subjective attitude (Swenson 1945: 126).

The quotation above indicates that Kierkegaard had a clearly defined role for subjectivity and objectivity in human existence. In fact, James Brown captures this understanding accurately well when he posits that Kierkegaard is too good a philosopher to forget that there can never be a subject without an object. Consequently, he opines that subjectivity in Kierkegaard‟s philosophy “is not a negation of objectivity” (Brown, 1962:48). This means that

Kierkegaard‟s emphasis on subjectivity does not rule out objectivity in knowledge claims as

281 objectivity at bottom is inter-subjectivity. Therefore, Kierkegaard‟s extreme emphasis on subjectivity over objectivity does not mean that he has no regard for the role played by objective thinking in studies and research that have to do with scientific investigation of nature. In fact, what Kierkegaard frowns on, as Swenson noted, is objectivity as the highest court of appeal ranking higher than a passionate interest in the crucial issues of life.

On that basis, he rejects universal or objective morality because it makes man forget what he or she is, that is, he/she must be an individual who is subject to his or her own personal duties and endowed with a responsibility which is inalienably his or her own. Therefore, true morality according to him, is found in subjectivity where responsibility inheres. Michalson

(1960: 28) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that “the real action is not the external act, but an internal decision in which the individual puts an end to mere possibility and identifies himself with the content of his thought in order to exist in it.” For Kierkegaard, the self (i.e. the individual) is essentially subjectivity and subjectivity is constituted by the individual‟s commitment to his subjective truth. In the above light, Warnock (1970: 8) quotes Kierkegaard as stressing that the objective tendency:

Is that which proposes to make everyone an observer and in its maxims to transform him into so objective an observer that he becomes almost a ghost”. And of the ethical stage of life he says: “That the individual must become an observer is the ethical answer to the problem of life”. If one becomes an observer, one may treat the whole of life in one of two ways, either as history or as natural science. An observer perpetually raises the question “by what natural law is human behaviour determined?” And he is obliged to raise the same question about his own behaviour. He asks “what role am I playing?” or “How am I to be described?” and thus the spontaneity and inwardness of his life is lost.

From the quotation above, Kierkegaard shows that when human behaviour is determined objectively (abstractly) it loses its subjectivity and, as such, commitment to life‟s vitality is lost. In fact, Kierkegaard is particularly distraught when matters relating to philosophical issues are determined or being determined objectively. This is the more reason why he labels

282 objectivity as the enemy of understanding. He saw objectivity as a myth which must be invalidated through the concept of subjectivity. As one who championed the cause of existentialism, he made the point clear that subjectivity and concreteness of truth are together the light. And that anyone who is committed to rule-governed morality is unenlightened and, as such, needs to be delivered from the illusion of objectivity. Hence, he stressed the subjective in his resolve to free humanity from the illusion of objectivity. Warnock (1970: 8) again quotes Kierkegaard as maintaining that we have all lost “the capacity for subjectivity and that it is the task of philosophy to rediscover it for us.” Therefore, since subjectivity is the truth, objective knowledge is technically placed in abeyance. Of course, subjectivity is opposed to objectivity and there is no doubt about that. The point to note, however, in this whole episode is that Kierkegaard is not questioning the possibility of objective truth. Rather, what Kierkegaard is questioning as Thomas and Mclnerny (1958:667) quotes shows, is that:

In ethical and religious matters whatever truth is had involves subjectivity. Subjective truth is what is true for me; objective truth is true for anyone. A mathematical demonstration, if it succeeds, proceeds to a truth which does not involve me personally. Whether I am adulterous or chaste is irrelevant to my mathematics. My subjective condition is not irrelevant, however, when I am tempted against chastity. If I do the right thing in a particular situation, this is not in virtue of knowledge alone. Now ethical norms refer to choices; geometrical theorems do not. Ethical norms then refer to my existence.

From the above quotation, we can clearly see what Kierkegaard refers to as “existential.” In other words, regarding existential, he says, “only ethical and ethico-religious matters are existential; they relate to me, to what I am to do, in a way that mathematics, for instance, does not” (Kierkegaard, 1941:177). Thus, by existential Kierkegaard meant those ethical and religious truths which relate to me as to what I should do and how to go about it in a way that objective truth does not. This means he is principally interested in those decisions which involve humans‟ existence. The point must be made without apology that Kierkegaard‟s notion of subjectivity is Socratic. He was especially attracted to Socrates not on the modesty

283 of the human being who professed to know nothing except his own ignorance in contrast to the omniscience in Hegel, but precisely on Socrates‟ complete personal involvement in the quest for truth. Truth, to Kierkegaard therefore, is a matter in which the subject is totally interested, not completely disinterested to the point of giving him-or herself in life and death in commitment to this vocation. In Hegel the individual is swallowed up, leading to a vanishing of subjectivity in a boundless objectivity. Therefore, one fundamental issue we need to deal with here is “why did Kierkegaard stress subjectivity over objectivity?” Though part of the answer has been given earlier, we still need further clarification.

Kierkegaard was an existentialist to the core, and one of the cardinal issues he had to deal with, was that of opposing all forms of objectivity and impersonality in so far as he stressed human subjectivity. His interest was in the inner life of the human being with its moods, anxieties and decisions. In addition, Kierkegaard‟s stress on subjectivity rather than objectivity, apart from making commitment possible, rests squarely on his understanding that science which deals with objectivity does not deal with the unique inner experiences of concrete individual human beings so, it is sub-philosophic. In fact, no system of thought can explain the unique experience of the individual. What drives and controls the human being is inside of him or her. Mind or spirit, soul, affection, emotion, feeling, decision are all inward- borne. It is referred to as human subjectivity or human subjective state. This subjective region is the seat of human activities because whatever an individual shows in the outside in terms of action is propelled from the inside. Our thought process, decision-process, action-process, our feeling of anxiety, emotion, anguish, mood, freedom, choice, responsibility, guilt, conscience, etc., are internally generated and they are beyond the analysis of objective sciences. The

284 mystery of death, sickness, the workings of the various organs in the body, the mystery of pain, anxiety, anguish, freedom, etc., are human experiences that cannot be objectified because they are subjective. Subjectivity deals with the human being‟s unique experiences because he or she is personally involved and he or she experiences them concretely because they come from within. Death, for instance, is subjective and personal, because I participate in it and you also participate in it and as such, it is not an objective phenomenon.

In addition, existentialist philosophers are charged with immuring (i.e. enclosing) man in his private subjectivity. In fact, the subjectivity of the individual is undeniably the existentialists‟ point of departure, and this, according to them, is strictly for philosophic reasons. This philosophic reason, according to Sartre (1977:50-51), is simply that:

We want a doctrine based on truth and not a lot of fine theories, full of hope but with no real basis. There can be no other truth to start from than this: I think; therefore, I exist. There we have the absolute truth of consciousness becoming aware of itself. Every theory which takes man out of the moment in which he becomes aware of himself is at its very beginning, a theory which confounds truth, for outside the Cartesian Cogito, all views are only probable, and a doctrine of probability which is not bound to a truth dissolves into thin air.

From the above quotation, we can see clearly why Kierkegaard dedicated more energy towards emphasizing life‟s crucial significance through subjectivity. Commitment is possible only when one knows the truth about the end result of what one has set out to do.

We must not crucify Kierkegaard for stressing subjectivity in place of objectivity, because he was concerned with the increasing trend in modern societies toward the dehumanization of people. He opposed any attempt to see people merely as objects, but at the same time opposed the view that subjective perceptions are one‟s only reality. Instead, Kierkegaard was concerned with both the experiencing person and the person‟s experience. He wished to understand people as they exist in the world as thinking, active, and willing beings. As May

285 (1967:67) puts it, “Kierkegaard sought to overcome the dichotomy of reason and emotion by turning men‟s attentions to the reality of the immediate experience which underlies both subjectivity and objectivity.” May‟s position aptly captures Kierkegaard‟s ingenuity in handling the issue of subjectivity and objectivity in philosophical discourse. He had made himself clear from the outset that subjectivity, without its objective correlate, is a disservice to subjectivity itself. This is why, on our part, we submit that any exclusive emphasis on subjectivity for whatever reason to the detriment of objectivity is in the extreme, because to achieve the true understanding of reality we obviously need both objectivity and subjectivity.

This is because subjective and objective modes of existence are both reliable ways through which the human being apprehends the truth of existence. Moreover, the thinking subject lives in a world which is external to him or her.

In the light of the above submission, we agree with Troisfontaines‟ (1968:26) declaration that

“subjectivity and objectivity have complementary roles to play and it would be equally harmful to abandon the one as to reject the other.” Therefore, to emphasize one side over and above the other is an attempt to limit knowledge itself and create unnecessary tension for mankind. However, what Kierkegaard‟s emphasis has shown is that commitment is subjective and personal and as such, “it is more appropriate to focus attention on the knower rather than the object known” (Pojman, 1978:5). It is also meant to say that ethical and religious truths are not known „objectively‟ but only subjectively since they relate to me the way mathematical truths do not. The point really is that a leader with an objective mind-set in the

Kierkegaardian sense will rather govern the people disinterestedly instead of involvement

286 because objectivity, which is a form of detachment, will blind the leader to the reality on ground - meaning that he/she is far removed from the people.

5.5 THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE MASSES

As a prophet of the individual Kierkegaard „s aim from the outset was meant to tear “the individual out of their empty, pretentious, commonplace lives and force them to become self–conscious” (Ralph,1958:13). To this end, he protested against intellectualism, complacency and the self-insensibility of his age and called on human beings to actualize their real self by living an authentic human existence. He became critical of the crowd

(i.e., the masses) because, according to him, “the crowd in its very concept, is untruth by reason of the fact that it renders the individual completely impenitent and irresponsible, or at least weakens his sense of responsibility by reducing it to a fraction” (Kierkegaard,

1962d:112). Momoh (1994:33) aptly catches this Kierkegaardian spirit when he observes:

“The masses somehow count for nothing except as cannon fodders. These masses are empty barrels without their leaders. They are like leaves on a tree; they just swing to the dictation of the wind. They are dancers who own neither the instruments nor the music.” This means that the individual in masses had “no importance” (Bretall, 146:260). Therefore, to Kierkegaard,

“the truly typical person is the individual and not the degenerate member of the mass”

(Hohlenberg, 1954:4).

Consequently, he confessed that his attack was directed at the masses and that his mission was to single men out one by one to become committed individuals. He lived in an age in which the idolatry of the masses and the debasing (i.e. the lowering) of humanity to the numerical brought about a complete obliteration of the significance of the individuals. To this end, the

287 rehabilitation of the value of individuality became for him “supreme and could neither be enhanced, nor on the other hand, impaired by any change of social organization” (Bretall,

1946:259). Like Blaise Pascal, Kierkegaard ruminates a great deal upon the dignity and wretchedness of human beings. In the aftermath of this rumination, he discovered that the problem was “how best to understand and assure human dignity, how to treat finite gifts as gifts which might be relied upon” (Collins, 1953:25). In fact, making human beings single individuals if possible was Kierkegaard‟s major task because he believed that after all, every human being is a single individual by virtue of his or her uniqueness. Therefore, he posited that “the consciousness of one‟s eternal responsibility to be an individual is the one thing needful” (Kierkegaard, 1948:16). The question that then stares at us is: This individual that

Kierkegaard spent all his energy stressing, who is he?

This individual is the one human being, unique and important, and at the same time, firmly linked with every other person and in every part of the universe. In the midst of the link,

Kierkegaard says he or she must not be swamped and thereby lose his or her individuality

(subjectivity). In other words, the individual is the one who refuses to merge into the crowd, makes decisions on his or her own, maintains his or her own self-identity and makes his or her decisions out of him-or herself, one that distances him-or herself from the masses and maintains clear-headedness as a mark of awareness of who he or she is at any time, whose view of the world is truly his or her because he or she is not ready to transform or change his or her inwardness into objectivity, which to him or her means giving him-or herself up as an individual. This is what Kierkegaard means by the concept “The Individual.” However, we must make the point clear here that Kierkegaard‟s category of “The Individual” is viewed

288 existentially (i.e., concretely related to life) and as such, is quite different from a generally egocentric orientation or from the political, economic and social individual from whom individualism is a matter of rights relating to property, money and time (Pattison, 1997: 90).

Therefore, when Kierkegaard talks about the category of “The Individual”, he does not mean the individual in the sense of the specially distinguished or the specially gifted individual, but rather, he means “the individual in the sense in which everyman, absolutely everyman, can be and should be - should take pride in being, but verily will also discover his blessedness in

: being… an individual” (Kierkegaard, 1962d 127). Thus, his stress on the category of “The

Individual” is meant to “defend the individual against any philosophical, political or religious teaching that tends to slack off this consciousness of the individual‟s essential responsibility and integrity” (Kierkegaard, 1948:14). This is why his master category “The individual” is central to his thought because “the individual was the goal and highest expression of creation”

(Hohlenberg, 1954:294). In the words of Wyschogrod (1969:90), “it is his method of thought.

Everything he writes is written by an individual and to an individual.” The question is what does it mean to become an individual? Or live as an individual in the Kierkegaardian sense?

To become, live or exist as an individual, according to Kierkegaard (1948:15), means “the individual as separated from the rest, the individual as he or would be if he were solitary and alone, face to face with his destiny, with his vocation, with the Eternal, with God himself who had singled him out.” This Kierkegaardian description does not mean an individual without a world; otherwise it makes no meaning or sense if he or she is thought of as being alone because all existentialists believe that the human being is a being with others and, as such, there is possibility of tension since his or her relationship with others carries a certain degree

289 of responsibility. Kierkegaard‟s notion of crowd, public, masses, etc., buttress the point that he does not mean an individual without a world and without others. This is why his aesthetic works were written to the individuals in the sense of presenting each of them with an either/or choice. Meanwhile, Kierkegaard praises Rene Descartes in the sense that Descartes sought to isolate the individual “I” in the human being from all other experience and makes it the starting point for his philosophy. But on the contrary, he says that Descartes failed existentially for not pressing further in his exploration of the “I” beyond its capacity to think because thought, Kierkegaard insists, is not its most unique endowment. The “I” is the center from which choice springs, from which responsibility for one‟s acts springs, from which the ultimate sense of uneasiness and weariness with anything that is short of the highest of all in realty and issue from which remorse and change arises. The loss of this personality and individual selfhood fundamentally motivated his entire philosophy. To this end, Kierkegaard

(1941: 311) says, “to have been born, to grow old and to die without doing something definite in a worthwhile manner is the very worst kind of mediocre existence.” Furthermore, he writes:

Allow this center in a man to remain dulled by the crowd; allow it to continue dissipated by busyness; Permit it to go on evading its function by a round of distractions. Or to lull itself by a carefully chosen rotation of pleasures abandon it to its attempt to drug, to narcotize suffering and remorse which might reveal to it its true condition; Let it wither away the sense of its own validity by false theories of man‟s nature, of his way of salvation; in short allow any of these well known forms of domestication of man‟s responsible core as an individual, to continue unchallenged and you as a thinker and a friend of men have committed the supreme treason (Kierkegaard,1948: 15-16).

From the above quotation, it is obvious that the “I”, to Kierkegaard, represents the core center of responsibility in the life of any individual. Hence, he extolled individualism and advocated for an individual “with a forceful and clearly defined personality which when integrated with the whole, would enrich society and make it something better than a mob” (Lowrie,

1942:130). This means that his praise of the individual was meant to accentuate or promote the core responsibility and integrity of the individual to bring about enhanced human society.

290 This confirms Kierkegaard as a thinker with a clearly defined mission and that mission which becomes his entire life defining task was, according to Lescoe (1977:47), “the rehabilitation of the dignity of the individual”. This, he achieves through his three stages of human existence -

“aesthetics” “ethical” and “religious” where emphasis is on “ethical choice and commitment.”

In consequence of this, he wrote with characteristic passion that “if I were to desire an inscription for my tombstone, I should desire none other than “THAT INDIVIDUAL”

(Kierkegaard, 1962d: 129). Furthermore, he argues with characteristic conviction that it is only by becoming an individual and not by becoming a member of a committee that one can add value to one‟s existence. However, the most direct contrast to the individual is the crowd or masses. In our discussion under the sub-topic “The Individual and the Masses in

Kierkegaard‟s Theory of Commitment,” we intend to employ or use the word mass-man or masses, public or crowd inter-changeably because they all mean the same thing to

Kierkegaard.

By masses or crowd is meant a large number of individuals. In other words, it means a large body of persons in a compact group. The masses, in ordinary language or everyday usage, may mean the underprivileged and disadvantaged. But this is not the sense in which

Kierkegaard applied the concept. Rather, Kierkegaard applies the word “crowd” in a purely formal sense and it “stands for number, the numerical, a number of noblemen, millionaires, high dignitaries ... as soon as the numerical is involved it is „crowd,‟ „the crowd‟ ”

(Kierkegaard, ibid. p. 112). The masses are people in the millionaire class, who are intellectually sound but who simply refuse to identify themselves as this individual in order to abdicate their existential responsibility. Consequently, Kierkegaard advised us to shun the

291 crowd in that “the crowd mentality does not allow the individual to preserve a sense of personal identity and personal responsibility” (Prosser, 1998). This is because responsibility is all too easy to shirk simply by leaving it to others, not making waves, going along with the crowd. This temptation to take it easy, according to Elliston (1978:73), is “a subtle and insidious trap that characterizes everyday social life.” In line with Ellistonian view, Martin

Heidegger offers a remarkably detailed analysis of the everyday self in its authentic relations to other. Thus, drawing on Kierkegaard‟s thought in The present Age, he, Heidegger, develops seven key notions as cited by Elliston as “Distantiality, subjection, mediocrity, levelling down, publicness, disburdening and accommodation” (Elliston, ibid. p. 69) to explicate this modality of social existence. In his explication, he says that to do what they do is to do the typical, the usual and the familiar. And to think as they think is to forego originality in favour of the common place and conventional. By thinking as they think, the human being too loses his individuality and becomes merely one of them.

Hence, Kierkegaard in The Present Age decries the individual who is immersed in the crowd.

According to him, the individual in the crowd has no significance whatsoever because he belongs to a group of individuals who have no substance. They are abstract. The abstract individuals who are agents of levelling (i.e. a situation where people have lost a sense of moral values and go about life with impunity instead of embracing genuine values that enhance their true individuality and society at large) are unwilling to take a position and assume responsibility for their actions or inactions. Grimsley (1978:15) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that this abstract process of levelling means that “the people would rather be associated with a group and be part of a „generation‟ than embody the individuality.” This attitude,

292 Kierkegaard noted, carries with it the destruction of the individual significance because when individuals band together, associate together, a lot of things happen whether wholesome and unwholesome. Consequently, he describes the masses as those individuals who represent no one‟s interest, live conventionally, live the public mode of social life which carries no conviction or personal stamp, are not willing to become this particular existing individual and, as such, they represent the detached individuals (i.e. objective individuals) who exist and live aesthetically, who are onlookers and spectators in the drama of human existence and, therefore, they are those in Kierkegaard‟s view who refused to make existential commitment in matters of morals and religious life in their day-to-day social existence and are content in living as crowd men. Therefore, they represent a great segment of people in society who conceal their true identity to either indulge in evil acts for fear of being caught or in order to avoid taking their responsibility as individuals. Thus, he argues that every individual who flees for refuge into the crowd flees in cowardice from being an individual. In citing Jesus

Christ, as an example, he says:

Take the highest example, think of Christ and the whole human race, all the men that ever were born or are to be born. But let the situation be one that challenges the individual, requiring each one for himself to be alone with him in a solitary place and as an individual to get up to him and spit upon Him-the man never was born and never will be born with courage or insolence enough to do such a thing. This is untruth (Kierkegaard, 1962d:113).

From the above quotation, Kierkegaard is saying that people hide under the guise of the crowd to do unwholesome things they would not do as individuals. He thus declares that the crowd is untruth, meaning falsehood. A human being of truth does not entangle him-or herself with the crowd. The point Kierkegaard is stressing here is that, though the masses or crowd count - for instance, in a democracy - the crowd does not count in ethical and religious matters because the moral imperative or command is addressed to “Me”, “The Individual” and not to a multitude or crowd. The masses, by their very nature he says, do not know what is morally

293 wrong because they lack a sense of commitment and responsibility. In fact, his polemic against the crowd should be hailed on the ground that you can never change the world through the crowd, but rather, it is through a few individuals who are committed that you can effect positive change in the world. It is difficult to reach agreement when the crowd is involved.

Hence, the crowd to him is “a sink of cowardice in which individuals are relieved of individual responsibility and will commit acts they would never dare to do alone”

(Kierkegaard, 1948:18). It is a hiding-place in which the individual may abdicate his true quest for inward intensity and responsibility. This means that an individual in the crowd lacks the capacity for the decisive moral will that is necessary for existential commitment. Dru

(1958: 123) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that:

The thing that makes my position in public life most difficult of all is that people simply cannot grasp what I am fighting. To take a stand against the masses is, in the opinion of the majority, complete nonsense; for the masses, the numbers, the public are themselves the powers of salvation, that association of lovers of liberty of whom salvation is to come from the king, Popes, and officials who tyrannize over us.

From the above quotation, Kierkegaard laments the inability of people of his age to understand the reason behind his anti-masses‟ position. Or why he saw the masses as the ills of the human being's anonymity in the modern age (i.e. 19th century) and a phenomenon that dehumanizes individuality. Jung (1969: 197) quotes Kierkegaard as stressing that the crowd is:

Vociferous, “apathetic”, “indolent” “unrepentant", "superficial" and formless". The phenomenon of the crowd is that which reduces man to "nobody". It is a "phantom" because it does everything but actually nothing and because it is talkative but says nothing. It is an "immoral confusion" because it deprives the moral character of the individual, that is, it takes away the inwardness of individuality which constitutes man‟s very moral character.

The above quotation tells us clearly why Kierkegaard resents the masses in its entirety.

Kierkegaard was a staunch moralist. Collins (1953:29) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that "it is better to wound deeply and keep the wound healthily open, than let areas of rottenness fester

294 in secret.” On this account, Kierkegaard says morality should be based on personal conviction. Therefore, his polemic against the masses should be seen essentially from the point of view of stressing an individual sense of commitment and responsibility. Thus from the above, the connection or relationship between the individual and the masses in

Kierkegaard‟s theory of commitment becomes glaring when the concept of responsibility is stressed. The question, in this chapter, is how Kierkegaard‟s notion of the individual - the ethical, subjective, objective individual - and the masses contribute to the understanding of commitment and leadership is answered thus.

These concepts contribute immensely to our understanding of commitment and leadership in that Kierkegaard, by his analysis, shows that commitment is only possible for the individual person who exists authentically, that is, as this particular human being and not in another form. An ethical person is the one who takes principles as binding in making existential commitment. He or she shuns the unethical behaviour that threatens the existential commitment of other human beings in the society. Subjectivity engenders personal involvement and makes human participation in a chosen task easier. The subjective person embraces responsibility with his/her whole being (total involvement), with a sense of commitment. Objectivity engenders fair assessment of a situation but with a sense of detachment. Objectively, one can know things without caring about it. Detachment blinds us to the real issue and makes us to handle issues unseriously. This is why the objective person lacks the capacity to make existential commitment because he or she is not involved. The same goes for the individual with a crowd mentality. Because the mass or crowd person is detached, his/her identity is hidden. Consequently, he/she does not know what is morally wrong and, as such, cannot embrace existential responsibility and do something definite,

295 because his/her sense of responsibility is weakened by taking refuge in the crowd, which is not standing out as this individual in the Kierkegaardian sense. These analyses will help a leader to be guided accordingly. The point really is a leader who is objectively inclined instead of maintaining subjective-objective posture; and a leader who takes refuge in the crowd instead of standing out from the crowd in the Kierkegaardian sense, cannot show a sense of commitment to duty or in whatever he/she does. This is how the analysis of the individual, the ethical individual, the subjective and objective, and the masses/crowd engenders the understanding of commitment and leadership in this research.

5.6 SUMMARY

In this chapter, our inquiry into the concept of the individual in Kierkegaard‟s theory of commitment shows that his theory of commitment is all about how the individual human being can bring commitment to bear in human existence morally and religiously. And so, his notion of the individual should be understood from a moral existential sense. On the nature of the ethical individual, Kierkegaard shows that an ethical individual is a man of principle, commitment and one who has resolved to commit or devote his entire life to a pursuit of moral and religious truths. Furthermore, our inquiry also shows that in Kierkegaard‟s theory of commitment, the subjective individual is one who has made the ethical and religious choice to exist uniquely. And he argues that our action belongs to the subjective sphere because it springs from the inside. Our inquiry further reveals that Kierkegaard‟s main reason for revolting against the masses is that it prevents the individual from assuming responsibility for his deeds. The masses are abstract individuals who are not prepared to take up responsibility for their own individual existence. It is on this basis that he advised that the masses should be

296 shunned because it weakens man‟s sense of responsibility. Similarly, our inquiry into

Kierkegaard‟s concept of subjectivity and objectivity shows that subjectivity was his answer to Hegel‟s abstractionism. Therefore, he says one needs to become subjective to be able to live a moral and religious life. His reason for this moral suasion is meant to say that it is only by becoming subjective that one can relate his thought to real-life situations.

Consequently, he argues that the act of existing inheres in subjectivity and that to be subjective is to be real. We have also noticed that by stressing subjectivity over and above objectivity, Kierkegaard has shown that objective thought or morality is inadequate in addressing human problems because it ignores the existing individual (the real individual) and his existential predicament. However, we saw that Kierkegaard welcomes the importance of objectivity in terms of a scientific investigation of nature. Yet, he rejects objective morality in the sense that it makes the human being forget that he or she is and must be an individual who is subject to his or her own personal duties and endowed with a responsibility which is inalienably his/her own. Furthermore, Kierkegaard‟s rejection of objectivity is based on the fact that when human behaviour is determined objectively, life of subjectivity and vitality are lost. Fundamentally, his emphasis on subjectivity is meant to show that the subjective region of the human person is the seat of human activities because whatever a human being does is propelled from the inside. This means that what drives and controls the human person is within the person. These subjective elements include the mind, spirit, soul, affection, emotion, feeling, dread, angst, anxiety, decision, etc. These human traits are inward-borne, meaning that our thought-process, decision-process, action-process, our feeling of anxiety, guilt, anguish, mood, freedom, choice, responsibility, emotion, conscience, etc, are internally

297 generated and, as such, they are beyond the analysis of the objective sciences. In view of the relevance and contribution of commitment to our understanding of leadership, an exposition of the notion of leadership will be undertaken in detail in the next chapter titled “The Concept of Leadership: An Exposition.”

298 CHAPTER SIX

THE CONCEPT OF LEADERSHIP: AN EXPOSITION

6.0 INTRODUCTION.

We have seen in Chapter Four that from the exposition and analysis of Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment that commitment can engender responsive and responsible leadership in any human society. In Chapter Five, we have also espoused his notion of the individual in his theory of commitment, its ethical, subjective, objective and masses‟ states as they affect commitment. Earlier, in Chapter Three, Kierkegaard‟s ethical thinking as insight into the concept of commitment and theory of stages, as well as his existentialist themes were discussed. His ethical thinking and three stages of human existence were discussed as result of the adoption of Kierkegaard‟s theory of commitment. And at the outset, in the thesis of this work, we said we would argue that the adoption of Kierkegaard‟s theory of ethical commitment can lay the foundation for attaining a responsive and responsible leadership.

Now, our task in this chapter is to undertake an exposition of the concept of leadership under which the adoption of Kierkegaard‟s theory of commitment can lead us to the realization of a responsive and responsible leadership in political society. Consequently, this chapter is made up of eight sub-headings and we shall discuss them in the following order: What is the meaning and nature of leadership? What are the different types of leadership? What are theories of leadership? What are the qualities and characteristics of leadership? What are leadership and followership? What is leadership responsiveness and effectiveness which the adoption of Kierkegaard‟s theory of commitment hopes to evolve? What is the philosophical basis of leadership? And what is the relationship between commitment, philosophy (ethics) and leadership? It is such questions that this chapter tries to answer. This is done against the

299 background of the thought of a society that has a commitment problem in political leadership.

We are aware that the quest for a responsive and responsible government is not new. But in whatever circumstances, a responsive and responsible leadership remains something that all societies strive to attain. Now, we move to the introduction proper.

Though the concept “leadership” is as old as the world itself, Bello-Imam (1985:246) said in the early stage of human existence the main focus of the human being was essentially “that of provision of food and shelter for himself and his immediate family.” To this end, leadership was not of necessity as it is today. However, he pointed out that the establishment of a society through which human beings tends to fulfill their potential and organize in groups for the actualization of societal goals made the need for leadership inevitable, because someone needed to lead and direct the affairs of those who had organized themselves into groups.

Although the concept of leadership has become the most discussed topic in the contemporary world, it is ancient for it dates back to the Greeks where Socrates happened to be the first philosopher to raise some fundamental questions about the nature of leadership (Adair,

2002:25). To this end, the concept itself more than ever before much more highly relevant to the needs of the world today as it has always been. Why? Human nature does not change.

Quite frankly, the concept of leadership has taken a new dimension with various theories trying to emphasize the basic element of leadership. As Bello-Imam (1985: 247) further observes, leadership is being viewed today not as a set of fixed traits and attributes peculiar to some individuals but as “a role that satisfies mutual expectations of leaders and followers,” even though the whole notion of group, goals, influence and situation now flood the discourse of leadership.

300 Thus, it is argued in this work that leaders who have made a great impact in the lives of the people were able to do so because of their deep understanding of the people they were governing. It is this deep knowledge about what the people need that contemporary leaders lacked and, hence, the emphasis on the need to redress the leadership question. The issue is not just of leadership but of good and committed leadership. It is only a good and committed leadership that can respond to people‟s needs. Good and committed leadership is being stressed here because the world has come to the realization that “a democratic society cannot work effectively without it. Leaders (that are committed) are needed in all fields and at all levels to give direction, create team work and inspire people to give of their best” (Adair,

2002:1). Kierkegaard had a running battle with the church leadership of his time for their failure to lead an exemplary life. He challenged them to let their leadership be one of actions that matched their words. Today, we are quite conscious of the fact that one of the greatest challenges of our time is leadership. This leadership problem cuts across various segments of human life: the family, church, organization, politics, etc. This means that a leader occupies a very sensitive position in any of these sectors of society.

Therefore, the success, growth and development of any nation are based on how sound her leadership is. To this end, the centrality of leadership to the political, economic and social life of society cannot be over-emphasized. Aware of this fact, Tukur (1999:77) quotes

Mohammed Bello as saying that people in leadership positions “…like a spring of water, and all other administrations in the world are like the mud (over which it flows). If the spring is pure, the dirt of the mud does no harm, but if the spring (itself) is polluted the purity of the mud is of no advantage.” The point Bello makes is that those going for leadership positions

301 must be people with proven integrity; otherwise, the dreams and aspirations of the people will not be realized if people with a questionable character are allowed to take up sensitive positions like leadership that requires people with pure heart and the right mindset. This means that the path of leadership that is genuine and sincere can be steepy and thorny at times. This confirms the widely held view that there is no particular human endeavour that is so easy and rosy to coast along. This calls for commitment. This goes to show that it does not really matter who is leading or whether a leader possesses all the characteristics and qualities, but that without commitment on the part of the leadership that leadership becomes history and forgotten. Therefore, any genuine leadership that wants to be responsive and responsible to the people will surely encounter challenges that will require it to make sacrifices. Great leaders that became reference points in history existed because they were committed to the goals of leadership. That is, meeting the needs of the people to improve the quality of human life and at the same time ensuring the survival of human society. And since human nature is the same down the ages, our greatest leadership challenge therefore is the absence of ethical leadership, that is, “the quality, moral disciplined, principle-centered leadership” (Munroe,

2005:18) that is committed to leadership objectives - which is the well-being of the people.

Now, let us start with the explication of the meaning and nature of leadership as this will lead us to the answers to the remaining questions.

6.1 THE MEANING AND NATURE OF LEADERSHIP

(i) THE MEANING

The Anglo-Saxon root of the words “lead, leader and leadership, is “laed”, which means „a path or road‟ and its verb „laeden‟ means „to go or to travel” (Adair, 2002: 59). In Old

302 English, „leadership‟ was „laedan‟, meaning “to lead” (Button, 1998:245). Thus, from the

Anglo-Saxon point of view, a leader is one who shows the way and who walks ahead or takes the lead. In other words, a leader is someone who plays the role of a guide to others, the directing head of a team, or someone who has the ability and capacity to mobilize others for the attainment of common objectives. Hence, we agree with Unah (2004:3) that the term

“leader” means “the attribute of a person who catalyzes (sets in motion), directs and controls the activities of a group for a purpose.” In the literature, the term leadership means different things to different people depending on their school of thought. As a matter of fact, we have scholars from philosophy, sociology, psychology, religious and political science schools of thought who dwell extensively on the concept of leadership. Their pontification led to various theories of leadership. Even though our approach will be largely philosophical, ideas and views about leadership from other disciplines, especially the social sciences, will be taken into cognizance to enrich our discourse on leadership. This is because scholars on leadership have employed many imprecise terms such as power, authority, management, administration, control and supervision respectively to describe leadership. Hence, there is no univocal definition. In fact, researchers usually define leadership from the individual‟s perspective and according to how it appeals to them. It is not surprising therefore that Stogdill (1974:259), a renowned scholar on leadership, concluded after a comprehensive review of leadership that

“there are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept.” In his book, The Human Situation, David Robertson argues that leadership as a flexible role or function, rather than as more or less absolute power vested in one person, is sometimes difficult to grasp when we are more used to definitions of leaders and leadership which runs something like: “a quality which…signifies the ability of a

303 person…to persuade others to act by inspiring them and making them believe that a proposed course of action is the correct one” (cf. Button, 1998:246). Meanwhile, the stream of new definitions has continued unabated since Stogdill made his observation. To this end, we shall attempt some of these definitions given by various scholars to get a clearer picture of what leadership actually means.

Maxwell (1998:17), for instance, defined leadership as “influence.” This definition is one of the most popular definitions of leadership ever given. It means, according to him, that leadership is not a title, or about an impressive title or an assigned leadership position. Rather, it comes only from influence and this influence is earned. True leadership, he says, cannot be awarded, appointed or assigned. Similarly, other scholars have variously defined leadership in terms of traits, behaviour, influence interaction patterns, role relationships and occupation of an administrative position, etc. To Adenaike (1985:405), leadership “is an act of influence in the direction of achieving stated goals or objectives.” Rost (1991:53) sees leadership as “an influence process oriented towards achieving shared purposes.” For Gardner (1990:1), leadership is “the process of persuasion or example by which an individual (or leadership team) induces a group to pursue objectives held by the leader or shared by the leader and his followers.” For Senge et al (1999:16), leadership is “the capacity of a human community to shape its future and specifically to sustain the significant processes of change required to do so.” Kouzes and Posner (1995:30) define leadership as “the art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations.” In the words of Heifetz (1994:22), leadership “is about doing adaptive work, which consists of the learning required to address conflicts in the values people hold, or to diminish the gap between the values people stand for and the reality they

304 face.” While to Yukl (1981:3) leadership involves “a process whereby intentional influence is exerted by one person over other people to guide, structure, and facilitate activities and relationship in a group or organization.” In fact, Yukl (Ibid.) views leadership more broadly as:

The process whereby an individual member of a group or organization influences the interpretation of events, the choices of objectives and strategies, the organization of work activities, the motivation of people to achieve the objectives, the maintenance of cooperative relationships, the development of skills and confidence by members, and the enlistment of support and cooperation from people outside the group or organization.

The above definitions are some of the numerous definitions that abound in leadership literature and are by no means exhaustive. However, leadership guru, Myles Munroe faults the definition of leadership as influence because, according to him, leadership transcends influence in that influence can be negative as we found in personalities such as Adolf Hitler of

Germany and Idi Amin of Uganda, who were influential in their time and exerted their will over people. Consequently, Munroe (2005:52) defined leadership as “the capacity to influence others through inspiration motivated by a person, generated by a vision, produced by a conviction, ignited by a purpose.” Munroe‟s definition took into cognizance the principal ingredients and components that can bring about genuine leadership in any sphere of human endeavour. From Munroe‟s definition, we can see that:

(i) Leadership is not a pursuit but a result because leadership comes from those one inspired to participate in the vision that one is presenting to them. (ii) Leadership starts with an individual‟s discovery of a personal purpose. Purpose when understood ignites a conviction because understanding of one‟s purpose is very critical to any leader. (iii) It is conviction that generates a vision in the heart of the person that stirs a passion. So it is the force of this person‟s passionate pursuit of the vision that inspires others who are stirred to join in and cooperate with the vision (Munroe, ibid. p. 54-55).

Despite Munroe‟s definition, we must admit the fact that the concept of leadership has not changed because it is a metaphysical concept that is existentially understood as a possibility.

This possibility suggests that it is not only an elusive or puzzling concept, but also a slippery

305 and complex one. Hence, there is an endless proliferation of the term by social scientists. This puzzling nature shows that leadership is a metaphysical or ontological concept. By this ontological concept we mean that man by nature is a potential leader. This means that he cannot divorce himself from leadership responsibility. Thus, anywhere you find him, whether as a farmer, trader, student, lecturer, teacher, artist, footballer, singer, sailor, pilot, etc, he is in leadership position whether he knows it or not. Consequently on our part, we define leadership as the art of guiding, directing, protecting, identifying with the people and feeling what they feel. This identification will give the leader insight into how to go about creating the enabling environment through which human and natural resources can be mobilized to enhance the well-being of the people and for the development of the society. As we have said elsewhere, the social nature of the human being makes leadership an essential phenomenon, the absence of which causes families, communities, nations and humanity at large to sink and disintegrate. A leader‟s function would include ensuring, amongst others, the survival of mankind. Having explicated the meaning of leadership, what is its nature?

(ii) THE NATURE OF LEADERSHIP

The nature of leadership, as George Manning and Kent Curtis, observe is a concept that is both current and timeless. This is due to the fact that the leadership process has been central and fundamental to human interaction since the dawn of human society. Hence, to Harris

(2003:314) leadership is:

About learning together and constructing meaning and knowledge collectively and collaboratively. It involves opportunities to sacrifice and meditate perceptions, values, beliefs, information and assumptions through continuing conversations. It means generating ideas together; seeking to reflect upon and make sense of work in the light of shared beliefs and grow out of these new understandings. It implies that leadership is socially constructed and culturally sensitive. It does not imply a leader/follower divide; neither does it point towards the leadership potential of just one person.

306 We know today that much of what history has to offer is the story of military, political, religious and social leaders who are credited or blamed for important historical events in their time. As it is today, the nature of leadership has drastically altered the old perception about who may or may not be a leader. Leadership has moved from being an autocratic, hierarchical model to a participatory model where everyday the leader is given ample opportunity to demonstrate what he has to offer in directing the affairs of his community or nation. This definition that everyone can be a leader seems to have recognized the potential and unique contributions of every individual in human affairs. This, in fact, is an existential definition of leadership because it recognizes the value that existentialists place on the individual human being. This participatory model is in sharp contrast to the platonic conception of leadership and who should be a leader. Bellman (2001) quotes Robert Reich as saying that “every one has a leadership inside.” No longer is leadership viewed as a combination of charisma and expertise, possessed only by a few people at the top of an organizational pyramid. Today, it is viewed as the challenge and responsibility of every individual with the potential to make a difference.” The point of emphasis in the above assertion is the recognition of the fact that leadership is broad, which means it involves families, communities, groups, organizations and government. The assertion shows that leadership can be practised in different capacities and fields and it does not have to be at the national level only, as many people think.

In the light of the above, we agree with Manning and Curtis (2003:4) that leadership is indeed provided by “the multitude of people who influence their families, friends, workgroups, and organizations. These leaders are parents, supervisors, officers and other leadership figures.”

This conception of leadership shows that it is the function of one or more people in a group to

307 bring out, draw attention to, and focus the power and creativity of everyone in the group.

Their position has further cleared the air on the many misconceptions, assumptions and myths that people have about leadership. Here are five common ones, as enumerated by Munroe

(2005:51): “(1) Birth trait theory „leaders are born, not made;‟ (2) Leadership by providence;

(3) Leadership is the result of a charismatic personality; (4) Leadership is the product of a forceful personality;‟ and (5) Leadership is the result of special training.” The explanation of these misconceptions is reserved for further research. Thus, we conclude as Munroe has done, that true leadership “is not a technique, a method, a style or the acquisition of skills. Rather, it is the manifestation of an attitude based on the knowledge of who you were born to be”

(Adair, ibid. p.43). Munroe‟s position here is existentialistic and Kierkegaardian in nature in that Kierkegaard was an apostle of inwardness who stressed man‟s essential inwardness. In the same vein, Adair (2002:33-34) admits that theories or principles absorbed from books or courses cannot by themselves teach a person to lead and that all the academic study of leadership does is to teach one about leadership, “not how to lead. Leadership is learnt primarily through doing it.” If leadership is learnt through doing it, it then makes it attitudinal and who one is really.

Despite the current trend that everybody can be a leader, the point must be made that some individuals are naturally endowed with leadership qualities without the prerequisite training that today‟s leadership advocates. It could be argued thus that leaders are more of being born than made. But certainly, it is not the consequences of birth or social ranks that catapult one to the position of leadership. Like Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, Pericles and other scholars argued, leadership could be learnt through training because they believe that people had the

308 personal qualities, appropriate knowledge and transferable skills of leadership that could be exploited or developed for human consumption. Giuliani (2002: xii) supports the Socratic-

Platonic assertion and posits that “leadership does not simply happen. It can be taught, learned, developed.” Even Obafemi Awolowo held that leadership qualities can be acquired because they are not innate. This means that any person can become eligible for leadership regardless of his parental background. In a nutshell, there can be no doubt that some individuals are born talented leaders while some others have to go through the rudiments of learning the process before being able to lead. In Africa, for instance, the concept of leadership signifies, according to Carlsson (1998:20), the ability to lead others with the purpose of causing movement and change in an organization, community or at the national level. He argues further that leadership talents are not easily taught to others in Africa because those “are part and parcel of the leader‟s personality.” A central role is also played by values and norms when it comes to the leader‟s way of leading.” Carlsson‟s observation portrays leadership as both metaphysical and ontological in nature.

Fundamentally, leadership is a term applied to a very diverse set of human actions – perhaps evenly spread between those that seem to be initiating and managing change and those that provide continuity and direction in spite of change. However, the nature of leadership has changed from what it used to be when James McGregor Burns published his most celebrated work, Leadership. In this book, Burns (1978a:425) insisted that leadership is “the reciprocal process of mobilizing, by persons with certain motives and values, various economic, political and other resources, in a context of competition and conflict, in order to realize goals independently or mutually held by both leaders and followers.” Burns‟ definition is far from

309 meeting the demands of scholars‟ satisfaction on the nature of leadership because of the many variables it contains. Seeing leadership as a process and not a person then forced writers, researchers and commentators alike to start viewing the concept of leadership from different dimensions.

In the light of the above, Barker (2002:106), in On the Nature of Leadership, portrays leadership as “a process of transformative change where the ethics of individuals are integrated into the mores of a community as a means of evolutionary social development.”

While Parker (2005:10) conceives of leadership as “the activity of making progress on adaptive challenges” Rost (2005:95) sees leadership as an art of “influencing others to embrace goals that are widely shared among group or organizational members.” The above definitions are some of the ways in different scholars have tried to express the nature of leadership. When one examines all the various definitions given, one discovers that leadership is about people whether in the family, community, church, organization or national setting.

The nature of leadership is such that ever since its recognition as a legitimate field of study, it has practically defied a univocal definition from available books, articles, and journals. And because leadership “is a contested field, enriched by constantly revolving fads, hotly disputed definitions and wildly optimistic and pessimistic claims, there is no objective point at which to stand to survey the field” (Marturano & Gosling, 2008: xxiv). Therefore, one abiding issue really is the possibility of a general theory of leadership that is holistic in nature and which would offer a comprehensive idea of all leadership trends, homogenizing all the different often contrasting perspectives around the same paradigm. While some scholars claimed to have captured the concept in a single theory, others say that this is not possible because of its

310 socially construed nature. However, what is important to us here now is the fact that no matter the diversities among the numerous definitions given, they were essentially concerned about how leadership operates and what it entails. This has adequately served our purpose for this research.

Nevertheless, the elusiveness could be seen from the very fact that leadership is more of a spiritual than a physical concept. Man is at the centre here and if we go by the definition of man as essentially a “spirit” being, as Kierkegaard and other scholars have posited, then we will agree with Munroe that the nature of a person‟s spirit is what dictates or regulates the nature that person manifests. Like Kierkegaard, Munroe argues here that the spiritual dimension is what is important in leadership. He said until “a person‟s spirit changes, the person is unchanged. Leadership actually begins in the spirit of a person. And it is the spiritual dimension that produces an attitude that separates the leader from the follower” (Munroe,

2005:15). In fact, Munroe‟s assertion aptly captures Plato‟s concept of leadership. When Plato stresses the need for philosopher-kings to occupy the rulership of a state because it involves thinking, it was the spiritual dimension or aspect of leadership that Plato was referring to.

Plato knew that thinking is a mental attitude and not something that pertains to the physical demonstration of power or energy. Leadership is of the spirit, personality and vision. Button

(1998:246) quotes Harvey Jackins as saying that:

Leadership “may be intuitive, subtle, unrecognized, untitled, but at least one person in a group activity must assume the responsibility of thinking about the group and its goals and progress as a whole for such a group to function well …The job of a leader is not to do all the thinking for the people in the group which he or she leads, but rather to call forth, note and assemble the…thinking from all members of the group, … to produce a complete and consistent programme from the brilliant though sometimes fragmented thoughts of the people he or she listens to, and then communicate this integrated theory back to all the members of the group and secure their acceptance and their support for it.

311 Basically, leadership can be viewed from two senses to accommodate all levels of leadership that are applicable in human societies. These senses are the narrow and the broad senses.

From the narrow sense perspective, leadership is something that concerns those in secular leadership positions such as the Head of State, the head of the Legislature and the head of the

Judiciary and their immediate personal assistants. On the other hand, from a broad sense perspective, leadership would include everybody who is directly or indirectly involved with actual public decision-making and the implementation of laws. Though our focus in this research is on political leadership, which is the narrow sense of it, leadership cuts across all the various segments of human society. To this end, the research will accommodate all facets of human endeavour at the application level to show that, indeed, every rational human being living on this earth is a leader in his own right and in whatever capacity, either in the family setting, community setting, church setting, business setting and national or organizational setting.

6.2 TYPES OF LEADERSHIP

Scholars on leadership have identified different types of leadership. For instance, Harold

Lucas in his book Companion to Management Studies has identified three different types of leadership, cited by Olumese (1985:51): “(1) Dictatorial leadership, (2) Democratic leadership and (3) Free-rein leadership.” A fourth type, identified by Michael Walton (2008:160), is called Toxic leadership. One by one, we shall explain these four types of leadership.

(i) DICTATORIAL LEADERSHIP: The term dictatorial connotes oppressiveness, where a leader decides to rule his or her subjects autocratically thereby denying them freedom of expression. In other words, under this leadership, the leader determines “what is to be done

312 and how it is to be done, and presents the decision to followers allowing no questions or opposing points of view” (Manning & Curtis, 2003:48). The leader‟s mode of leading is at its maximum since it is a leader-centered decision making. Displaying absolute authority characterized this type of leadership since followers‟ views or inputs into decision making are not welcomed.

(ii) DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP: The word „democratic‟ is a function of how free people are in deciding or being part of what is going on as regards decision making. A leadership that is democratic is the kind of leadership that has met the aspirations and needs of the people. Under this type of leadership, participation is the kernel to guide. It is generally known and regarded as the best form of leadership for it provides the people not only the opportunity of selecting their leader, but also encourages them to participate in decision making and the policies affecting them. In a democratic leadership, the leader announces

“principles and sets forth methods of decision making, yet permits ideas, questions and discussion from followers. The leader presents a problem, asks for followers‟ ideas and makes a final decision based on their input” (Tannenbaum & Schoridt, 1999:96). Fundamentally, leadership based on a democratic arrangement discourages arbitrariness and encourages a sense of public „commitment.‟ Here, leaders and followers share decision making since everybody has a stake in the survival of the system.

(iii) FREE-REIN LEADERSHIP: As the name implies, followers under this type of leadership enjoy maximum freedom in making inputs towards the decision making process.

Hence, this type of leadership is often referred to as „Laissez-Faire‟. The term „Laissez-faire‟ is a French word meaning “let people do what they want” (Adenaike, 2010:21). This means

313 that people or followers are left to their own devices and given a free hand to tackle problems as best as they can. In other words, no control is exercised since the leader allows followers, according to Burns and Kotter (1988), “as much freedom as leader to define problems and make decisions.” However, the problem with this type of leadership, in spite of the level of freedom allowed, is the time wasted in discussion and argument as it tends to slow down progress.

(iv) TOXIC LEADERSHIP: Toxic leadership is defined as “leadership behaviour which poisons, is disruptive, destructive, exploitative, dysfunctional and abusive” (Walton,

2008:160). Fundamentally, as the name suggests, toxic leadership highlights the willful destructive and self-serving misuse of power. It describes a relationship which undermines the effective functioning of the organization and destabilizes sound working relationships.

Lipman-Blumen (2005a:18) catalogues the poisonous repertoire of toxic leadership as

“corruption, hypocrisy, sabotage, and manipulation, as well as other assorted unethical, illegal, and criminal acts.” Consequently, he describes them as leaders “who, by virtue of their destructive behaviours and their dysfunctional personal qualities or characteristics, inflict serious and enduring harm on the individuals, groups, organizations, communities and even the nations that they lead” (Lipman-Blumen, 2005b).

Thus, among the four types of leadership identified, the democratic leadership style - which involves or entails participation - is to be most sought in an ideal situation.

6.3 THEORIES OF LEADERSHIP

In view of the many different conceptions of leadership, a vast number and puzzling literature have been created. As a result, attempts to organize the literature according to major

314 approaches or perspectives have only been partly successful. One of the major useful classification systems is according the types of variables emphasized in a theory or study.

Some major research approaches include: (i) The Great Man Theory, (ii) Trait Theory, (iii)

Elite Theory, (iv) Behavioural Theory, (v) Situational Leadership Theory, (vi) Charismatic

Theory, (vii) Style Theory, (viii) Contingency Theory, (ix) Transactional Theory, (x)

Transformational Theory, etc. These theories have been advanced or put forward to explain the different styles adopted by different leaders at different leadership levels. In our exposition, we shall be brief.

1. THE GREAT MAN THEORY

This theory holds that legitimacy resides in the greatness of the man, in his being great

(Harter, 2008:70). The first half of the twentieth century renewed interest in the study of great men such as Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Josef Stalin. According to Rustow

(1970:5), the nature of this theory made political scientists to examine leadership “as part of the historical process, considering the impact of distinctive characters on the ordering of society.” Proponents of this theory believed that great individuals deserve study and that one can learn leadership partly from the examples of others. According to Giuliani (2002), “all leaders are influenced by those they admire.” Therefore, reading about them and studying their development inevitably “allows an aspiring leader to grow his own leadership traits”

(Giuliani, ibid, p.xiv). Thomas Carlyle (1969) is widely credited with great man theory of leadership. He adopted a “great man” approach to the explanation of historical events. It is an undeniable fact that individual leaders have played a part in holding nations together under the most adverse conditions. The great man theory is an attempt by scholars to uncover what makes leaders presumed at the time to be male- distinct. Human differences have frequently

315 justified leadership. Hence, one finds Plato and Aristotle, for example, making such claims about the unique excellence of the philosopher-king or the mature man. Harter (2008:68) quotes Heraclitus as saying that “the many are worthless, and good men are few…. One man is ten thousand, if he is the best.” Something about a man apparently identified him for prominence and power. For Giuliani, the study of greatness inspires greatness in us. Today, there are debates over whether leaders are born or made.

2. TRAIT THEORY

This theory was founded on the assumption that some people are natural leaders who are endowed with certain traits not possessed by other people. Such traits were generic characteristics of a family. To this end, quality, such as courage and wisdom were passed on – from family member to family member, from generation to generation. In fact, traits such as height, weight and physique are heavily dependent on heredity, whether genetic, social or a combination of the two, whereas others such as knowledge of the industry are contingent on experience and learning. Also, traits such as attractiveness, intelligence, self-reliance, and creativity have been studied. Trait theory of leadership holds that “distinctive physical and psychological characteristics account for leadership effectiveness” (Galton, 1869). It is a theory that placed emphasis on “the personal attributes of leader” (Yukl, 1981:8; Manning &

Curtis, 2003:16), becoming the basis of longstanding explanations of the phenomenon of leadership. The origins of trait are “found in the writing of the English philosopher Thomas

Carlyle and his “great man” theory” (Levine, 2008:163). Carlyle (1969) believes that “some people were born to be leaders, and it was this genetic heritage, or specific innate traits and characteristics, that made these people different from those that were followers.” From the

316 perspective of trait theory, leaders share certain personality traits that differentiate them from followers. These traits include:

Achievement, honesty and integrity, alertness, humour, ambition, initiative, athletic ability, insight, cognitive ability, intelligence, cooperativeness, judgement, critical thinking, leadership motivation(the desire to lead but not to seek power as an end in itself), emotional stability, energy, motivation, sociability, originality, social judgement drive, persistence, solution- construction skills, popularity, status, problem-solving skills, tenacity, responsibility, tolerance, self-confidence, verbal facility (Levine, 2008:164-165).

To date, over one thousand traits have been studied and not one trait has been found to guarantee leadership success. In Stogdill‟s (1948:64) submission, “a person does not become a leader by virtue of the possession of some combination of traits.” Rather, Levine says there are situational factors that are influential as well. Following Stogdill‟s assertion, Levine (Ibid. p. 163) further posits that it “is the leader‟s action and reactions in specific situations that make a person a successful leader.” Nevertheless, Levine noted that traits are preconditions or precursors for action such as role modeling, formulating a vision and setting goals. And, argues that since leadership resides in and amongst people, effectiveness of a leader will however be based on the possession of these characteristics. Consequently, Levine (Ibid. p.

163) dismissed as untenable “the idea whether leaders are born and not made and the belief that there is only one set of traits that will guarantee leadership.” Notwithstanding, followers are likely going to follow leaders with intelligence and dominance.

3. BEHAVIOURAL THEORIES

In the middle of the 20th century, due to the failure of trait theory to identify a clear and unique set of personal characteristics that would identify great leaders, the focus of leadership theory shifted from trying “to identify personal characteristics of leaders to studying the behaviour as demonstrated by leaders” (Mengel, 2008: 11). Following the research in the direction of leadership behaviour versus leadership traits, Lewin et al (1939:271-299) arrived

317 at three leadership styles: Autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire were unveiled. The autocratic style was characterized by the tight control of group activities and decisions made by the leader. The democratic style emphasized group participation and majority rule. The laissez-faire leadership style involved very low levels of any kind of activity by the leader.

The results indicated that the democratic style of leadership was more beneficial for group performance than the other styles. The importance of the study was that it emphasized the impact of the behaviour of the leader on the performance of followers. In the same vein,

Hemphill and Coons (1957; Stogdill, 1963), develop an instrument known as the Leader

Behaviour Description Questionnaire (LBDQ) by using various settings as industrial, educational and military, and two groups of leadership behaviour: “Consideration and

Initiation structure.” Consideration behaviour emphasizes the relationship aspect of leadership behaviour. Considerate leaders support their followers, include them in the decision-making processes, treat them as equal, and foster open communication and teamwork. Initiating structure behaviour focuses on the tasks to be accomplished. They structure tasks and schedules, clarify roles and responsibilities, and set and control standards for work completion. Thus, the behaviour theory, apart from its concern in finding ways to “classify behaviour that will facilitate our understanding of leadership” Yukl, (1981:9), its focus is essentially on “leadership actions” (Manning & Curtis: 16).

4. CONTINGENCY THEORY

According to Barbour (2008:25), following criticism that “the „great man‟ and behavioural theories do not take into account the context of leadership, contingency theory became an attempt to assess and discuss leadership from organizational and administrative processes.”

Fieldler is generally considered the father of leadership contingency theory. The theory holds

318 that “the most appropriate leadership qualities and actions vary from situation to situation.

Effectiveness depends on leader, follower, and situational factors” (Fieldler, 1967). He identified three organizational contingencies that determine appropriate leadership behaviour.

These are: “Leader-Member Relations (the degree to which a leader is accepted and supported by group members), Task Structure (the extent to which task are structured and defined with clear goals and procedures), and Leader-Positional Power (the ability of a leader to control subordinates through reward and punishment).” According to him, the combinations of the three contingencies create favourable or unfavourable conditions for leadership in which the leader can exert influence over the group. Consequently, he stresses task and relationship motivated leadership style and asserts that leadership behaviour must be adjusted to the situation to create organizational effectiveness. The implication of Fieldler‟s claim, according to Manning and Curtis (2003:23), is that “no single element explains why leadership takes place. Leadership results when the ideas and deeds of the leader match the needs and expectations of the followers in a particular situation. Situational factors include the job being performed, the culture of the workplace, and the urgency of the task.” The term, „contingency‟ theory, was coined by Lawrence and Lorsch (1967). They coined it based on their argument that different environments place differing requirements on organizations and, accordingly, on the leaders of those organizations. Contingency theorists aver that there is no one best way of leading because a leadership style that is effective in some situation may not be successful in others. This means that the leader‟s ability to lead, consequently, is contingent upon various situational factors, including the leader‟s preferred style, the capabilities and behaviours of followers and also various other situational factors.

319 5. SITUATIONAL THEORY

According to Yukl (1981:10), the situational approach emphasizes “the importance of contextual factors such as the nature of the work performed by the leader‟s unit, the nature of the external environment, and the characteristics of followers.” This approach, he says, has two major subcategories. One line of research treats managerial behaviour as a dependent variable, and researchers seek to discover how this behaviour is influenced by aspects of the situation such as the type of organization or managerial position. The other subcategory of situational research attempts to identify aspects of the situation that “moderate” the relationship of leader behaviour (or trait) to leadership effectiveness. The assumption is that different behaviour patterns (or traits patterns) will be effective in different situations, and that the same behaviour pattern (or trait pattern) is not optimal in all situations. Hersey and

Blanchard (1993) are the proponents of situational theory of leadership. They describe four different styles a leader can adopt in his or her approach to the one-to-one management of a subordinate according to the situation or task. These four different styles are labeled as: S1

Directing; S2 Coaching; S3 Supporting; and S4 Delegating. Here, the leader moves between those styles depending on the development level of subordinate, a combination of his or her levels of skill (competence) and “will” (commitment). This theory, apart from being a “highly practical framework that bases effective leadership around the situation rather than any need for specific personality traits, its main contribution was in further breaking the myth that there exists one ideal leadership style.” (Thomas, 2006:71).

6. STYLE THEORIES

Style theories denote the behavioural pattern of leaders. It describes what the leader emphasizes when acting in a leadership role. According to Andersen (2008:156), the term

320 „style‟ is primarily reserved for theories describing behaviour, generally categorized according to the attention paid to the dimensions of task and relationship. Leadership style theories transcend the description of the behaviour pattern of leaders to “offer explanations of the cause of the styles as well as their consequences in terms of effectiveness” (Bass, 1990b). The question arises, why do leaders adopt different approaches to leadership? The reason behind leaders adopting different styles of leading, according to Blake and Mouton (1985:5), is based on how “to achieve results through other people.” For Fiedler (1967:29), it is the “personality and motivation structure.” He thus became, probably, the only style theorist linking personality to behaviour. Consequently, leadership is defined as “the behaviour of an individual when he is directing the activities of a group towards a shared goal” (Hemphill and

Coons, 1957:7). Fundamentally, style theories explain differences in style due to individuals holding different attitudes regarding the importance of achieving tasks and of taking care of relationship.

7. CHARISMATIC THEORY

This theory, in its early form, regards the notion of charisma “as a leader personality from the collective perception of followers that a certain individual has extraordinary characteristics worthy of leadership” While newer conceptions of charisma focus on “the behaviours and traits of charismatic leaders, including inspiration through a compelling vision, self-sacrifice, being responsive to followers‟ needs and being emotionally expressive with their followers”

(Conger and Canungo, 1998; Riggio, 2004). Thus, Charismatic leaders are thought to have important relationships with their followers: they yield significant influence through their commitment to the followers, their aura of competence, their inspiration and motivation and their emotional expressiveness.

321 8. ELITE THEORY

This theory of leadership has made enormous contribution to leadership studies. It shapes leaders directly or indirectly, and vice-versa. This it does, sometimes, simply by rising to prominence and sometimes more directly by shaping the elite – its composition, number, wealth, reputation and so forth. In his analysis of politics, Aristotle (1946) had observed that by nature there must be “a union of the naturally ruling element with the element which is naturally ruled, for the preservation of both. The element which is able, by virtue of its intelligence, to exercise forethought, is naturally a ruling and master element.” This tendency of one group to dominate another by means of virtue, conquest or divine intervention, prompted Voegelin (2001:117-19) and, two other leading Italian scholars, Pareto (1991) and

Mosca (1939), to undertake an independent work on the same basic theoretical problem to arrive at the earliest formulations of elite theory. In their remarks, they noted that all societies split into two basic groups or classes, one of which dominates the other. Monarchies premised on a single leader and democracies premised on the absence of leaders are both illusions of forms of organization that obscure the persisting influence on an oligarchy. Because leadership takes place within social structures, it also shapes these social structures. More directly, elite theory provides a framework for the historical pattern of leadership. Leaders emerge into the elite, whether invited by the powers-that-be as heir to the system. Once in power, so to speak, leaders then find themselves interested in managing the system because they have a stake in it. Elite theory has the potential to assist in understanding the phenomenon of leadership in context over time.

322 9. TRANSACTIONAL THEORY

Transactional leadership is based on the assumption that “subordinates and systems work better under a clear chain of command” (Kuhnert, 1994: 10-25). Burns (1978) defines it as the

“first form of interaction between leaders and followers.” It occurs according to him, when

“one person takes the initiative in making contact with others for the purpose of an exchange of valued things. The relations of most leaders and followers are transactional: leaders approach followers with an eye to exchanging one thing for another: jobs for votes, or subsidies for campaign contributions” (Burns, 1978:19). To Kuhnert and Lewis (1987:648-

657), transactional leadership signifies “a cost-benefit exchange between leaders and their followers.” This transaction between leaders and their follower, according to Yukl and Van

Fleet (1992:147-197), involves “something of value between what the leader possesses or controls and what the follower wants in return for his/her services.” In addition, transactional leadership entails leaders “clarifying goals and objectives, communicating to organize tasks and activities with the cooperation of their employees to ensure that wider organizational goals are met” (Bass, 1974:341). In a general sense, Bass (Ibid. p. 319) says, transactional leadership exemplifies “the most common dynamic of social exchange between leadership and followership.” This exchange process Tavanti (2008:167) noted can “highly influence the group performance and morale.” The style of a transactional leader is creating clear structures, expectations and rewards and motivates followers by appealing to their self-interest. Although transactional style is contract driven, the success of leader-follower relationship depends on the acceptance of hierarchical differences and the ability to work through this mode of exchange. Nevertheless, this leadership constitutes a foundation for transformational leadership.

323 10. TRANSFORMATIONAL THEORY

Transformational theory of leadership is normative in nature and, as such, it does not only simply describe “how leaders do in fact behave but rather, prescribes how they ought to behave” (Price, 2008:170). Burns is widely regarded as the originator of this theory of leadership. He maintains that leaders must do more than cater to whatever wants and desires people happen to have. This means that transforming leadership aims to move beyond people‟s wants and desires, thereby engaging their real needs and values. However, as Burns

(1978:46) aptly puts it, “the ultimate test of moral leadership is its capacity to transcend the claims of multiplicity of everyday wants and needs and expectations.” This would mean raising both leaders and followers “to higher levels of motivation and morality” (Burns, ibid. p. 20). And being able to go beyond everyday wants and needs and expectations, transforming leadership, Burns thinks, passes this test. It was introduced as an alternative to much more common, transactional varieties of leadership. This theory transcends satisfaction of basic physiological and security needs to meet „higher‟ needs for belonging and esteem. Under this leadership, followers are motivated by encouraging them to transcend self-interests for the organization and shared goals. In fact, Wren (1998:163-164) holds that the strength of transforming leadership is precisely in its allegiance to “the supremacy of followers‟ interest, a commitment that encourages leaders to grid „a common interest among relevant stakeholders.” Thus, from the tenets of transactional and transformational leadership, the best leaders, according to Bass, are both transactional and transformational.

324 6.4 CHARACTERISTICS AND QUALITIES OF LEADERSHIP

For any individual to assume a position of leadership he/she ought to possess certain features or attributes. It is these features that we refer to as the characteristics and qualities of leadership. Scholars have enumerated quite a number of them, which we shall discuss below.

(i) CHARACTERISTICS

On the characteristics of leadership, Stogdill (1981:81) discovered certain traits or features of the individual that correspond positively with leadership. Consequently, he said leadership is characterized by:

A strong drive for responsibility and task completion: vigour and persistence in pursuit of goals; venturesomeness and originality in problem-solving; drive to exercise initiative in social institution; self-confidence and sense of personal identity; willingness to accept consequences of decision and action; readiness to absorb interpersonal stress. Willingness to tolerate frustration and delay, ability to influence other persons‟ behaviour and capacity to structure social interaction systems to the purpose at hand.

According to Stogdill, the above characterization of leadership can help us distinguish leaders from followers and effective from ineffective leaders. When these features are considered individually, each one count for little. But when they are considered in totality, it would appear that they interact to bring about personality dynamics advantageous to the person seeking the responsibilities of leadership. Following Stogdill, Shehu Usman identified wisdom

(i.e. rationality) as another characteristic of leadership and this trait is platonic in nature.

Tukur (1999:78) quotes Usman as saying that:

A wise man is guided aright by his wisdom and fortified by his sound judgement, so that what he says is sound and what he does is commendable, while an ignorant man is caused to go astray as a result of his ignorance, so that what he says is unsound and what he does is objectionable. The merit of wisdom is that one can judge what one has not witnessed according to what one has witnessed.

Indeed, wisdom is critical to any leader who wants to be subjective-objective in their leadership drive. Sound wisdom enables the leader to apply relevant knowledge appropriately

325 and effectively in the administration of human affairs. One other important characteristic of leadership is knowledge of oneself. Leaders must know themselves before they take up grave responsibilities. Knowledge of oneself caught Socrates‟ attention in his own day because of its potential nature in determining the success or failure of any leader in any chosen field. Good leaders, Maxwell (1998:82) argues, develop the ability to read themselves - their strengths, skills, weakness, and current state of mind. For, no man can produce great things when he is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself. For you to be able to work with others, it is important you know yourself in terms of what you can and cannot do. Thus, the Socratic maxim man “Know-Thyself” is a must, a precondition and a fundamental one at that.

In addition to the above characterization of leadership, authority is also a distinguishing feature of leadership. Without authority, no leader can function effectively and command respect from the followers. Adair (2002:16) quotes Xenophon as positing that “without respect, leadership is fatally impaired.” Authority, more than any other feature, marks off a leader from a follower. Authority has two components - power and legitimacy. Authority, according to Gauba (2003:249), “is the capacity to secure willing obedience.” Authority ensures social acceptance and effective implementation of rules, policies and decisions.

Authority comes from the office where an individual has been assigned responsibilities. For example, in a political setting, authority will emanate from the political office held by an individual where he/she is appointed through the prescribed procedure such as merit-based selection, promotion, election, rotation or nomination, and not from the personal characteristics of the individual holding an office. For authority to be effective, power and legitimacy are needed by the leader or leadership. More importantly, authority is backed up

326 with power and legitimacy. Some scholars have agued that leadership is about exercising power. This means that a relationship exists between leadership and power.

Thus, by power, is meant “an ability to influence an event or outcome that allows the agent to achieve an objective or to influence another agent to act in a manner in which the second agent on its own, would not choose to act” (Connolly, 1974: 86-87). In other words, power “is the ability to influence an outcome to achieve an objective or the ability to influence someone to act in a way contrary to the way he or she would choose to act” (Grigsby, 2002: 36). For

Pfeffer (1994: 30), power is “the potential ability to influence behaviour, to change the course of events, to overcome resistance, and to get people to do things that they would not otherwise do.” From the definition of power, we can see that leadership success is hinged on authority accompanied by power. Thus, without authority and power no leader or leadership can successfully carry out his constitutional roles. Therefore, for power to be effective, it must be authority-based. In fact, Carter (1979: 17) makes the suggestion that authority “is the antithesis of force” and it implies the capacity to command respect and evoke a variety of forms of voluntary compliance or fellowship. Authority and power is what gives legitimacy to any leader. To this end, Miller (2008: 7) argues that those with power are “accorded authority by virtue of the legitimacy of the principles by which they hold power.” A moralized authority and a moralized power is indeed the antithesis of force. A leader who is people-centered does not use force to compel obedience; rather he uses his exemplary leadership - that is, leadership by example - to administer compliance to achieve set objectives. This is perhaps why

Confucius‟ (1963:38) assertion that “if a ruler sets himself right, he will be followed without

327 his command, if he does not set himself right, even his commands will not be obeyed” is very fundamental to leadership.

Furthermore, knowledge is yet another feature of leadership. The importance of knowledge in leadership can never be over-emphasized because without knowledge (i.e. appropriate knowledge) leading others becomes symptomatic. A leader requires competent knowledge - professional or technical as the case may be, which, according to Socrates, is a prerequisite for holding a position of leadership responsibility. Adair (2002: 11) quotes Socrates as saying that there exist three kinds of authority, namely; “the authority of position or rank, the authority of personality and the authority of knowledge.” Of these authorities, Socrates stresses the authority of knowledge because he believes squarely that it is the man or woman who knows what to do and how to do it that will be obeyed, especially in times of crisis. Adair (Ibid. p. 9) further quotes Socrates as saying that, “under all conditions human beings are most willing to obey those whom they believe to be the best. Thus, in sickness they most readily obey the doctor, on board ship the pilot, on the farm the farmer, whom they think to be the most skilled in his business.” In fact, like Socrates and Plato, Awolowo also agreed that knowledge is the main gateway to leadership because people will obey willingly only those whom they perceive to be better qualified or more knowledgeable than they are in a particular situation.

This knowledge dimension of leadership is platonic and thus Plato entrusts leadership in the hands of the guardian. In addition, a leader needs both imagination and intuition to confront and deal with human problems. Imagination leads to creativity and this means that creativity is not only relevant in the business world, but also in political leadership. In fact, it means that creativity is a function of the imagination. In the words of Cox (2005:2), creativity is the

328 generation of new ideas, either new ways of looking at existing problems or of seeing new opportunities, etc. In other words, creativity, according to Gogatz and Mondejar (2005: 9), is the ability to consistently generate novel responses to all sorts of issues, problems, situations and challenges. Therefore, creativity involves looking differently at what we normally take for granted. A leader should possess the trait of creativity so as to be able to consistently generate fresh ideas to deal with all kinds of issues that confronts him/her daily. Creativity will sharpens a leader‟s knowledge and help him/her to exercise his/her imagination and intuition creatively.

Having espoused some of the major characteristics of leadership, we shall now turn our attention to the qualities of leadership.

(ii) QUALITIES

From history, leadership has been attributed to individuals. This view, according to Manning and Curtis (2003:4), is sometimes referred to as the “Great Man Theory.” However, when

Thomas Carlyle, the Scottish philosopher and historian inquired into this view, he came to the conclusion that among the undistinguished masses are people of light and learning, individual‟s superior in power, courage and understanding. He saw the history of the human race as the biographies of these leaders, its great men and women. Thus, on this basis Carlyle

(1807) wrote that “their moral character may be something less than perfect; their courage may not be the essential ingredient; yet they are superior. They are followed, admired, and obeyed to the point of worship.” It is interesting to know that Carlyle‟s observation points us to those qualities people would want in a leader. Thus, on the qualities of a leader, quite a

329 number of qualities have been enumerated by scholars. We shall do our best to explicate some of these qualities, especially those that are generic to any level of leadership.

For instance, Kouzes and Posner (1987) identify three key qualities of “integrity, job knowledge, and people-building skills” which they think rational people would want to see in those guiding and presiding over their affairs. To them, an individual in a leadership position, who wants to rule over people‟s affairs, must be someone with integrity because people want a leader they can trust. On the job knowledge, they argued that a leader must have the requisite knowledge of leadership, that is, know what direction to take (abstract visioning) and how to solve human problems (practical ability). Also, the leader must have the ability to assemble and develop a winning team which involves a variety of important skills to enable him discharge his leadership responsibilities effectively and responsibly. Later on, we shall explain the above mentioned qualities in more depth. It is argued that certain qualities belong potentially to every one, but that leaders possess these qualities to an exceptional degree. To this end, Morrell and Capparell (2001) identify the ten qualities of “vision, ability, enthusiasm, stability, concern for others, self-confidence, persistence, vitality, charisma and integrity” that mark a leader out from others and which help influence the leadership process.

For Munroe (2005:17), “Passion, initiative, teamwork, innovation, persistence, discipline, focus, time management, confidence, positive disposition, patience, peace and compassion” should be the distinguishing mark of a leader in leadership position.

In the Republic, Plato (1987: 66) identifies the qualities of a leader seeking political office as

“physical strength, courage, and a philosophic temperament.” He further added that such an

330 individual must also be among others “a good learner, magnificent, charming, a friend and kinsman of truth, a man of justice, courage and moderation” (Plato 1991: 167-168). This means that the kind of leader that should assume leadership position, according to Plato, must be one who shuns falsehood and cherishes the truth. A leader must be a lover of learning and must, from youth on, strive as intensely as possible for every kind of truth. Such a person,

Plato says, must be moderate in whatever he/she does because any leadership that indulges in a luxurious life style cannot give quality leadership. This means that when a leader engages him/herself in the most expensive way by serving his/her stomach and indulging in pleasure, the leader looses the chances or the capacity to perform his functions well. Hence, Tukur

(1999: 27) likens such a leader to “an animal in a green pasture which will eat much until it becomes fat, and its fatness will be the cause of its death: for because of that fatness it will be slaughtered and eaten.”

Similarly, Aristotle (1976), Plato‟s greatest pupil, also suggests four qualities of leadership.

These are “justice, temperance, prudence and fortitude.” According to Aristotle, these virtues are important because “it is typical of the person of practical wisdom to deliberate well about what is good and helpful for himself and about what will be conducive to the good life in general” (Hughes, 2001: 104). Therefore, a leader must have the courage which has to do with

“high spirit” to take some unpopular decisions provided those decisions have a positive bearing on the well-being of the people. It means acting based on the right principle. In the words of Bell (2006:84), courage means “knowing the odds asre insurmountable and facing them anyway.” Bell (2006:84) further quotes Harper Lee in To Kill a Mockingbird as saying that “real courage is when you know you‟re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway

331 and see it through no matter what.” It means to do what is right, even if the odds are not in favour of it turning out well. It‟s the willingness to face undeniable odds and keep going.

Courage, which is a function of commitment, is fundamental to a leader because he needs it to accept responsibility, mistakes, weaknesses, blames and praise, make sacrifices for those he is leading, pursue people-oriented programmes and match his words with action. However, in spite of the numerous qualities that abound, there are some qualities that are more generically associated with leadership in any field. These generic qualities include, amongst others

“integrity, enthusiasm, energy, caring spirit, vision, care and toughness” (Adair, 2002: 23).

Apart from the fact that other qualities are equally important, vision, enthusiasm, integrity, energy, toughness, and care are cardinal to any leader in any human endeavour. We shall briefly explain them.

a. VISION: A vision is an abstract concept in the mind that you want to make real. In the words of Manning and Curtis (2003: 57), the word vision evokes pictures in the mind and is an ideal image of what could and should be. In other words, vision means literally to see ahead; it is farsightedness. It can be an imaginative and exciting concept of how things might be tomorrow. In fact, Ciulla (2005:325) declares that visions “are not simple goals, but rather, ways of seeing the future that implicitly or explicitly entail some notion of the good.” This means that a leader needs foresight to be able to lead well. Therefore, the first requirement for a leader to carry out his leadership responsibility effectively is a strong sense of purpose borne out of vision. Vision enables the leader or an individual to know what must be done and to do it. Recognizing the indispensable role of vision in the life of an individual or a leader, Bennis

(1989) wrote:

332 Leaders must be clearly focused on a positive and future-focused goal or vision. Clarity of purpose provides guidance for making decisions about time and resources. Also required is constancy of effort. Passion and authority come to leaders who clearly know where they are going and have dedication to succeed. When leaders have passion and authority, others are inspired to follow.

Vision is the raw material upon which true leadership is built. The growth and development of any human society is dependent on the vision of its leaders. Vision is what inspires others and is what causes the leader to accept the responsibility of leadership, whether pleasant or unpleasant. Consequently, Stevenson (1979: 19) wrote: “I want somebody on that hilltop or its equivalent who can be thinking and looking far ahead, and who can prod me into doing the things that it would be easier not to do. Don‟t try to think of things that are politically shrewd.

Try to think of the next generation.” The point Stevenson is making is that visionary leaders think of tomorrow because they have a mental picture in their minds through which they gaze into the future and prepare towards accessing it through purposeful drive. That purposeful drive can only be sustained through an act of commitment. A visionless nation is a dead nation because her leadership is visionless. In a similar fashion, Polak (1973) agreed with the above submission and argues that the fates of nations and civilization have primarily depended on their visions for the future. Consequently, he made three points clear that:

i. Significant vision precedes significant success, ii. A compelling image of the future is shared by leaders with their followers and together they strive to make this vision a reality; and iii. A nation with vision is enabled and a nation without is at risk. b. ENTHUSIASM: Genuine enthusiasm is an important trait of a good leader. Enthusiasm is a form of persuasiveness that causes others to become interested and willing to accept what the leader is attempting to accomplish. When a leader demonstrates enthusiasm, it is transferred to the followers. Good work is never done in cold blood; heat is needed to forge anything. This means that every great achievement is the story of a flaming heart. In fact,

333 enthusiasm is a kind of passion which when possessed by a leader will make the leader lead courageously. c. INTEGRITY: Integrity has been described by various scholars as the most important quality any leader can possess outside other equally competitive qualities. For instance, Jibril

(2006:184) describes integrity as:

The consistent application of ethics. It is sustained uprightness, morality, honesty, discipline, self-control, trust-worthiness and faithfulness. Or Integrity is living a life of no compromise, totally set apart. Or doing right when no one is watching or in secret. Integrity is doing the right thing when it is disadvantageous or when it is possible to give in. Or the acting out of principles rather than expediency. Or matching worth words with works in setting standards.

Integrity is widely understood as honesty, fairness, justice, dependability, strength of character and courage. Without it there is no trust. Trust is the one element in the leadership- followership relationship that cannot be toyed with. Sabel (1993: 1133) defines trust as “the mutual confidence that no party in the relation will exploit the vulnerability of the others.” In other words, Rotter (1971: 444) sees trust as “a generalized expectancy held by any individual or group that the word, promise, and verbal or written statement of another individual or group can be relied on.” Trust is a promise based on one‟s integrity and reliability and, as such, is a crucial component of leadership. Without trust a leader may find it difficult to communicate his vision to his followers or subordinates. Thus, no matter how trust is described, it remains the basis upon which a leader can relate with the followers and the led.

People want a leader they can rely on at anytime. Integrity is needed in every facet of human life. George Washington was one man or leader that history has recorded as a model of integrity. Schroeder et al (1903) said of him:

Endowed by nature with a sound judgement, and an accurate discriminating mind, he was guided by an unwavering sense of moral right, which would tolerate the employment only of those means that would bear the most rigid examination, by a fairness of intention which neither sought nor required disguise, and by a purity of virtue which was not only untainted but unsuspected.

334 In fact, integrity as a norm of authenticity depicts “firm adherence to a code of moral value”

(Mish, 1999: 609). A leader who lacks integrity can act irresponsibly. Therefore, an end pursued with “dishonest, unfair, or unjust means destroys the trust people give their leaders”

(Bell. 2006:41). d. ENERGY: The office of leadership is saddled with enormous responsibilities that require a lot of vitality, that is, energy on the part of the leadership. Strength and stamina are needed to fulfill the task of leadership. Effective and responsive leaders are typically described as electric, vigorous, active and full of life, no matter how old they are. At all ages, leaders require tremendous energy and stamina to achieve success. Thus, the caring leader must have the health and vigour to pursue his or her set goals. e. TOUGHNESS: Toughness as used here does not mean being dictatorial. Instead, it means that a leader is able to persist in pursuing his goals without allowing others to dictate the pace to him. A leader must be on top of every situation and must not yield to intimidation when defending his polices and programmes. According to Machiavelli (1961), “there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain as to success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.” A leader should possess the quality of toughness so as to be able to withstand pressure and other challenging issues in the process of discharging his leadership responsibilities. f. CARING SPIRIT: A leader must have a feeling for others and this marks him out from the followers. According to Manning and Curtis (2003: 10):

Whether one leads by word or deed; whether a leader is a teacher, hero or ruler, whether leadership is inborn or formed; no matter the level of satisfaction or frustration, a leader may feel there is an essential ingredient necessary for success. The leader must care. Only when the leader cares will there be focus and energy for the work to be done.

335 The implication of the above assertion is that a leader must not look down on others. He must show concern about the welfare of the people he is leading. When a leader cares, others become focused, energized, and great achievements are made. Roosevelt (1999) aptly captured the art of caring leadership when he writes:

The credit goes to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotion, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly. Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failures, than to take rank with those cold and timid souls who live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

From the above quotation, it is clear that a caring leader requires personal commitment to maintain an attitude of care towards the led to accomplish set goals. The goals may be a one- time endeavour or a lifetime‟s work. Whatever it is, Theodore‟s assertion shows that the caring leader is unselfish, ready and eager to hear the other person‟s story. The caring leader will dedicate him/herself in service to others. Concern for others, results in loyalty to leader and dedication to the leader‟s good” (Fairholm, 1997). This perhaps informs Tukur‟s (1999:

80) assertion that leadership, in its true existential sense, entails “the ultimate responsibility for the welfare, security and moral-well-being of entire societies that devolves on leadership cadres.” This attitude of caring by a leader falls within the ethical in Kierkegaard‟s stages of human existence. Thus, once a leader loses this spirit of caring, he automatically becomes a despot. g. CHARISMA: One other most important quality associated with leadership is charisma.

Charisma is a special personal quality that generates others interest and causes them to follow.

Leaders who have it attract a special personal loyalty and enthusiasm. Hence, Palmer (1985:

150) described a charismatic leader “as one who has succeeded in becoming identification object for a sizable segment of the population of his state or region.” But there is a caveat that

336 charisma is not the essence of leadership and to say that it is, is to misplace the objective of leadership. The essence of leadership lies in caring. That charisma is not the essence of leadership is not meant to deny the fact that some leaders do not have such magnetic personalities. A leader actually requires some level of charisma to win the cooperation of his followers owing to the dynamic nature of leadership. This means that if the duty of a leader, according to Reinemund (2002: 62), “is to define an overall direction and motivate others to get there” is anything to go by, then a leader truly needs some degree of charisma to motivate others. Though charisma is not the essence of leadership, it can be a leadership asset and yet it can also be a liability. Hence, Thompson‟s (2002: 10) declaration that leadership is “a rare asset that people have” is a welcome development.

6.5 LEADERSHIP AND FOLLOWERSHIP

The concepts of leadership and followership are very crucial to the notion of leadership. In fact, one cannot discuss the concept of leadership without its accompaniment – followership.

According to Olumese (1985:49), leadership “is the art of inspiring followers or subordinates to perform their duties willingly, competently, and enthusiastically,” while the follower is used to describe “a person who acknowledges the focal leader as a continuing source of guidance and inspiration regardless of whether there is any normal relationship”

(Yukl,1981:5). Leadership–followership compatibility is based on styles of leading even though different leadership situations require different kinds of intelligence. Where a leader allows followers as much freedom as to make their contributions to identified problems, such a leader will be able to carry the people along in achieving set objectives. A leader‟s success is largely dependent on the cooperation from the followers; otherwise, his policies will hit the

337 rock. Leadership is about making emotional connections to motivate and inspire people to achieve results. Unah (2002b: 44-45) quotes Dauenbauer as saying that:

The distinction between leadership and followership should not be understood on analogy with the distinction between a slave and a master. It is not exactly the distinction between a shepherd and the herd either (although it comes close to it). Neither is it just a question of the leader been a primus inter pares, a first among equals. It is rather the irreducible distinction between a resolute, clear- sighted man of action and a people who need protection, security and opportunities for human projects of all sorts.

Therefore, to think of leadership and followership in terms of the relationship between a slave and a master, according to Unah (Ibid. p.45), is to overtly or covertly lend support, without knowing it, to unbridled dictatorship for the subjects would be at the mercy of the ruler as they would have to pander to his whims and caprices. Yet, on the other hand, to assume that the leader is “a first among equals” is to suppose that a bulk of the followership already know how to exist authentically, that is, that they are already able to live the life which they themselves have freely and consciously chosen such that whenever any vital decision is taken by the leadership, they must have, in one form or another and by popular critical and constructive suggestions, moderated such a vital decision. Thus, the need for responsibility and accountability calls automatically for leadership that can be held responsible for any act of omission or commission. This means that there must be a clear-cut distinction between leadership and followership in the management of the state‟s affairs. In the light of the above,

Unah further asserts that “any politics which makes no clear-cut distinction between leadership and followership easily lends itself to gross mismanagement at every level of government, to efficiency, to decay and to decadence” (Unah, ibid. p. 46). To further buttress

Unah‟s point, Munroe position‟s is instructive. For him, what separates and distinguishes the leader from the followers “is the thinking” (Munroe, 2005:14). This unique mental attitude is what Munroe calls “the spirit of leadership.” To him, it is a mental attitude that affects the

338 whole life of the leader and moderates his/her response to life as well as his/her challenges and stress.

A leader has the responsibility of defining the task to be done; to ensure that plans are drawn up to accomplish it; to control and monitor the progress of work and review performance so that it can be improved. It also includes the responsibility of creating and maintaining the team to achieve set objectives. A leader is like the principal wheel in any machinery.

Leadership is important not only in political arena, but in other endeavours of life as well. In the words of Burns (1978:18), leadership over human beings (i.e. followers) is “exercised when persons with certain motives and purposes mobilize, in competition or conflict with others, institutional, political, psychological and other resources so as to arouse, engage and satisfy the motive of followers.” Burns is one of the modern leadership theorists to a specific attention to the moral dimensions of leadership. This moral dimension of leadership is very crucial to the maintenance of cordial ties between leaders and followers, because if a leader is to enjoy the loyalty of his followership, that leader must be knowledgeable and possess competence as a prerequisite for holding the position of leadership responsibility. This means that a leader “must” be knowledgeable about the nitty-gritty of leadership. The apparent monumental failure in the area of political leadership in contemporary society validates our position that appropriate leadership knowledge is missing.

A leader with appropriate knowledge and competence will understand the essence of leadership better than one without it. In the words of Munroe (2005:130), the essence of leadership “is that you give others value.” You give your followers something valuable to

339 contribute to and then become involved in it. This means that a leader should know what leadership is all about; otherwise, he will falter. To this end, Plato‟s assertion in the Republic that only those who look as if they are capable of guarding the laws and practices of cities should be established as guardians is very germane. Leadership by example is more efficacious than giving instructions. Although many interpretations have been given to the concept of leadership, leadership can be viewed as the capacity or ability to get others or people to willingly carry out a given task with or without stress. This happens when the leadership in question has a good rapport with the followers. A true leader carries the responsibility of his people with anguish in his heart. As a shepherd, he provides direction, maintains the unity, participates in the pleasure and pain, and meets the needs of the flock. In fact, committed leaders do not seek or pursue followers but instead attract them by their dedication to a personal purpose (i.e. of giving quality leadership).

This means that leadership only makes sense when there is a good and committed followership making quality contribution to the programmes and policies of the leader. In fact, this assertion is valid in the sense that leadership is “affected by followership, but, the influence of followership on leadership tends to diminish as the followership increases”

(McWilliams & Bathory, 1980:32). This influence of followership on leadership shows that followers “are essential to the construct known as leadership, especially given the widely accepted perspective of leadership as understood to be an influence relationship”(Fieldler,

1993:1-2). In recognition of this fact, Fieldler argues further that the significance of followers to a leader can better be appreciated when we understand this question. If a leader looks around and finds no followers, is he or she truly leading? This implies that leadership begets

340 followership, that is, leadership implies the existence of followership and in itself means leading others, presumably by example or taking the followers in a particular direction. In the light of this discovery, we assert here that leadership is located within the purview of followership, and vice-versa. Hence, in the absence of followership, leadership becomes void because without followership, leadership inevitably becomes gratuitous since there will be no such thing as leadership. As earlier mentioned, followers are those being led by the leader. To this end, the leadership-followership relationship is reciprocal. It is a two-way process which influences both the followers (i.e., those being led) and leader (i.e., individual elected to direct the affairs of a nation). In the leadership-followership tie, the person expected to perform the specialized leadership role, in the Platonic sense, is designated as the “leader” while other members are called “followers” even though some of them may assist the primary leader in carrying out the leadership function. A good leader arouses confidence in his followers. This means that we cannot really blame the problem in Nigeria on just the leadership alone without considering the followers.

To Zaleznik (1977), leaders are those who get people “to agree about what things should be done. Leaders are people who do the right thing.” In the words of Adair (2002: 67), a leader

“is one who shows the way ahead, holds people together as a group and encourages individuals, by example and word, to keep going despite the hardship and dangers of travel.”

That means that a leader is expected to perform a high proportion of initiating decision making and leading acts, while there is a disposition to “follow” on the part of the followers.

Arguing from a sociological point of view, Idiagbon (1985:428) suggested that a leader has three principal roles:

341 (i) To establish the goals, purpose or objectives of the group, community or nation, (ii) To create the structures through which the performance of the group or nation are furthered and, (iii) To maintain and enhance the structures, through personal discipline and exemplary behaviour that inspire confidence among the followers.

More importantly, in performing these three principal roles, however, the leader requires the active support, loyalty and commitment of the followers as a successful leadership is usually nurtured by the loyalty given to the leader. What Idiagbon‟s assertion implies is that purposeful and responsive leadership as well as loyal followership are complementary to each other. A leader is expected to guide or give directions, keep the party together, that is, those he is leading, stay in touch and care for their needs. Adair (2002: 20) quotes Xenophon as saying that a true leader “gives direction, sets an example, shares hardship, privations, risks and danger on an equal footing with others.” In this sense, a leader is expected to lead by example

- meaning that where people face hardship or danger, they expect their leader to run the same risks and shoulder the same burdens as themselves, or at least show a willingness to do so.

Also, the attitude of a leader plays a significant role in the leadership-followership relationship. Attitude is a great determining factor in whatever we do. A leader‟s success or failure in any venture is dependent on his attitude. As we have noted throughout this work,

Kierkegaard identified three principal attitudes of aesthetic, ethical and religious in his theory of existence. These attitudes are what guide a human‟s actions as an existing being in his day- to-day activities. The power of attitude is so great that Munroe likened it to a servant that can open the doors of life or close the gates of possibilities. Hence, he defined attitude as “the mind-set or mental conditioning that determines our interpretation of and response to our environments” (Munroe, 2005:31). By this definition, Munroe sees attitude, in the light of

Kierkegaard, as a natural product of the integration of our self-worth, self-concepts, self-

342 esteem and sense of value or significance. While genuine leaders think of how to give the ruled the best of their service, followers merely think of what they can get to enrich themselves from the leader. It is this difference in thinking that distinguishes leadership from followership. A leader‟s ability to involve others in his leadership drive is a further distinguishing mark between leadership and followership. Involving others means that leadership can be a shared experience rather than a sole experience. This is the point that

Ayoade (1985:189) makes when he quotes Aristotle‟s Politics, Book 111 “followers share in ruling and office-holding as well as being ruled because learning how to be governed is the foundation of the art of governance.” This means that leadership involves an inter-subjectivity process (to use Gabriel Marcel‟s term) between individuals (i.e. leaders) in a group

(followers) working towards a common goal. Therefore, it is on this understanding that we find the assertion made by Hoyt et al (2006:9-22) that the relations between leaders and followers are indispensable “to the understanding of leadership” instructive. The leadership and followership must have a common belief in whatever they set out to do; otherwise the essence of leadership stands defeated. The leader‟s role is as important as the follower‟s role in the business of guiding, directing, following, and executing.

As Gardner and Laski (1995:36), argued, leaders that have attained some stability in a situation did so because “... followers have chosen to heed the leader‟s influence thereby omitting dictators and others who rely upon force or solely upon authority as influence mechanism.” The success of any leader is dependent on the cordial relationship existing between the leader and his followers. Burns (1978b) had in his definition of transformational leadership noted that leaders and followers act as a system. Hence, the contemporary focus on

343 leadership as an influence relationship makes better understanding of followership more demanding and imperative. However, in the words of Kelly (1992) leadership understood as a relationship “is dependent upon followership.” And so, due to the relevant role played by the leadership and followership in bringing about effectiveness in the business of governance or in an organization‟s effectiveness, the leadership-followership relation, Smircich and Morgan

(1982 : 257-274) observe “is increasingly seen as central to understanding leadership.” This importance of followership to leadership understanding is further buttressed by the observation made by Chaleff (1995) that the followership or followers can enhance their leaders‟ abilities and strengthen or emphasize leaders‟ shortcomings.

In fact, Densten and Gray (2001:70-76) argue that while few research exists that places followers centre-stage, there is increasing agreement that followers and leaders are active partners. Consequently, Bean (208:64) defines followers “as those individuals and groups interacting with a leader‟s idea to achieve a purpose or goal that is aligned with the purpose or goal the leader pursues.” She explains further that the followership might imply enthusiasm, mimicry or fandom (i.e. fans). There is often an inference concerning the sequence and or direction of energy that implies that the leader takes action to move or motivate the followers rather than the followers acting with intent to move or motivate the leader. A follower may directly or indirectly interact with a leader to get certain things done and this involves face-to- face communication in small groups or communities through temporary or permanent hierarchical structures. On the other hand, indirect followership involves pursuing a goal or purpose with a leader by engaging that common purpose, but without interaction with the leader. Notwithstanding all that has been said about the leadership–followership relationship,

344 the indispensability of followership to leadership success was captured succinctly by Seanus

Justin Heaney, an Irish Poet and Nobel Laureate, in a poem entitled “Follower,” This Way.

Bean (Ibid.) quotes Heaney as saying that:

The poem expresses the feelings of a boy admiring and following his father, while at the same time being carried (as a burden) by his father. Yet this same boy, as an adult finds himself ahead (in the field) and sensing obligation to the father, as in a duty of care, or burden. The essence of shifting from the role of follower to the role of leaders carries with it a shift in terms of who bears the yoke of responsibility.

From this poem, leadership and followership is seen in terms of association or participation in

X.Y.Z in defining one another by inter-subjectively creating meaning in context, especially as regards assignments in a relationship. The implications of what we have said so far about the leadership-followership relationship is that there is much to gain when leaders treat their followers with a sense of dignity and honour and vice-versa. Leaders should never see their followers as any less human but as partners in the wheel of progress. It is this understanding that led scholars of leadership to stress on the leadership-followership relations. Consequently, we deduce without being fallacious that the level of a leader‟s commitment to meeting the needs of his followers determines to a significant degree his leadership responsiveness and effectiveness in any given setting. We will discuss this in detail in our next subtopic titled

“Leadership Responsiveness and Effectiveness.”

6.6 LEADERSHIP RESPONSIVENESS AND EFFECTIVENESS

Leadership is a phenomenon that is globally acclaimed to be the cause of most countries‟ underdevelopment. The world, as it were, has produced great leaders of note and yet the concepts of leadership responsiveness and effectiveness are as elusive as solving spiritual problems. Most underdeveloped countries of the world today blame their woes on poor leadership. Hence, the importance of responsive and effective leadership today requires no

345 advertisement because there is no part of the world where success can be achieved without commitment to the establishment of effective, responsive and responsible leadership to direct and pilot the affairs of that nation. The words “effectiveness and responsiveness” are used here to distinguish between a mere leader who is content with just bearing the title „leader‟ and a true leader. This means that we have leaders who are leaders by name and leaders who are leaders both in words and in action. The role that leadership plays in any human society is critical in that the leader is the one who shows the way and guides others through it. To this end, his inefficiency can affect the cohesion of the followers and the led. In most human societies today there is an increasing dearth of effective, responsive and responsible leadership because most leaders lack the necessary commitment to exercise their leadership mandate.

Considering the critical role leadership plays in any human society, ranging from the family to the political level, it is argued that without effective and responsive leadership at every level of responsibility “humanity suffers” (Manning & Curtis, 2003:59). Effectiveness and responsiveness come when the leader, having possessed the prerequisite knowledge and competence, personally gets him-or herself involved in the affairs of the people to make the desired difference.

The point we are making here is that leadership is an indispensable factor to any human society‟s progress and development. Thus, no matter how impressive and perfect that society‟s constitution may be and how well conceived her political and economic arrangements are, they will amount to nothing if the leadership is weak and unresponsive to human needs. However, a leader‟s effectiveness can only happen when certain things are met or put in place. This is because a leader has so many forces to contend with and, as such,

346 his/her effectiveness is hinged on certain key factors. One of such key factors is the kind of people he selects to work with. Another key factor is the leader himself. Therefore, the issue of responsive and effective leadership is of crucial importance to development. For instance, researches have shown that ineffective leadership “is the most important obstacle militating against meaningful development and national cohesion in Nigeria” (Diejomaoh, 1985:421).

Of course, considering the relationship that exists between leadership and followership, followers may be blamed as well. However, because a leader has the sole responsibility of defining the task and how it should be done, the leader is singled out for blame, especially in a presidential system of government. Hence, it is argued in this work that the most important task facing any leader is selecting the right person for the right job, that is, people with technical knowledge and good judgment. This means that with the right people on board the leadership is well positioned to fulfill its leadership responsibilities which, among other things, entails meeting the needs of the people. It is this meeting of human needs that makes leadership imperative. Human needs naturally include food, clothing, shelter, security, job security, a good health-care system, sound education and freedom of expression.

In addition, creating the right environment and being able to use resources judiciously whether natural or human to meet human needs, will be an added advantage. In fact, effectiveness of leadership involves creating an environment in which moral individuals can emerge to assume leadership responsibilities in public or private establishments. Effectiveness comes when the leadership is able to mobilize human capital on a consistent basis to actualize national objectives. In fact, effectiveness comes when leadership prepares itself to sacrifice and lead for the benefit of others. In the words Gonwalk (1985:119), an effective leader

347 should possess the following, among others: “A very clear vision of every aspect of developmental goals and objectives of the country; Enormous capacity for mental alertness and absorbing physical strain; Transparent honesty of purpose, good judgment and fair play; and Courage to take unpopular decisions for the common good of the country and its citizenry.” Effectiveness, as Adeniran (1985:158) observes, relates “to the quality of the particular output or service being delivered by bureaucrats. But it also means much more than this…” Effectiveness comes when a leader in his day-to-day administration of public office adopts a management style apart from his administrative responsibility since he/she is first and foremost an administrator. Between leading and managing, there exists a difference.

In the words of Eko (1985:123), “to administer means to serve while to manage means to control.” Therefore, a leader who wants to be effective must be able to marry leadership and management and the people together. That means he/she must be able to adopt administrative and management approaches to national issues of great importance. The leader must apply a pragmatic approach where necessary, provided it does not violate his ethical principles or objectives since pragmatism advocates practical relevance of ideas to real-life situations. In view of this, Eko says, there has to be a congruence between leadership and management. The relationship between them indicates that the leadership knows where to go and the management knows how to get there. Leadership on this basis is qualitative, idealistic and charismatic while management is analytical, quantitative and pragmatic. Like Eko, Kotter

(2002:48) also spots a distinction between leadership and management. To him, management is a set of processes designed to make something work over time, while leadership is fundamentally about change, the leadership creates a picture of the future or a vision or some

348 sense of strategy, a primary strategy for achieving that vision, of making sure enough people understand it, buy into it and then create the conditions that motivate them to act.

Therefore, to be responsive and effective a leader must bring “honesty, straight- forwardness, and clarity” (Lewis, 2002:71) to bear on duty. This is because leadership, as Lewis noted, is a privilege bestowed on an individual to guide and direct followers to achieve certain results.

This privilege, according to Lewis, can be taken away quickly under a true democratic setting if it is misused. He argued that “you can manage someone or a group of people, but you can‟t get to a real level of performance through leadership if it‟s not bestowed on you by people who believe in you” (Lewis, ibid). Thus, to Lewis the critical link here is trust. If a leader fails to establish that bond of trust and the leader is not always credible, then the leader will eventually lose the ability to lead. In addition to being honest, straightforwardness and clarity, we posit that a leader needs commitment to practised honesty, straightforwardness and clarity in the discharge of his/her duties. Therefore, what we can infer from Lewis‟ exposition is that a leader‟s responsiveness and effectiveness can only take place when the leader does not play politics with his vision. This means that the leader must shun vices such as ethnicity, nepotism, tribalism, greed, sentiments, etc. To this end, the leader must be a person who is well-intentioned and experienced, possessing a will of resoluteness and willing to sacrifice when and where necessary to achieve set objectives. Responsiveness comes when the leader knows what to do in any given situation and is able to respond appropriately and promptly without delay. Responsiveness and effectiveness comes when the leader is aware that leadership is not static but dynamic and, as such, adjusts his thinking and actions to match the direction of events the change has occasioned.

349 To Idiagbon (1985:430), leadership responsiveness and effectiveness could be achieved if only the leadership allows “active participation of the citizens in terms of suggestions and ideas as well as involvement in the formulation and execution of governmental policies.”

Idiagbon‟s assertion simply means that citizens‟ participation and involvement will ensure that both local and national interests are taken care of and this attitude will consequently strengthen the ability of the leadership to promote desirable and effective goals that will ultimately enhance human society. This being the case, it means that both the leader and the followers or subordinates and the led must agree to share a common dedication to the goals of national development. Therefore, leadership effectiveness and responsiveness take place when the leader possesses adequate knowledge of his or her citizens. Adenaike (1985:406) quotes

William A. Robinson as saying that a leader needs knowledge of his people in order to properly govern them:

Knowledge about the people is needed by the governed to a greater extent than ever before; knowledge about such things as age and sex groups and family structure, about infant mortality and the incidence of sickness and disability; about occupations and skills, about incomes and savings; about housing conditions and about a multitude of other matters required in connection with education, social insurance, housing, taxation and other services.

A leader‟s knowledge of her citizens‟ status is a leeway to rendering good services because it will enable him to frame his policies and programmes in such a way that all that the citizens need to live a fulfilled social life are factored into governmental policies. Thus, the leader‟s aim and purpose of having adequate knowledge of her citizens is not just to provide the citizens‟ basic needs but to strengthen and uplift them, to make people feel a sense of belonging and not pawns of the socio-political system. Gardner (1965) describes this role very aptly when he writes that “leaders can conceive and articulate goals that lift people out of their petty pre-occupations, carry them above the conflicts that tear a society apart, and drive them in pursuit of objectives worthy of their best effort.” From Gardner‟s position, leadership

350 effectiveness is a consequence of how the leader in question is able to add value to citizens‟ status in the society. We must also note that leadership responsiveness and effectiveness are commonly measured by the extent to which the leadership team is able to perform their constitutional tasks successfully and attain their set objectives.

Fundamentally, a leader‟s responsiveness and effectiveness is borne out of his/her developed vision and the strategy he puts in place to give meaning to the led through the provision of purposeful leadership and clarity of direction. This means that he needs to engage the right people in developing his national objectives. In addition, he must be able to stand up for what is important when it comes to basic principles or core values and create a clear and positive picture of the future of the people being led. Still, he should be able to motivate or cheer people around him to achieve the desired objectives. As a matter of necessity, he should be able to adjust plans and actions based on changing conditions, showing confidence in the abilities of others and showing concern as well for others. And more importantly, the leader should have an understanding of the forces and events that have shaped the history of human society in order to be able to meet current and future challenges. To this end, it is only the leader who embraces commitment to follow up his set objectives that will be responsive and effective. This means that the leadership-followership relationship is important in the achievement of a leader‟s vision and success. Consequently, we agree with Bennis (1989), a management guru, that:

Leaders must be clearly focused on a positive and future-focused goal or vision. Clarity of purpose providing guidance for making decisions about time and resources. Also required is consistency of effort. Passion and authority come to leaders who clearly know where they are going and have dedication to succeed. When leaders have passion and authority, others are inspired to follow.

351 Thus, it is argued that leadership effectiveness and responsiveness “is in direct proportion to strength of commitment; commitment comes from passion and passion comes from within the person. A person‟s passion for a task must be real and it must flow naturally” (Manning &

Curtis, 2003:45). A leader must in fact fulfill certain basic minimum requirements before he can assume the level of effectiveness and responsiveness. The conclusion reached in available leadership books and articles shows that leadership effectiveness depends largely on the leader, the follower and situation variables. This observation indicates that leadership effectiveness results when “the ideas and deeds of the leader match the needs and expectations of the followers in a particular situation” (Manning & Curtis, ibid. p.23). A leader does not lead in isolation; he/she is elected or selected to preside over human affairs and so, whatever he/she does must reflect the desires and aspirations of the led including the followers at every point in time in a particular situation. More importantly, effectiveness and responsiveness occur when leaders in the understanding of Olumese (1985:50), “radiate confidence, show ability to dominate circumstances when necessary to achieve given ends, keep up morale and exercise control through inspirations rather than command.” It can also occur when the leader in question knows very well that “no single leader has the knowledge and ability to effectively envision, plan and achieve social, political or organizational goals entirely on his or her own.

Modern leadership demands collaboration with many people, each of whom have special knowledge, skills and expertise that generate unique insights and perspectives” (Axelrod,

2008:3). Axelrod adds that, for a leader to function effectively the leader must allow collaborators to feel free to participate fully in the process, providing information, giving advice and, where necessary, expressing dissent (i.e., differs in opinion or withhold assent).

352 The question that arises is: How do we actually determine leadership or a leader‟s effectiveness and responsiveness?

Fundamentally, leadership or a leader‟s responsiveness and effectiveness can be determined essentially by how well a leader is able to effect his/her vision; maintain a consistent cordial relationship with the followers; delegate, support, coach and direct correctly from one particular task to another and harness the human and material resources at his disposal to enhance the quality of human life. From the foregoing, we can see clearly from concrete examples, that leadership responsiveness and effectiveness are judged by direct benefits for followers. However, Burns (1978b:425) noted that “the Litmus test of effective transforming leadership is significant change.” To Yarmolinsky (2006:45), leadership “is effective not for initiating change but for mediating the changes that are always occurring and for reconciling system change and stability. From Yarmolinsky‟s perspective, leadership effectiveness is dependent on the ability of a leader to actually reconcile and mediate changes as they occur so as to be able to stabilize the system of governance. In today‟s world, the political arrangement has become very crucial in the determination and the production of responsive and effective leadership due to the power of politics. This implies that followers have much to offer to enhance the effectiveness of leadership in order to enable a leader to fulfill the philosophical basis of leadership in contemporary society. This leads to our next sub-topic entitled “The

Philosophical basis of Leadership.”

353 6.7 PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OF LEADERSHIP

No leadership comes into place without a philosophical base. And so leadership begins with the discovery that people want to be led. Therefore, every genuine leader is driven by a philosophy. It can be an idealist or materialist philosophy. But the essential point of convergence, be it idealist-oriented or materialist-oriented, is the meeting of diverse human needs of all sorts. This means that human needs make leadership mandatory. Plato, for example, argues that leadership is the grund norm of social and political stability. Plato held that leadership was critical because it would provide a philosophical foundation for social and political stability in any human society. This philosophical basis of leadership stems from the fact that leadership is a specialized field that requires competence and skill. Specifically, skill is required from those who want to preside over human affairs. In other words, leadership is a daunting and challenging task that calls for a philosophical spirit. This philosophical spirit of leadership demands vision, courage and creative imagination. Consequently, Plato (1997:

178) writes:

Unless it happens that either philosophers require the kingly power in states, or that those who are now called kings and potentates be imbued with a sufficient measure of genuine philosophy – that is to say, unless political power and philosophy be united in the same person, most of those minds which at present .pursue one to the exclusion of the other being peremptorily debarred from either there will be no deliverance for the human race.

Plato‟s perspective shows that leadership demands some level of skills which are not equally distributed in men. A leader in the Platonic sense who possesses philosophic temperament should be able to appraise human nature with the intention of translating its essential values to normalize human society. The philosophical basis of leadership is being emphasized here to show that leadership is occasioned by the need to administer and manage the diverse constituents in a state with a view to equitably distributing the resources available in such a way that the people will be able to live a good life. No matter how visionary and committed a

354 leader is, if his/her goals run counter to the wishes and aspirations of the people, he/she will find it difficult to make headway.

The implication of Plato‟s emphasis is meant to drive the point home that leadership should not be entrusted to incompetent hands and, more importantly, people with questionable ethical and moral integrity. As critical as the issue of leadership was in Plato‟s day, so it is in our contemporary setting. In the light of this observation, a leader‟s philosophy of life is very fundamental to leadership if one takes into consideration the essence of leadership. Does the intending or prospective leader value human lives? That is, does he/she value security of lives and property, peace and the well-being of those he/she wants to lead? Or is he/she happy to see a change, i.e. positive change in the life of those he/she wants to lead? Or does he/she like to see people suffering and weeping? Or does he/she derive pleasure in instability and unrest?

A leader‟s philosophy of life plays a significant role in the way he/she responds to people‟s needs. For example, September 11, 2001 made the American people look up to the then president, George W. Bush, as a moral compass and they found comfort and inspiration in his leadership. A true leader with a vision and competence is revealed in moments of crisis and how he handles the situation is a further demonstration of how he understands leadership responsibilities. Leadership is a process of giving meaningful direction to collective efforts to achieve set goals. It is about articulating visions, combining values, and creating the environment within which set goals can be accomplished. Leaders are those who repeatedly make quality contributions to social order for the benefit of all through a sense of commitment. Human needs make leadership a must for every society. To Adair (2002: 28), leadership is “essentially about helping people to achieve a better life because leadership is a

355 form of service to one‟s fellow men and women.” Thus, what a nation becomes is a direct consequence of either qualitative leadership or lack of qualitative leadership. A modern theory of leadership has shown that a leader can make the difference in the art of governance when that leader understands the philosophical basis of leadership. The Greeks believe that good or quality leadership is essential for a democratic society. Hence, leadership to them is not a consequence of birth or social rank, but something that has to be taught and learnt. When we talk of the dearth of leadership skills, we are simply referring to the lack of requisite leadership knowledge needed by a leader to succeed in today‟s environment, such as the ability to energize or mobilize, or to motivate a group of people to take up certain social objectives and accomplish them. A nation‟s growth and development is hinged on the commitment of the quality of leadership she possesses or parades.

In fact, the philosophical basis of leadership is being stressed here to show that any discussion on leadership must be anchored on a philosophy. For example, as pointed out by Ciulla (2004:

302-327), a standard philosophical analysis of leadership would begin with questions about the definition of leadership. One might ask: Who is a leader? What does it mean to be a leader? Is being ethical a defining feature of leadership? Why leadership? All these ethical questions constitute the philosophical basis of leadership. A leader who wants to excel must first and foremost understand the philosophy behind leadership; otherwise, he or she will miss the essence of leadership. In essence, a philosophical understanding of leadership helps one attain perfect clarification of a concept like leadership itself. Outside the Platonic conception of the philosophical basis of leadership, Couto (2008: 114) posits that our need for leadership varies “with the purposes, from basic to sublime, for which humans organize…. Humans are

356 social beings who organize and work together for mutual benefit.” And that as a primate, humans have basic needs ranging “from food, nutrition, security, procreation and shelter….In meeting these needs, small groups of primates depend on the dominance of one member to keep order within the group to hold off their threats to the group (Couto, ibid. p. 115). Couto further explains that as humans expand, the size of their social units such as organizations, town, and nation states demand order to gain some level of security for the provision of basic needs, and seek some degree of comfort in terms of education, work, recreation, health and other professional services. In addition, humans also construct patterns of authority (i.e. leadership) that have less view of dominance and control. Thus, it can be argued that our need for leadership stems from the visible defense it provides us from the threat of social disorder.

This visible defense has been a long standing issue in the discussions of leadership.

Niccolo Machiavelli bases the conduct of an ideal prince on the need of humans for order in the society, yet in The Prince, Machiavelli (1961:50-85) espoused controversial qualities of leadership which are in sharp contrast and totally at odds with the natural or classical doctrine of leadership. For instance, he paired virtues and vices together in this order: generous/miser; compassion/cruel; courage/coward; faithful/faithless; loved/feared; guileless/crafty; benefactor/avaricious; chaste/dubious; courteous/proud; flexible/stubborn; religious/lascivious, etc. Machiavelli‟s theme was power: how to attain it and how to hold it.

To this end, he recommends that a ruler should engage the „vice‟ of miserliness instead of the virtue of generosity, the vice of cruelty instead of the virtue of compassion or mercy, the vice of being feared instead of the virtue of love, etc. For him, the ends justify the means – meaning that a leader can use unpleasant means, such as the use of repression, imprisonment,

357 torture, etc, to achieve selfish aims in the state. Insofar as it will make the ruler remain in power, it is allowed. Consequently, in The Prince Machiavelli (Ibid.) wrote: “It is far better to be feared than loved. The bond of love is one which men, wretched creatures that they are, break when it is to their advantage to do so; but fear is strengthened by a dread of punishment which is always effective.” By virtue of this declaration, Machiavelli had alienated morality from politics in contrast to earlier treatises that assumed a prince needed above all, to be good, to pursue virtue in the traditional sense. Machiavelli‟s assertion that he was presenting politics as it really is false because politics is not a dirty game as he and many other scholars have claimed. Politics is about “improving the quality of human life” (Bamikole, 2007:153). In fact, according to Adair (2002:185), a strong thread of egalitarianism firmly supports the view that:

Leadership should be given to those who are fit to exercise it by their character, knowledge and skill. The classical virtue of justice, prudence, temperance and fortitude were widely seen to be the foundations of such leadership, but other attributes – notably courtesy – were also regarded as important. A leader is expected to have integrity and gentleness as well as strength - two qualities strikingly absent in Machiavelli‟s rival portrait of the effective and powerful ruler.

Machiavelli‟s position runs counter to the philosophical basis of leadership which requires a leader to be decisive, flexible, liberal, and to be ready to examine all sides of an issue before acting upon them so as to be able to promote the well-being of the people.

Plato‟s philosopher-king‟s major task was to preserve the myth of inherent differences among humans and hence the reorganization of caste inequality. Interestingly, Aristotle (1981),

Plato‟s most famous pupil, similarly uses concern for followers as a defining feature of leadership. For Aristotle, the individual who rules for his own interest is no leader at all, he is a tyrant. Hierarchy or inequality, at the time Plato wrote, featured prominently in the discourse

358 on leadership. As Price (2008: 127) noted, quite understandably, leadership implies a power differential between leaders and followers. Thus, the job of the philosopher is to determine whether these inequalities are justified. To this end, we find Plato‟s Republic instrumental and instructive, because the work is a defense of the claim that there is a naturally superior class of individuals who are best suited to ruling. These philosopher-kings, as Plato calls them, are relevantly different from other individuals in the state, especially with respect to knowledge.

In fact, so close was the connection between knowledge and leadership for Plato that a case can be established that his Academy was a model for modern–day schools and institutions of leadership. To this end, Price (2004: 1195-1199) writes:

It is also worth noting that Plato had significant opportunities for the real world application of his ideas on leadership in his work with Dionysius I and Dionysius II. His efforts in both cases, as it turns out were unsuccessful. Aristotle, who famously tutored Alexander the great, had similar opportunities. At the very least, we can say that the ancient Greek philosophy is the intellectual ancestor of trait theories of leadership in the social science.

In the realm of equality no one has sufficient power to resolve conflicts. As a result, the state of nature is a war of every man against every man. Society needs an all-powerful leader, one who, according to Thomas Hobbes and Friedrich Nietzsche, is not subject to the rules and who can do no wrong, to put an end to conflict. Hence, Barrett (1998:240), equating modern- day societies as Hobbesian in nature, says “there got to be the boss.” It can be deduced that the need for leadership in human societies stems from the need to ensure security of lives and properties as well as orderliness. Though John Locke, also an English Philosopher, offers a contractarian justification of leadership, his position supremely makes the leader much more accountable to the people. Existentially, the philosophical basis of leadership is anchored on the premises that a leader in leadership responsibility should not pursue a programme detrimental to a shared value within the ambit of his or her society. By the various clarifications of leadership, we understand that it is the leader‟s responsibility to set goals and

359 create the enabling environment and structures through which those goals are to be realized with the aid of the followers. In addition, we have also come to realize that it is equally important that the leader him/herself must be a person with a philosophical spirit to know that he or she cannot pursue programmes that are not people-oriented. To this end, we can say that social existence makes leadership imperative since leadership derive its meaningfulness only in a social framework.

Socrates seems to have captured the philosophical basis of leadership clearly when he argues in Plato‟s Republic (1992) that a „true leader‟ looks out for the interest of followers and not the self-interest of the leader. He likens leadership to a craft because a craft is complete and self-sufficient. He argues that leadership must focus its attention on the object of the craft: followers. Ironically, Socrates‟ position has been seriously undermined in the sense that no leader of our time is prepared to make that sacrifice which genuine leadership entails. It is unfortunate today that most leaders of the contemporary setting have lost sense of the philosophical basis of leadership to become self-centered. Thus, an existential enquiry into the essence of leadership will reveal that most leaders have totally lost sight of the purpose of leadership and this perhaps is one of the many reasons why corrupt leaders litter the corridors of power in most human societies. The philosophical basis of leadership is actually about the moral justification of leadership. Therefore, from a moral point of view Aristotle was aptly correct when he stated, as cited by Stumpf (1977:111), a state comes into existence “for the sake of life, it continues to exist for the sake of the good life.” This means that leaders are expected to provide “a convenient, comfortable and pleasant environment in which people may live and work” (Anyanwu, 1985:237), and where people are free to do what they are

360 constitutionally empowered to do without undue interference. In other words, the state exists for the sake of man‟s moral and intellectual fulfillment. It also means that good leadership is not just about occupying an executive position, but also about fulfilling leadership responsibilities which entail the provision of the social goods (i.e. common goods) that strengthen human flourishing, societal growth and development. Fundamentally, leaders have the responsibility of mobilizing all the available resources, whether natural or human, to enrich the quality of life and societal development. Therefore, before a leader can properly articulate the philosophical basis of leadership and be able to impact on the lives of the people, he or she must be a person of commitment with a strong ethical and moral background. This means that ethics, morality and politics must go together, contrary to

Machiavelli‟s position. Commitment and ethics must have a strong bearing on the leader for him/her to function responsively, responsibly and effectively. We shall discuss this relationship in our next sub-topic titled “Relationship between Commitment, Ethics and

Leadership.” And to it, we now turn.

6.8 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COMMITMENT, ETHICS AND LEADERSHIP

Most affluent societies are where they are today because of the upright commitment of their political leaders to societal norms. The point is made to show that commitment, ethics and leadership are structurally intertwined or interconnected. Thus, the task before this research is to provide a solid ground to show that commitment is necessary for the attainment and sustenance of a responsive and responsible leadership in the political arena. The question of what is commitment, ethics and leadership has been posed and discussed in chapters three pages 119-122 (for ethics), chapter four pages 180-201 (for commitment), and chapter six

361 pages 291-326 (for leadership) respectively. As such, they need not be over-flogged but we shall make emphasis where necessary. The crucial role played by leaders in all spheres of human society towards improving the quality of human lives makes ethics and commitment more demanding for leaders because political leadership is essentially a moral and intellectual activity. According to Awolowo (1996:159), leadership entails “tolerance, breadth of outlook, intellectual comprehension, hardwork, selfless devotion, statesmanship, sense of mission….”

From the above quotation, it is obvious that only the person of ethical orientation with a sense of commitment can show tolerance and demonstrate hardwork and selfless devotion. Ethics is moral philosophy. It is concerned “with duty and obligations either to oneself or to others. It is about values and standards of behaviour, and determinants of social actions” (Oso,

1999:105). This means that ethics is of great concern to humanity because human beings are by nature rational. This rational nature of the human person makes ethical decisions possible.

Ethical decisions are important in all areas of life. As human beings, we are constantly making decisions about what is the best or right action to take in solving a particular problem. As it concerns leadership, it provides leaders a foundation on which to base their judgement and decisions. A leader, for example, is confronted with so many ethical questions in terms of policies and programmes that have to do with human life in a given setting. These ethical questions include which policy will best bring about enhancement of human life? As they policies X, Y, Z. or policies A, B, C, or D? What would be the people‟s reaction if policies A, B,

C, or D are chosen in place of policies X, Y, Z? In day-to-day activities leaders face a number of dilemmas because of the position they occupy in the society.

362 Fundamentally, a leader is expected to carry out ethically correct actions that will enhance the quality of human life and societal development. Therefore, a leader with good morals and religious mind-set will not only lead aright, but will bring about good and godly leadership to bear in governance. In view of this fact, it becomes mandatory that leaders must understand the “is” and “ought” of ethics or morality; how it affects leadership and why it is important to them. Quite aptly, ethics is the branch of philosophy concerned with “moral judgement”

(Titus & Keeton, 1966:8). Moral judgements are judgements about what is right, wrong, good, bad, just, unjust, fair, unfair, etc. The ethical leader is “someone who does the right thing, the right way, for the right reason” (Ciulla, 2008:59). This right way and this right reason are basic to leadership because not all leaders employ good means to arrive at good ends.

Machiavelli (1991) is best known for arguing that “the ends of a leader‟s actions justify the means.” In today‟s world, contemporary leaders need ethical knowledge to nurture democratic values. This is why we agree with the assertion made by Condoleezza Rice (2006:4) that:

Democracy only achieves lasting prosperity when the rule of law is sanctified and when government is transparent and accountable to its people. ...that every man, woman and child deserve to be governed with the highest level of public integrity so that they can realize their full potential. Citizens deserve accountability and principled responsibility from their leader.”

Knowledge of ethics is basic to quality leadership because it enables a leader to weigh the consequences of his/her actions. Ethics forces the leader to commitment, to making thoughtful decisions among alternatives. It also forces the leader to consider his/her responsibility to the followers and the society at large. Ethical standards in leadership rest on the issue of social responsibility. The idea of social responsibility means that leaders are answerable for their conduct and actions. It provides some form of justification for an action when it appears to violate some moral principles. Ethics helps ensure that the leader‟s duty or obligation to advocate the followers‟ interest is carried out. The issue of ethics also puts a lot on the leader

363 whose moral integrity as a leader is on the line. Finally, ethics provides the leader with the basic principles on which to base his/her judgement and decision.

Thus, the connection between commitment, ethics and leadership cannot be overstated because the moment the word “ethics” is mentioned; we are directly or indirectly talking about value. A true leader must operate by values without which he or she ends up becoming a dictator, as history has shown. Values have been defined as “the highest ethical parameters, standards and criteria through which individuals, groups and societies order their goals, determine their choices and judge their conduct as these pertain to fundamental aspects of life, be they in the sphere of personal or public affairs” (Tukur, 1999:19). For Azenabor (1999:

170), values are “preferences, what one cherishes most.” A value is a disposition, just like an attitude, but is more fundamental than an attitude and is often latent in it. To Rokeach

(1968:124), values are “abstract ideas, positive or negative, not tied to any specific attitude, object or situation, representing a person‟s belief about ideal models of conduct and ideal terminal goals. A person‟s values may be consciously conceived or unconsciously held and must be inferred from what a person says or does.” A leader‟s sense of values is crucial to his leadership style because it is the values he cherishes that will determine how he govern the people and exercise his leadership responsibilities.

Similarly, Beier and Rescher (1971:56) see value “as a favourable attitude which a person has towards the realization of a certain state of affair.” In fact, values guide action and, as such, they are standards for evaluating actions. For example, the values which a politician holds have a substantially determining influence on the politician‟s political norms and his/her

364 content of thinking. This means that a leader‟s knowledge of ethics is critical, especially in the area of politics. Politics from the ages has been the in-thing that touches every aspect of human life. For instance, Aristotle (1973:6) contends that we “are political creatures, inhabiting a world of shared problems and possibilities. And that to try to remove ourselves from politics would be to remove ourselves from the world of our common humanity.” This means that politics permeate human life and therefore, all dimensions of human society are determined by the political decisions of the leadership. Politics is about how we make rules that govern our common life. Therefore, if a leader does not look at the ethical defining feature of leadership, he or she may make rules that run contrary to the philosophical basis of leadership thereby endangering the fundamental purpose of leadership, which is that of enhancing the quality of human life through the provision of social amenities within an enabling environment. In all human institutions, value-based leaders are needed to enhance the quality of human life. Justice, for instance, is a value and it is within the purview of ethics that it has meaning. It is fundamental to leadership because, as an ethical virtue, it helps the leader to execute fair judgement on issues that have to do with human life.

Thus, Copleston, (1962:192) quotes St. Augustine as saying that “remove justice and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale.” Augustine‟s assertion shows that justice is an essential ingredient to good leadership. Justice is the antidote to instability and so, it is the desire of any nation to be governed by just men through just acts. A leader who promotes the value of justice will recognize that all people are equal before the law and must be treated as such. Tukur (1999:22) quotes Muhammed Bello and Shehu Usman as saying:

365 A kingdom can endure with unbelief but not with injustice. Victory is gained through justice and defeat comes through injustice. Policies are of two kinds: an unjust and a just one which takes privileges away from the unjust and defers the evil doers. Justice and mercy safeguard the kingdom. The basis for the well-being of the world is justice.

It means that a leader who does not promote the value of justice in leadership, operate as a gang of criminals on a large scale. Of course, we know ethics has to do with honesty and integrity. As Omoregbe (1993:127) puts it: “remove honesty and public accountability, and what are governments but gangs of thieves and treasury looters?” Hence, we agree with

Zaleznik (1966) that leadership is “meaningless without values.” In the Republic, Plato tells the story of the magical ring of a shepherd named Gyges. The story is important because it raises the question: who is happier, the just person who follows moral rules, or the unjust person who gets away with injustice? Is justice good only because of the consequences of being just (people will not imprison you) or is justice something good in itself? If you could have evaded all bad consequences for behaving unjustly, would you behave unjustly? The story of the magical rule of the shepherd Gyges goes thus as told by Plato (1974:31-32):

Even those who practise justice do so against their will because they lack the power to do wrong….The story is that he (Gyges) was a shepherd in the service of the ruler of Lydia. There was a violent rainstorm and an earthquake which broke open the ground and created a chasm at the place where he was tending sheep. Seeing this and marveling, he went down into it…he…Caught sight of a corpse which seemed of more than human statute, wearing nothing but a ring of gold on its finger. The ring the shepherd put on and came out. He arrived at the usual monthly meeting which reported to the king on the state of the flocks, wearing the ring. As he was sitting among the others he happened to twist the hoop of the ring towards himself, to the inside of his hand, and as he did this he became invisible to those sitting near him and they went on talking as if he had gone. He marveled at this and fingering the ring, he turned the hoop outwards again and became visible. Perceiving this he tested whether the ring had this power and so it happened: if he turned the hoop inwards he became invisible but was visible when he turned it outwards. When he realized this, he at once committed adultery with the king‟s wife, attacked the king with her help, killed him and took over the kingdom.

Making himself invisible, Gyges becomes someone who is above the law and the reach of society since he cannot be caught or punished. He can get away with anything he wants to do.

However, this story raises the question: would you be moral if no one were watching?

Leadership is like having the ring of Gyges. The more power leaders have, the greater their

366 responsibility for what they do and do not do because power is the most clear distinguishing characteristic of leader-follower relations. And without upright commitment to checks and balances, leaders can do what they want and conceal what they do since there are no leaders without followers. This means that a committed ethical leader is required at every level of leadership to promote the moral values of leadership that enhance the quality of human life in any human society. Therefore, the relationship between what leaders are and what they should be is the main objective of studying leadership ethics and why we are discussing the relationship between commitment, ethics and leadership in this work.

Thus, in view of the above quotation and the moral nature of leadership, we agree with the social psychologist Kohlberg (1963:11-33) that indeed a leader‟s level of morality is one of the most important dimensions of leadership that determine whether a leader does the right thing regardless of what the people will say. Consequently, Manning and Curtis (2003:88) asked: regardless of the code of ethics a society teaches and regardless of one‟s personal values, on what basis does the individual make ethical decisions? What motive, goal or frame of reference does the person bring to moral dilemmas? All these questions are what inform

Kohlberg‟s stages and levels of moral development. Below is the table showing levels and stages of moral development, according to Kohlberg (1981:13-16):

Level Of Moral Development Stages of Moral Development Example of Moral Reasoning At Each Stage LEVEL I Stage 1 Pre-conventional morality. The At this stage physical I won‟t hit him because he may individual is aware of cultural consequences determine moral hit me. prescriptions of right and wrong behaviour. Avoidance of behaviour. Response is based on two punishment and deference to concerns: will I be harmed power are characteristics of this (punishment)? Will I be helped stage. I will help her because she may (pleasure)? Stage 2 help me in return. Individual needs are the primary motives operating at this stage and personal pleasure dictates the

367 rightness or wrongness of behaviour. Stage 3 LEVEL II The approval of others is the I will go along with you because Conventional morality. Morality is major determinant of behaviour I want you to like me. characterized by group conformity and at this stage, and the good person allegiance to authority. The individual is viewed as the one who acts in order to meet the expectations of satisfies family, friends and others and to please those in charge. associates. I will comply with the Stage 4 order because it is wrong Compliance with authority and to disobey. upholding social order are primary ethical concerns at this state. Right conduct is doing one‟s duty, as defined by those in authority position LEVEL III Stage 5 Post-conventional morality. This is the Social ethics are based on most advanced level of moral rational analysis, community development. At this level the individual discussion and mutual consent. Although I disagree with his is concerned with right and wrong There is tolerance for individual views, I will uphold his right to conduct over and above self-interest, views, but when there is conflict have them. apart from the views of others and between individual and group without regard to authority figures. interests, the majority rules. This Ethical judgements are based on self stage represents the “official” defined moral principles. morality of the U.S. constitution. Stage 6 At this stage, what is right and good is viewed as a matter of There is no external force that individual conscience, free can compel me to do an act that I choice, and personal consider morally wrong. responsibility for the consequences. Morality is seen as superseding the majority view or the perception of authority; rather, it is based on personal conviction.

The above table shows the stages of humans‟ moral development and Kohlberg‟s categorization resembles Kierkegaard‟s three stages of human existence where an individual is confronted with aesthetic, ethical and religious values. Kohlberg, like Kierkegaard, explains that each person makes ethical decisions according to three levels of moral development: pre- conventional, conventional and post-conventional. According to him, each of us is to evaluate or judge our own ethics in these stages. To this end, he asks: at what level would you want our leaders to behave? Different people in all walks of life go through the six stages of moral

368 development at different rates and some people he opines never reach the principled morality of stages 5. Consequently, he writes:

Individuals who remain at lower levels of morality experience arrested development integrity. The egocentric orientation of stages 1 and 2 is most characteristic of pre-adolescent children, whereas the community-oriented morality of stages 3 and 4 is common in teenagers and most adults. The self-direction and high principles of stages 5 and 6 are characteristic of only 20 percent of adult population, with only 5 to 10 percent of the population operating consistently at stage 6 (Kohlberg ,1971:86-88).

The overall import of Kohlberg‟s stages and levels of moral development is that our conduct and actions are influenced to a great extent by one‟s level of morality. Of course, a leader is expected to conduct his affairs at stage 5 and 6. By virtue of his calling, a leader should be above board in maintaining a high principle in terms of ethical conduct in decision-making.

This is why people without a strong moral background should not be voted or elected, nominated or selected into offices of leadership.

Thus, our purpose for stressing the relationship between commitment, ethics and leadership is meant to show that commitment, ethics, and morality cannot be divorced from leadership. A leader, for instance, needs commitment to uphold leadership qualities, especially integrity.

Integrity implies strict adherence to moral standards, especially truth and goodness that lies outside oneself. In the words of Kierkegaard (1962c:99), “to promise is honourable, but to keep a promise is onerous.” It is easy for any leader without a moral background to tell the electorate that if they put him/her in power, he/she will do X.Y.Z. But it is not so easy, once he/she gets the votes, for him/her to fulfill his/her promises. However, a leader with a sense of commitment and ethical background will not break a promise because it takes commitment to honour one‟s promise. This confirms the close link between commitment, ethics and

369 leadership. Ethics and commitment constitute the spirit and soul of responsive and effective leadership. The ability to maintain the flame of just actions is made possible by commitment.

6.10 SUMMARY

In this chapter, quite a number of things about leadership were discussed. We dealt with various theories and approaches to leadership. From our inquiry, we discovered that leadership is central and crucial to the political, economic and social development of any human society. Also, from our inquiry, we discovered that no universal mode of leadership exists anywhere in the world because the nature of people and situation prevalent at the time determines the type of leadership style a leader adopts. In addition, and taking into consideration the characteristics and qualities of leadership, we discovered that knowledge of oneself is critical and that authority and power are equally important to leadership success.

We equally discovered that creativity is vital to leadership because a leader must be able to consistently generate novel responses to all sorts of issue, problems, situations and challenges affecting the people under his purview in a given social setting. In the same vein, integrity, courage, vision, energy, care, toughness, trust, honesty, etc, are vital qualities a leader needs to execute his leadership responsibilities. Furthermore, our inquiry into the concept of leadership also reveals that the leadership and followership relationship should not be understood in terms of a master-servant relationship because leadership success or failure is built around cooperation from the followers and, as such, they should be seen as partners in progress.

370 Similarly, from our inquiry we discovered that leadership effectiveness and responsiveness can be attained when a leader is able to select and appoint the right people, is able to mobilize human capital on a consistent basis to actualize national objectives; brings honesty, straightforwardness and commitment to bear on his activities, allows active participation of the citizens in terms of suggestion of ideas and involvement in the day-to-day running of the government, communicates effectively and has the ability to cultivate good cordial relationships with the followers. Furthermore, from our inquiry, we discovered that the philosophy behind any leadership is hinged on the pivotal role it plays in acting as a safeguard for social and political stability in any human society. Also from our inquiry, we discovered that an umbilical cord exists between ethics, commitment and leadership and that a leader is often confronted in his or her day-to-day activities with so many ethical questions that affect human life in a given social setting. In fact, commitment becomes a vital ingredient in leadership because political undertakings are “intrinsically risky” (cf. Unah, 2002b:50). This is where commitment becomes imperative because a leader needs commitment to uphold integrity and take difficult upright decisions in moments of intense pressure. To this end, the question is: How can we use the thesis of this work, which is the problem of “commitment” to address the political leadership problem in Nigeria? This question will be dealt with in concrete terms in the succeeding and concluding chapter entitled “Commitment in

Kierkegaard‟s Philosophy: Implications for political Leadership in Nigeria.

371 CHAPTER SEVEN

COMMITMENT IN KIERKEGAARD’S PHILOSOPHY: IMPLICATIONS FOR POLITICAL LEADERSHIP IN NIGERIA

7.0 INTRODUCTION

There is no doubt that the analysis and issues raised about the salient and inherent benefits of commitment have implications for political leadership in Nigeria and any society. Given the role of political leadership, if leaders embrace upright commitment to do their jobs, the current leadership problem in the political arena will be reduced to a minimal level.

Commitment will ensure that political leaders are focused, devoted, risk, sacrificed, etc, to meet people‟s needs when and where necessary. In this final chapter, we examine the applicability of our thesis on society. It is our conviction that the thesis can be applied to any society that has leadership problems, especially political leadership, which we espoused in

Chapter Five. This explains why we have chosen to leave the concept open. But we make the point clear here that even though our focus is on any society whatsoever, the work was actually inspired by the circumstances in our immediate Nigerian environment to show the significance or usefulness of our thesis. To begin with, in our exposition of leadership in

Chapter Five, many societies are far from development today because they are bedeviled by the absence of responsive and responsible leadership at the political level. This leadership crises cuts across the family, social, political, organization, and religious spheres of human life.

The emergence of democracy in the Fourth Republic in Nigeria has further exposed the problem of commitment in political leadership to qualitative and positive leadership. This is

372 also true with societies with similar problems. What should be done to remedy the situation?

Can Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment bring about the realization of a responsive and responsible leadership in contemporary society, especially Nigeria? These questions have been implicitly answered in chapters four and five of this work, but we need to show the application and implications of our thesis to specific areas of crisis in Nigerian society. In

Nigeria, this problem is located in political leadership. However, since our concern in the work is the possibility of attaining a responsive and responsible leadership through the adoption of Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment, it is important for us to point out some obvious implications of the said theory with a view to determining its applicability. Like any other theory, Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment had wide range implications in the area of attaining a responsive and responsible leadership. Attempts to respond to these questions, therefore, constitute the focus of this chapter.

Consequently, in this last chapter, our main objective is to use Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment to tackle the existential problem in political leadership in Nigeria, where the commitment to manage and distribute resources equitably to the diverse constituents in the society in terms of human and natural resources for development is largely lacking. The research is interested principally in applying Kierkegaardian commitment to political leadership where improvement in form of revolution is required. This is because political leadership, by nature has the ability to make or mar any society or nation‟s development and growth. It is hoped that the adoption and application of Kierkegaardian commitment can improve a leader‟s response to duty for the benefit of the masses. The adoption and application of Kierkegaardian commitment will help Nigerian leadership pursue people-

373 oriented programmes across board rather than in only a few areas. It will break the jinx of the lukewarm attitude exhibited by people in authority towards issues of national importance. It is clear from our findings that the contemporary challenge of leadership in Nigeria‟s political environment and any other part of the world will not subside until we have leaders with the resolve to serve the people‟s interest occupying the position of leadership.

In Nigeria, for instance, since her independence there has been an absence of qualitative and positive leadership that is crucial for development. This lack of qualitative and positive leadership is hinged on the lack of commitment by past and present leadership to uphold and promote leadership values that guarantee responsive and responsible leadership. This inability to bring upright commitment to bear in leadership is largely responsible for the political leadership lethargy bedeviling the Nigerian state. Many of the coups that took place in

Nigeria between 1966–1976 and 1983-1999 were blamed on bad, poor, and corrupt leadership. Justifying this position, Tunde Idiagbon, in the wake of the army take-over in

December 31, 1983 said that the incompetent and purposeless leadership unleashed on the nation by a group of insensitive political leaders led to the change of government. By

“insensitive political leaders” Idiagbon meant leaders who had no compassion for the people over whose affairs they presided. He meant leaders who turned deaf ears to the yearnings and aspirations of their followers. It will interest us to know that other coups that took place before that date were blamed on corrupt leadership, which is a consequence of bad leadership. In his defense of the 1983 coup, Idiagbon had argued that the past civilian leaders from independence failed to provide the right type of leadership that was the bedrock of good governance. He said the essentials of good government had been enunciated in the provisions

374 of the suspended 1979 Constitution, particularly Chapter II, which specified the fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy. Consequently, he noted:

The inability and unwillingness on the part of the leadership in the last regime to deal with the societal malaise is as confounding as it is untenable. The fact remains that leadership is not a beauty or popularity contest as it requires a lot of responsibilities which make it inevitable for a purposeful leadership to take both pleasant and unpleasant decisions in pursuing societal goals in efforts to advance the nation further (Idiagbon, 1985:428).

Unfortunately, this societal malaise identified over twenty-five years ago still remains unchecked and has therefore developed into a full-blown monster threatening the very foundation upon which the Nigerian state is standing. Otherwise, how does one explain or justify the current poverty level with galloping unemployment of monumental magnitude in

Nigeria?

In this chapter, we are going to see how Kierkegaard‟s notion of ethical commitment can help improve the Nigeria society politically. To this end, we are going to look at the three tiers of government- federal, state and local governments because the Nigerian state operates a presidential system of government where commitment, not just commitment but right commitment, not just right commitment but commitment properly channelled and directed, is lacking and how the application and adoption of the thesis of this research can improve those areas in question and bring about responsive and responsible political leadership that will positively affect other sectors of leadership like the family, the church, the organization, etc.

This is more so because in the Nigerian context, our leader talks much about commitment objectively without living it in the Kierkegaardian sense. This makes them to be blind and unresponsive to the realities on ground, that is, to the existential predicament of real human beings in the society. This means that Nigerian political leaders merely talk about commitment in a non-existential sense, which is why they have not been able to relate it

375 concretely, that is, practically to solve the country‟s myriads of problems, especially political problems to which are tied other social challenges like religious violence, insecurity, ethnicity, tribalism, etc. Commitment is a virtue which means power in action. It is only the right or genuine commitment to purposeful leadership that can transform the Nigerian nation and help bring about improvement in not only the quality of life lived, but also in the socio–economic and political stability of her country. “Right” or “Genuine” refers to a commitment that is freely chosen and binding taking into consideration the fact that the people deserve the best of form of leadership from their leaders. In Nigeria, starting from the current democratic experience which began in 1999 to date, the various leaders from President Obasanjo to

Jonathan have tried to demonstrate some sense of commitment but not in the Kierkegaardian sense that entails risk and sacrifice, hence we are still where we are in resolving the major intractable social, religious, ethnic, political and economic problems bedeviling the Nigerian state since independence. The Kierkegaarddian notion of commitment is upright (ethical) and pious (religious). It is ethical because its principles are binding and religious because a supernatural being (God) is obeyed. Commitment without the enabling environment may prove futile, hence the term “existential” commitment. One need commitment to thread difficult terrains like political leadership. It is a living or concrete commitment based on one‟s capacity to choose a particular profession and be committed to it while considering the interests of others. In Nigeria, we have political hawks, godfathers, moneybags, political contractors, etc. All these can make ordinary commitment that lacks “existential” grounding difficult and useless. Therefore, what we have learnt from Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment is his “existential” emphasis which to us is a very good positive dimension of his philosophy. We shall now look at the implications for political leadership in Nigeria.

376 7.1 FOR POLITICAL LEADERSHIP

Under the implications for political leadership in Nigeria, we shall be looking at political leadership at both the federal, state, and local levels concurrently since Nigeria operates a presidential system of government where administrative (i.e. political) power is shared among three arms of government. Leadership is based on leading qualities of a person. The qualities are acquired by his background and experiences. A leader is a person of integrity.

Integrity means strict adherence to moral standards. When leadership is bad it affects all other structures of governance. Political leadership is both an art and a vocation. As an art, it is practical; it is something you do for people to see in service while as a vocation, it is a career whereby those who have chosen it are expected to learn the principles, skills and standards associated with it. To Weber (1970:95), a politician to whom politics is a true vocation must

“stand for something. To take a stand to be passionate - ira a stadium- is the politician‟s element, and above all the element of the political leader.” Fundamentally, political leadership is “a process by which a group of persons (leaders) serve other persons

(followers)” (Bamikole, 2007:152). As an art form, there are certain things that are expected of leaders in order to justify their leadership. Such expectations are connected to the purpose of politics. Politics is about improving the quality of human life (Bamikole, ibid. p.153).

Leadership, therefore, means putting in place by a person or groups of persons those things that improve the quality of human life in society. But before a leader can improve the quality of human life in any social setting, he/she must be familiar with the existential predicament of the human person, which suggests that politics must have its grounding in existentialism. This means that it is only when a leader fully understands the existential predicament of the human person that he/she would be able to know what is required to satisfy the needs. Needs are what

377 are required or necessary for human beings to live or survive. Different aspects of human life exist: physical, psychological and spiritual. Human life is greatly enhanced or strengthened when there is cordial working of these three aspects. Political leadership is a normative enterprise. It is normative in the sense that it is the establishment of a guiding standard or set of rules. Therefore, leadership is not only about directing persons along the line of action that cannot satisfy egoistic ends; rather, it is about engaging persons in the means of fulfilling the purpose of their existence. This engagement involves the principle that persons are ends in themselves and that they should be treated as such. A situation where persons are used as mere means to ends - for instance, as political thugs to harm opponents in order to attain political positions is disruptive of human ends and politics.

According to Bamikole (2007:153), political leadership entails the “ability of persons

(leaders) to understand this notion of a person and what his/her needs are and be familiar with the kind of actions and institutions and the willingness to put these things in place for the improvement of human life in an equitable manner.” He stresses that the improvement of the quality of human life is based on some universal needs that are common to all human beings but which culture can interpret differently. Thus, it has been held that human needs include material things like food, clothing and shelter and psychological ones like freedom, equality and security. Human life will be greatly improved when these two types of needs are balanced with one another. Political leaders, in the strict sense of the term, will be persons who possesses objectivity and subjectivity and who are willing to use these attributes for the improvement of the lives of the persons they lead. The notion of subjectivity and objectivity in leadership will inform a leader‟s best judgement on the proper policies and programmes to

378 generate for the benefit of the people. Kierkegaard had argued for objective correlates to subjectivity. Wild (1962:34) quotes Kierkegaard as saying that “the majority of men,” are subjective towards themselves and objective towards all others, terribly objective sometimes, but the real task is to be objective towards oneself, and subjective towards all others.” The implication of Kierkegaard‟s assertion is that, a political leader who wants to truly make the desired impact in people‟s life must be subjective towards the people and be objective towards him/herself. This means putting him/herself in the shoes of others, feeling their pains or pleasures and so on. This is the only way the leader can make policies and programmes that are compatible with the values and norms of the society. This effort requires leaders to be good persons of integrity to the core. A political leader is a person who is articulate at making promises and is also willing to fulfill them when there is commitment to integrity.

On the other hand, followers are also required to possess a quizzical mentality, and they should be able to subject their leaders to task in situations where such leaders renege on their promises. A situation where political leaders in Nigeria use their influences to cause division for their selfish ends is not acceptable as good politics. A political leader should uphold the value of cooperation in politics and therefore should not use it to divide the people. He/she should possess subjectivity and objectivity to the effect that the leader should know that it is not right to corruptly enrich him/herself with the resources of the people entrusted in his/her care as the leader of the people. Here, Bamikole further explains that corrupt enrichment is a defeat of the purpose/existence of politics, that when the treasury is corruptly emptied, there is going to be a lack of resources to improve the quality of human life in the society. Therefore, according to him, a good leader is known by his/her ability to:

379 Bring subjectivity and objectivity to bear in the discharge of leadership duties. It means such a leader has functioned properly in accordance to his/her existence. This means that political leaders and political institutions should be evaluated by the degree to which they are able to combine both the external and internal virtues that make up the human person and the willingness to use these virtues for the improvement of self, others and the political community (Bamikole, 2007: 156).

In today‟s world, politics seems to be the most dominant and powerful tool influencing all other aspects of human life. In the words of Onyekpe (1998), politics is “the definite way in which the allocation and distribution of responsibilities, functions, and resources are organized and managed. It also means the management of the resources and wealth of the whole society.” For Awolowo (1981:177-178), politics is “the science or the art of the management of public affairs.” For him, politics as a science is theoretical while as an art, it is practical. A leader needs both the theoretical and practical knowledge of politics to be able to do his/her duties effectively and successfully. But it is practical politics or politics as an activity. The centre for politics is the struggle for the control of power. Awolowo saw power as “…the ability to impose your will on other human beings, and to inflict injury on them, if they refuse to submit” (Awolowo, 1981:94). To Awolowo (1968:92), “the love of power is the origin and source of politics.” This means that political leadership “becomes paramount to the extent that the character and direction of all other forms of leadership are determined by politics” (Ayoade, 1985:188). This is so because political decisions remain the most powerful decisions in the sense that they are decisions that determine how all human institutions will function and how resources are to be distributed. Politics involves decision making over the world‟s resources.

In Laswell‟s (1958:13) words, politics is “about deciding who does not get access to what the world has to offer.” He argues that life expectancy, access to safe water sources, opportunities

380 for jobs paying livable wages – all these areas of our lives are affected greatly by political decisions of the world‟s governments, as those governments make decisions about how the world‟s resources are to be distributed. In line with Laswell‟s postulation, Grigsby (2002:4) tells us that the world of politics consists of:

Those governmental decisions that extend life expectancies or shorten them, enhance or reduce access to basic necessities. In other words, politics involve the choice governments and citizens (in societies in which this freedom is observed) make in shaping the process whereby medicine, water, food, housing, and jobs are made available or unavailable to the world‟s peoples.

From the above quotation, Grisgby meant to assert that indeed politics encompasses all those decisions regarding how we make rules that govern our common life. These rules, according to him, may be made in a democratic or authoritarian manner, may sanction peace or violence, and may empower state or non-state actors (such as trade association, media representatives, and multinational corporations). Whatever the rules, however, Grigsby said politics is based on the recognition that our lives are shared, as long as we live in common, public spaces such as state territories. This means that whether one is conscious of it or not, as one goes about one‟s days, one is immersed in politics. Grigsby‟s analysis agrees with Aristotle‟s (1973:6) position that we “are political creatures, inhabiting a world of shared problems and possibilities. Indeed, Aristotle contended that to try to remove ourselves from politics would be to remove ourselves from the world of our common humanity.” This means that politics permeate human life. Hence, we support the view of the political scientist Dahl (1963:6) who said that once you analyses politics, one “will see that politics touches everything.” Dahl‟s assertion further shows the encompassing nature of politics and the power of political decisions in human life.

381 In view of the encompassing nature of politics and political decisions, care must be exercised to ensure that only ethically minded individuals are voted into leadership positions. In the world over, you need political power to project other powers such as economy, military, foreign policy as well as local policy and other areas of social endeavour. This tells us how important political power is or has been since the advent of human society. Nigeria as an independence nation, whether at the federal, state and local levels, has not fared well in terms of political leadership because of her inability to produce responsible and responsive leadership in shaping the destiny of her citizens and society. This inability is a consequence of lack of commitment to promote leadership values such as tolerance, hard-work, selfless devotion, statesmanship, sense of mission, etc, and create the enabling environment where individuals can realize their true selves by the government in power. What has happened since independence is that Nigerian political leaders or rulers - civilian or military – at the federal, state, and local levels have made no deliberate upright commitment of an existential nature to cater for the needs of others. Rather, they have used their political power as a means of amassing personal wealth. To substantiate this position, Ake (1981:181) says “they use political power not only to create a personal economic base but also for the accumulation of capital.” This explains why there is so much violent battle for political power and the concerted effort to sustain it by subjugation and repression in the Nigerian political landscape.

Most of the leadership we have had and seen in Nigeria in particular and Africa in general are self-servers whose purpose of aspiring to leadership positions is for personal gain forgetting that development has a purpose and that purpose, according to Nyerere (1978:27), “is the liberation of man.” Consequently, these leaders fall within the category of leaders Kierkegaard would call aesthetic leaders because they lack ethical commitment to promote the welfare of

382 others. The aim of government, according to Awolowo (1960:270), is “the physical mental and spiritual welfare of the people.” Government should have a welfare scheme that is directed to the whole being and personality of every citizen in the state. Has government in

Nigeria been able to do this since 1999 to date? The answer is “No.” Why? It is simply because of lack of the right commitment to manage and equitably distribute human and natural resources to the diverse constituents of the state.

As a way of overcoming this problem of commitment in the Nigeria political leadership, this work advocates the adoption of Kierkegaardian commitment. Political leaders must learn to choose the right way to do things and be able to take responsibility for it. Kierkegaardian commitment is the commitment of responsibility, accountability and productivity. He says we should choose the “ETHICAL” because the “ethical” entails living a life that involves making commitment to the well-being of others. What do you think would have been the situation in

Nigeria today if both past and present political leadership had committed themselves to the well-being of the people that elected them into office by properly managing and equitably distributing the resources of the nation in a transparent manner? Nigeria would have by now overshadowed the United States of America. Therefore, one far–reaching positive implication for the adoption and application of the thesis of this work will be the emergence of committed political leadership that will be responsive and responsible to its existential responsibilities to the people. This means that the answer to the problem of political leadership in Nigeria is hinged on the leaders living a life that involves making the right commitment to the norms and principles of the society, which will eventually translate to the well-being of the people.

These norms and principles include: selfless service, hard-work, statesmanship, tolerance, etc.

383 By “right” commitment, is meant a commitment properly channelled and directed to solving human existential problems. Only leaders in ethical and subjective standpoints can bring upright dedication to bear in the discharge of their duties. This is because they are aware that the essence of leadership is service not selfishness and this assertion agrees with Bell‟s

(2006:19) position that leadership is properly defined “by service.” This means that leadership is an act of service and, as such, political leaders ought to be “public servants.” Lending credence to Bell‟s position is Jibril. She argues that leadership must be seen as “a service and not where power is usurped for oneself” (Jibril, 2006:87). In addition to the assertions made by Bell and Jibril, Obioha and Bassah (2008: 48) argue that in seeking the position of leadership “man should aim at good service for the community not for his gains.” Therefore, political office holders should know that politics should not be seen in the light of grabbing power for selfish gain, but rather as “the rendering of service to the people. The acquisition of power is itself a means, only a means, of rendering service to the people” (Omoregbe, 1993:

129-130). The above quotations show that leadership is about commitment to rendering service to the people on a continuous basis.

Leaders who take others‟ interest into consideration are called “servant leaders.” Manning and

Curtis (2003:121) quote Greenleaf as saying that Winston Churchill aptly captured the spirit of servant leadership when he said: “What is the use of living if not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?”

Servant leadership is a clear instance of ethical uses of power to enhance the well–being of the people. A true servant leader stays in touch with the challenges and problems of others. The servant leader is committed to the people‟s ultimate welfare and this commitment is shown by

384 the way he responds to the people‟s challenges and problems at critical moments. This means that he or she identifies with the people‟s challenges. To identify with someone means to get involved in another person‟s affair with a view to feeling the way that person feels. It is this attitude of involvement that equips a leader to know what to do in such a situation in providing meaningful services that will enhance the people‟s well-being. Identification means

“the emotional involvement of one individual with another or object whereby the identifying individual perceives his own fate on being linked to the object” (Stanford, 1955:106-107). A leader who has no ethical background may believe that money and pleasure constitute the good life, which is why we experience so much heat as violence in Nigerian politics. It is through identification with the people that a leader will be able to know their challenges and problems with a view to addressing them. By virtue of his calling, a political leader is seen as a faithful agent of the people who must be accountable to the people. This means that he or she must not allow the fact or reality of power to becloud or over-ride his sense of value knowing full well that failure to govern well will naturally or inevitably lead to underdevelopment, war, unrest and many other undeserved social conflicts. To this end, we agree with Falaiye (1999: x) that stability is a function of a good leadership.

Admittedly, all developed and stable societies are tied to the right committed leadership because the realization of state or national objectives depends largely on the commitment of the leadership in power at any point in time. This dedication can only happen when those in leadership positions chose the ethical life which makes commitment to the well-being of others possible. From Lincoln, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Junior, Mandela, etc, we have come to the realization that ethically minded individuals or leaders are those who show a deep

385 sense of ethical commitment to national goals and aspirations. They are leaders who have resolved to sacrifice their comfort and pleasure for the attainment of state or national objectives. Thus the key to socio-political and economic development of the Nigerian state lies in having a political leadership that is committed to the welfare of the people at the three levels of governance. According to Awolowo (1968:117), it “is frivolous and irresponsible on the part of any man to imagine and treat government as a place for pleasure and laziness.”

Another implication of adopting Kierkegaard‟s ethical commitment is that it will deliver

Nigerian political leaders from the illusion of power, that is, from seeing political office as a means of grabbing and stealing what belongs to the people. Once our leaders are delivered from this illusion of power, they will see leadership as an avenue to serve the people, rather than themselves. In Awolowo‟s view, qualitative leadership is very important in government.

He said a country could be very rich in natural resources and manpower potential but could be lacking in efficient leadership, and that where there is an enlightened and high quality type of leadership, there is bound to be a high level of performance, rapid socio-economic development and a high standard of living in the country. On the other hand, where the leadership is incompetent, unenlightened and indecisive, the rate of development will be slow.

In fact, Awolowo argues that the “ability for prompt decision - right or wrong - and the courage for quick implementation no matter what assails, are two of the quint-essences of a good government and dependable leadership” (Awolowo, 1981:121). Therefore, politician that is truly dedicated and dutiful to the service of the nation would have, in Awolowo‟s estimation, little time to think and plan to cheat and steal from the public treasury.

In recent times and on African soil, J.J.Rawlings, a one-time President of Ghana, exhibited the kind of committed leadership we are stressing in this research. When he came to power his

386 sole intention was the restoration of good leadership that was people-oriented. He was committed to the people‟s welfare to the point that Ghana as a nation was transformed beyond expectation. Rawlings‟ commitment to selfless service to the people of Ghana brought Ghana back to the path of glory. He was able to achieve leadership success because he transcended self-interest, that is, the aesthetic realm where pursuing personal pleasure predominates. This means that he was in the ethical realm where commitment to the promotion of the good of others inheres. He served the people of Ghana with an ethical mindset and today he is widely celebrated as a leader who came to demonstrate the sacrificial kind of leadership otherwise known as “servant leadership.” Ethical commitment will occasion single-mindedness. And it was this single-mindedness of Rawlings‟ that helped him focus on the masses‟ interests: alleviating the suffering of others. He was not an aesthetic leader but an ethical one who knew the responsibility attached to his office. Leading is a responsibility which demands total involvement. The anguish of leadership is felt when a leader genuinely uses public funds to meet the people‟s need instead of deploying them for personal use only.

7.1.1 FOR DEMOCRACY

Abraham Lincoln defined democracy as “the government of the people, by the people, and for the people” (cf. Gauba, 2003:421). The implication of Lincoln‟s definition shows that the authority of government is located in the common people so that policy is made to conform to the will of the people and to serve the interests of the people. We live in a world where every government claims to be democratic in its rule. But what is the true democracy? To be specific, Awolowo asked: Is there anything like Western, (Eastern) or African Democracy? In simple terms, he says, democracy is an ideal for all races. Nevertheless, he acknowledged the fact that diversity in individuals and in groups and races, local custom, history and culture

387 goes a long way to determine the level of attainment. He said that the resultant effect of this human condition is that we often experience and have what he called „democrisis‟ and not democracy which no single country has been able to achieve fully yet. No doubt some countries have been in the practice for long and have naturally acquired much more experience. But developing nations like Nigeria do not have to go through the same process or take such a long time to acquire the same experience; they only need to observe and learn from the history of other democratic nations. Ogunmodede (1986:163) quotes Awolowo as suggesting that “…It is necessary to go to learn how to conduct an election.” In the light of the above, Awolowo ((1968:92-93) defined democracy as “a system whose ultimate principle of power comes from the entire people of a state.” Even if there were going to be an African type of democracy where African peculiarities are taken into consideration, it must not omit the ideal which makes democracy more appealing than other systems of governance.

The implication of commitment for the Nigerian kind of democracy and governmental system in juxtaposition to the indigenous political democratic system and our present adoption of the presidential system of government, is that it will bring about the resolve by Nigerian political leadership to sit down and evolve an indigenous political democratic system suitable to the

Nigerian environment without compromising the basic minimum of true democracy. The current democratic dispensation known as the presidential system is wasteful and expensive because it is alien to the Nigerian environment. The fact that the presidential system works well in a country like the United States of America does not necessarily mean it will work in

Nigeria because of cultural differences. It works in America because it takes the Americans‟ worldview, culture, and ambitions into consideration. According to Momoh (1991:138-139),

Nigeria as nation has a copy-cat mentality. At one time she went British and practised the

388 parliamentary system and at another time she went American and practised the presidential system. He said instead of thinking something African, she goes about copying foreign cultures in the name of democracy. For instance, election and political parties are alien to

Nigeria but that does not mean we should not adopt them. The problem is that we adopt many of these alien cultures without any effort to adjust them to our own needs and circumstances.

So for the Nigerian people to have a workable democratic system, the current borrowed model must be indigenized. This means that the Nigerian political leadership must resolve to make the necessary sacrifice to evolve a home-grown democracy or political system that is less expensive and not only less expensive, but one that will take into account the diversity in individuals, in groups, races, local customs, history, tradition and culture of the Nigerian people. Other countries succeeded because those who framed their system took the people‟s worldview, culture and ambitions into account, and this reflected the people‟s uniqueness. In the same vein, Nigerian people are unique people with a unique culture distinct from the rest of the world and so should think inward. Through upright commitment Nigeria political leadership can fashion out a system that will best fit the mentality, culture, tradition, and ambitions of her people. This is because experience has shown that it is much easier to fashion out a system to suit the mentality and ambitions of a people than to try to change or re- orientate the mentality and worldview of the people to suit any borrowed system. The adoption of the thesis of this work will bring about the resolve to evolve and develop an indigenous political system imbued with African peculiarity.

Democracy has been defended on the grounds that it achieves one or more of the following fundamental values or goods: “equality, liberty, moral self-development, the common interest, private interests, social utility, the satisfaction of wants, efficient decisions” (Held, 1987: 3).

389 As a concept, democracy is conceived more narrowly in terms of a set of institutional arrangements and a method of choosing a government. It thrives under the institutions of constitutional democracy with a universal franchise, a multi-party system, and the separation of powers into legislative, judicial and executive, are the best instruments for realizing the values of equality, fairness, justice, freedom and the public interest etc. Thus, democracy with its system of competitive elections, its free press and its court system, appears to be the best instrument for the protection and legal system which socializes the inevitable conflict over interest and values among men. It further permits and encourages dissent (i.e. disagreement, protests) on political goals and policies, providing a framework not only for mutual consultation and debate between political leaders and followers within a political party but between opposing political parties themselves.

From the above, it is clear that without commitment that entails passion, discipline, risk, sacrifice and involvement, it will be difficult for practitioners or democrats to adhere strictly to democratic values that make true democracy possible. Therefore, for a true separation of powers to take place to reflect the definition of democracy and for the three arms of government to operate within their constitutional responsibilities, a great deal of discipline borne out of strong commitment is required. Here we are referring to the leadership of the various arms. In India, for example, Palmer (1985:14) opines that one of the primary explanations of India‟s ability to maintain its democratic institutions is “the strong commitment of India‟s political leaders to the maintenance of a democratic system.” It is in the light of the India experience that we believe also that for Nigerian democracy to stay, grow and mature, Nigerian political leaders must extend the Kierkegaardian commitment to

390 promote democratic values, strengthen internal party democracy, as well as discipline party members for proper conduct. This is to say that since good leadership is essential for the sustenance of a democratic society, ethically committed individuals are needed in these three arms of government because:

It is a basic necessity for the success of any programme of development. This is because leadership is not only a relationship that pervades every association among people; it also, invariably radiates influence that is crucial to the success or failure of an association. It is the leader‟s initiation that ultimately shapes the goals of an association, his commitment engenders a sense of dedication among the membership and his personal comportment influences the lifestyles of his followers (Bluewey, 1985:92).

Therefore, one far-reaching implication for the adoption and application of the thesis of this work is that it will engender quality leaders who will ensure that the powers conferred on them by the people is channeled towards promoting the essence and values of democracy in the three arms of government. It will also ensure that leaders down-play self-interest for democratic values to thrive; otherwise, any democracy - be it Nigerian democracy or Western democracy - will collapse because without the commitment to adhere to the practising of valuable democratic values, its sustainability cannot be guaranteed and, as such, a stable democratic process, both in Nigerian society and elsewhere, cannot be established.

7.1.2 FOR THE EXECUTIVE

The executive arm of government is the arm responsible for the execution of the laws made by the legislators. The executive carries out its executive function through ministries, parastatals and agencies. For the executive arm to do its job successfully, commitment is needed. Take, for instance, the Federal Ministry of Works, responsible for awarding all road contracts in the country in Nigeria. If they are committed to quality supervision in all road contracts awarded, it is likely that the rate of abandoned projects in the country will be greatly minimized. That means if they see their office as one of rendering quality service, they will

391 take the job of contract supervision very seriously and be committed to their supervisory role as sole government contracts awarding ministry in road constructions. But because of lack of commitment in carrying out their supervisory roles, a lot of abandoned projects begging for attention litter the entire country. In addition, the quality of work rendered by contractors would greatly improve if there is commitment to supervision of all awarded road contracts by the leadership of the Federal Ministry of Works. In other words, the poor quality of work being rendered by the numerous Federal Government contractors would have been checked and corrected if the minister and his team had demonstrated the needed commitment in the

Kierkegaardian sense to oversee the activities of these contractors at their construction sites.

Thus, lack of proper supervision arising from lack of commitment on the part of the supervisory agency which is the Ministry of works in this case, is largely responsible for poor service delivery and poor state of our road networks. It is this attitude that the adoption and application of the thesis of this work will address when applied by these government agencies and parastatals in carrying out their statutory responsibilities.

7.1.3 FOR THE LEGISLATURE

The legislative arm of government is the arm responsible for making laws for the entire nation. If they truly understand the weight and practical effect of laws as what can make or mar human existence, they will come to the realization that law-making is a serious business that demands absolute commitment. In Nigeria, for instance, with a fledging democracy, the legislative arm has not actually shown commitment in the making of law that will impact on the people positively. Law making involves rigour. It takes concerted effort, time, intellect, passion, etc, to initiate quality bills and debate them before passing them into laws to address human existential problems in the Nigerian society. In the Nigerian context, this commitment

392 is lacking. Hence, many existential problems like chronic unemployment, poor budget implementation, security challenges, terrorism, sectarian crises, etc, in some parts of the country are begging for appropriate laws to address them. This shows that Nigerian legislators have not shown the required commitment to evolve relevant bills that can be passed into law that would help address the numerous challenges facing the Nigerian state. They are yet to see that law making requires absolute commitment and until they imbibe the tenets of commitment, it will be difficult for them to meet the demands of the people they represent and reduce all the perceived injustice going on in the Nigerian state.

Therefore, what this research is saying is that, if our legislators know what it means to be a law maker in the Kierkegaardian sense, they would probably change their lackadaisical approach to law making. Knowledge of what law making entails will engender passionate commitment to lawmaking on the part of Nigerian legislators. Unfortunately, this knowledge is acutely lacking. Hence, we agree with Mitzberg (2002:92) that truly “it is hard to be passionate about things you don‟t know really well, and it‟s hard to excel without passion.”

Mitzberg‟s position is further buttressed by the view expressed by Munroe (2005:184) that most of the leadership trauma the world is currently going through would be minimized if only those who are in leadership positions know the answers to the questions “Who am I?

“Where am I from?” “Why am I here?” “What am I capable of doing?” and “where am I going?” Munroe‟s position is very true in the Nigerian situation, judging from the sad incidents that have taken place in the legislative chambers both in the past and now. Nigerian political office holders should know that leadership is a function that one performs and not a position or rank one occupies. It is not a place for lazy and unserious people. Law making is a rigorous exercise because it concerns human beings and not animals. This means that absolute

393 upright commitment is required from the legislators. Therefore, one far- reaching implication for the adoption and application of the thesis of this work is that the lukewarm attitude to quality law making often displayed in the system of governance by Nigerian legislators will be reduced, if not eliminated entirely.

7.1.4 FOR THE JUDICIAL

The judiciary is the third arm of government of any nation responsible for the interpretation of the laws made by legislators. In a democratic system, the judiciary is the vital link and nexus in the uneasy but necessary relations between law and politics and precisely between the executive and the legislature. And when political crises arise, what is at stake or needs elucidation and re-emphasis is the rule of justice. Therefore, it is the commitment to the ingenuity, capacity, trustworthiness, independence, fairness, boldness, fortitude and control of the judiciary that is on trial and needs authentication by the judges. In a way, therefore, democracy depends on what the judges make it; its last rays of hope lie with the judiciary.

Principally, the determination of just and unjust laws is handled by this arm of government and their efficiency reflects the level of commitment by the leadership of the judiciary (the bar and the bench) to the dispensation of quality justice. For instance, if the Nigerian government is to decongest the prisons, absolute commitment is needed by both lawyers and judges. In other words, the congestion in Nigerian prisons is a clear case of inefficiency arising from leaders‟ low level of commitment or outright non-commitment to quick dispensation of justice. Judges and lawyer‟s attitude to cases in Nigeria has been very slow and discouraging.

Hence, we argue here that lack of commitment on the part of Nigerian lawyers and judges is fundamentally responsible for the slow pace of justice delivery and the attendant

394 consequences of prison congestion in Nigeria. This lack of commitment to quick dispensation of justice in Nigeria can be seen from the number of inmates awaiting trials in the various prison yards across the nation. Therefore, for this problem to be overcome lawyers and judges must embrace the doctrine of commitment to enable them do their jobs with the required dedication. Commitment provides the zeal with which an end is pursued. This means that if

Nigerian judges and lawyers want to decongest the prisons, passionate commitment is required and this means that more time, resources and energy must be devoted to address cases that come before them on a daily basis. Nelson Mandela demonstrated genuine passionate commitment to demolishing the apartheid regime in South Africa. He paid heavily for this by going to jail and today apartheid is no more. That shows the demanding and risky nature of commitment.

Take, for instance, what the world would have been like:

If Winston Churchill had said the survival of Great Britain and the rest of the free world is someone else‟s problem. I‟m going to let the Nazis do whatever they want” OR Martin Luther King Junior had not thought Civil Rights were worth dying for? OR, what would have happened if Mother Teresa had ignored the poor and the sick on the streets of Calcutta? (Munroe, 2005:77).

These people acted to change an ugly situation. Our actions - whether great or small - if they are positive, can have a lasting result in enhancing human life and societal development. This means that if Nigerian lawyers and judges will genuinely commit themselves to the discharge of their constitutional responsibilities, the congestion in prisons would be greatly reduced to manageable or acceptable local and international standards. The call for the quick dispensing of justice calls for sacrifice and price on the part of lawyers who have the responsibility of filing cases in courts and judges who have the responsibility of studying these cases and also pronouncing judgment on them without unnecessary delays. Thus, the decongestion of

395 Nigerian prisons can only be achieved when we have committed lawyers and judges heading and managing the judiciary. Therefore, one far-reaching implication for the adoption and application of the thesis of this work would be that the present incredibly slow processes, where simple cases that ought to be resolved within a month or two are allowed to remain in courts for years without judgement due to lack of commitment to duty by judicial officials

(i.e., lawyers and judges inclusive), will be reduced if not eliminated. This will help restore public confidence in the judiciary and judicial process in the Nigerian legal system. An efficient, functional judicial system can be achieved because when all judicial personnel - judges, lawyers and non-judicial personnel alike - do their jobs with a sense of passion, the speedy dispensing of justice will result and less time will be wasted and unnecessary delays which tend to hinder a litigant‟s confidence in the judicial process will be eliminated.

7.2 FOR SOCIAL WELFARE PROGRAMME

Governments at federal, state and local levels require commitment to address the social welfare needs of the people. Fundamentally, government is an instrument created and intended for the common good, i.e. the welfare and happiness of human beings in the state.

Ogunmodede (1986:139) quotes Rodee as saying that government is the indispensable machinery by means of which the state “maintains its existence, carries on its functions, and realizes its policies and objectives.” Government at the three levels of governance is invested with power and authority to administer and realize the common good and welfare of the people. But government can also function as an organ of the just distribution of wealth. There are more fundamental principles that Awolowo thinks should guide the action of government.

He says:

396 The aim of a good government is the welfare of the entire people under its jurisdiction. In pursuance of this aim, it is impossible for a government to please everyone. As long, however, as the government is satisfied that any given policy, measure, programme, or legislation will rebound to the greatest good of the greatest number of the citizens under its charge, it should be inflexible in its path” (Awolowo, 1960:291).

Government is established essentially for the welfare of human beings. It is an instrument created and intended for the common good, i.e. the welfare and happiness of human beings in the state. Nigeria‟s problem is not with the constitution but a problem of commitment with the operators who lack the sincerity and the political and moral will necessary for its implementation as specified.

Take, for example, the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chapter Two, which contains the social and welfare programmes of government. No matter how deficient or defective the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is, if we had had leaders who are committed to the implementation of the “Fundamental Objectives and Directive

Principles of State Policy” such as the Fundamental Obligations of The Government, The

Government and The People, The Political Objectives, The Economic Objectives, The Social

Objectives, The Educational Objectives, The Foreign Policy, The Environmental Objectives and National Ethics, etc, which have the potential of enhancing human and societal development, the quality of life of the average Nigerian citizen would have improved considerably. But, since Nigerian political leaders in the executive, legislature, and the judiciary respectively have not been able to properly channel and direct their commitments to the implementation of these fundamental objectives, the life of the average Nigerian citizen has remained pauperized and impoverished. This means that failure to bring the right commitment to bear on the implementation of these fundamental objectives has been seen to

397 be the major problem militating against effective governance in Nigeria. Otherwise, these

Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy which actually talk about the philosophy of the Nigerian constitution when implemented to the full would bring about improvement in the quality of life of the Nigerian citizenry as well as the development of

Nigerian society. Therefore, the implications of adopting the thesis of this work will be that it helps the Nigerian political at the center to properly channel and direct their commitments to the implementation of these fundamental objectives, so that meaningful development in terms of human and society can take place.

Again, consider health, which falls under social-welfare objectives of the government. Nigeria operates a presidential system, so administrative power is shared into three levels or governance, that is, the federal, state and local government. Each level of government has her constitutionally assigned social-welfare programmes to improve human life within her domain. So when the government of these three tiers are able to properly channel and direct their commitments to the health area, a lot will be achieved in terms of improvement on infrastructures and personnel. But this has not occurred because governments at the federal, state and local levels have not been able to bring passionate commitment to bear in their duties to achieve set objectives. Passion is the catalyst that propels one from within to go after a cause one has identified as worthy. For Munroe (2005:227), passion is the stamina that says

“I‟m going to go after this, no matter what happens. If I have to wait ten years, I‟m going to get it.” Passion will stir a political leader up to confront herculean tasks. That Nigeria‟s health sector at federal, state, and local levels is below standard locally, nationally, and internationally shows that governments at the three tiers have not been able to bring ethical commitment to bear in their leadership within their jurisdiction. To be committed is to be

398 loyal to one‟s calling and it is to care a lot more about one‟s job. What drives commitment is a person‟s positive moral conviction and faith. It is much more a state of being emotionally impelled to a cause. Therefore, one far-reaching implication for the application and adoption of the thesis of this research is that it will help check this lack of passionate commitment to duty and make government responsive to the people by making the necessary sacrifices and paying the price necessary to achieve their set objectives. Nigerian political leaders at various levels must begin to embrace the right commitment which entails involvement, risk, sacrifice, etc, to discharge their duties.

7.3 FOR EDUCATION

In Nigeria, education falls under the social objectives of government. As a country operating the presidential system, the responsibility will be shared by the federal, state and local governments. Truly, a government that knows the value of education and cares about the welfare of her citizens will educate them. Knowledge is power, so the saying goes. This is why responsible governments across the world make education free at some levels or largely subsidize it. Quality education remains the solution to Nigeria‟s underdevelopment. All other forms of development wholly depend on education. In fact, education is the fulcrum on which the wheel of any nation‟s progress rotates. Therefore, a good education system is basic to the building of a nation‟s future. Education is a means by which young people are prepared for future responsibilities and the capacity for the governing of the country. This underscores the dire need for the various governments in Nigeria to fund education without reservation so that the youth can be equipped with the necessary skills that will make them valuable members of their community.

399 However, one of the greatest challenges facing the education sector in Nigeria, apart from proper funding, is the lack of commitment to develop or evolve the relevant curriculum that considers the peculiarity of Nigerians so that graduates of Nigerian schools can be relevant to industry and society. The various attempts made in the past to introduce one form of reform or another have yielded little or no result because of lack of direction and consistency on the part of the leadership involved. To evolve and develop what we can call an indigenous education curriculum, an unwavering commitment must be deployed by the leadership of the Nigerian education sector that is saddled with the responsibility of ensuring functional education in

Nigeria to suit the Nigerian economy and the people. This is because, as it presently stands,

Nigeria operates a foreign curriculum which makes Nigeria graduates unemployable in most key sectors of the economy. This is what the adoption and application of this thesis will bring about. The implication is that it will engender leadership resolve to get focused in order to fashion an indigenous Nigerian education curriculum that will be inclusive.

7.4 FOR SECURITY CHALLENGES

Every forms of government often come into existence out of necessity and that necessity most times is to regulate human excesses. Thomas Hobbes tells us that in the state of nature human life was nasty, short, and brutish leading to insecurity of lives and property until government came in to regulate these human excesses. Therefore, it is quite in order to say that one of the cardinal objectives of any responsible government is the protection of the lives and property of her citizens - in land, water and air. This she does through the combination of her security agencies such as the “The Police,” “The Military,” “The Air force,” “The Navy” and “The Civil

Defense Corps.” Insecurity hinders human flourishing and free flow of goods and services.

400 More importantly, it hinders foreign investments flow to Nigeria because no right-thinking investor will leave a peaceful environment to an environment where lives and properties are not secure in order to invest there. To this end, the police and the army are strategically placed to respond to internal security and external security challenges in order to ensure that a peaceful atmosphere is created and sustained for people to realize their social objectives. To do this act of policing and combating crimes and anti-social vices that tend to threaten the survival of civil society successfully, commitment is needed. However, recent events in

Nigerian society has shown that the officers and men of the entire Nigerian security forces lack the commitment to deal with more deadly security challenges like kidnapping and terrorist attacks as they are always caught napping. In most cases, thousands of lives and properties worth billions of naira are often wasted before the police, the Army, Navy, and the

Air force are brought in to curtail the threat. In Nigeria, the security forces – the Police, the

Army, Air force and the Navy – needs an unwavering commitment to do their jobs successfully as they will be called upon to respond to emergencies at odd hours whenever societal peace is under threat. Security demands absolute commitment and involvement because of the attendant risks involved. This is why the entire Nigerian security personnel need to develop passion, which is one of the themes of commitment, to be able to do their job effectively. Thus, as Kierkegaard (1941:188) posits, “without risk no faith, not even the

Socratic form of faith, is possible.” The escalating crime rate in Nigeria shows that commitment to effective policing is lacking. Whereas in other parts of the world, like the

United States of America, Britain, Canada, etc, there is a well channelled and directed commitment to crime prevention and control. Their situation is not as bad as that of Nigeria in recent times. However, one far-reaching implication for adopting the thesis of this work is that

401 it will help change and redirect the attitude of the entire Nigeria security personnel to duty, which is handling their duties with the decisiveness required and which results in effective policing of Nigerian territory. Furthermore, It will make them grasp the meaning of what it means to be security personnel in the Kierkegaardian sense and thereby commit themselves to their choosing professions with a sense of resolve and dedication.

7.5 FOR CORRUPTION

Since corruption is structurally interconnected with the exercise of political power, we have included its discussion in our work to see how we can adopt the thesis of the work to tackle it.

Corruption is a social disease of the human conscience or mind, which affects the other realms of life (Jibril, 2006: xi). As a social disease of the human conscience, it weakens human will, conscience and consciousness to viable decisions. Corruption is a pervasive human act and it is a universal phenomenon. Azenabor (2007:3) defines it as “any act which violates the accepted standard, rule or behaviour in order to serve a selfish end.” Makinde (2007:221) portrays corruption as “an indisciplined act, nurtured by greed.” This means that corruption is not a natural phenomenon and as such it is a social disease which man acquires from his environment. And so, it is a disease that affects the human mind and if it is not contained can become cancerous and stifle growth and development in human society. However, corruption can take any form. This means that anything you give or take to get what you do not deserve ordinarily is corruption. To this end, it is argued that corruption comes in different shapes and sizes. Azenabor opines that corruption in Nigeria is “a major social problem which has assumed an unprecedented, alarming and pitiable proportion. It has in fact become a national tragedy” (Azenabor, ibid. p. 1). It has been seen by some scholars as the use of public office

402 for private gain and, by extension, the use of both public and corporate office for personal enrichment. This means that corruption, by virtue of its nature, does not allow the best hands to emerge in contract bidding to handle projects and as such affects the quality of works delivered. Nigerians are not getting what they deserve in terms of service delivery because of corruption. This is because money has been raised to a god and so people can go to any length to get it. Corruption should be blamed for the misplaced social recognition of wealth no matter how it was acquired.

Corruption remains the greatest threat to the survival of Nigerian democracy because it is corroding the rule of law, accountability, transparency and other democratic values which make free society and human progress and development possible. In Nigeria, corruption has been nationalized and, as such, it has become a cancer that has particularly eaten deep into the very foundation of Nigeria society. Whichever angle from which we look at corruption, it is no respecter of anybody. While benefiting a few individuals, corruption is costly to society, the private sector and the government in the long run. By its nature, it does not only hinder socio-economic development, but also engenders wrong the choice of leadership or individuals to assume sensitive leadership positions, both in the political arena and corporate world. In fact, corruption hinders qualitative leadership since it affects the way the people choose their leaders to positions of responsibility. This is why we must see corruption as a social disease of the human conscience which affects the other realms of life and which, according to Unah (2002b:68), often “beclouds the sense of judgment of even a good and intelligent leader.” Corruption is so contagious that it weakens every chain of productive services leading to increase in the cost of goods and services. It thus promotes unproductive

403 investment in key sectors of the nation‟s economy where corruption is institutionalized and which will eventually lead to a decrease in the quality of infrastructural services provided by the government.

In Nigerian society, for example, this scourge is fundamentally threatening the moral, political, social and economic well-being of her citizens, impairing service delivery, and diverting and wasting scarce resources while it further undermines the legitimacy of the government of the day. Therefore, it has become the disease of power. Hence, Unah (Ibid. p.

67), describes it “as essentially the product of man‟s greed for earthly grandeur, power and authority.” Corruption is stressed in this work because of its necessary link to political leadership. This link can be seen from the point that uncommitted political leaders allows corruption to thrive by their lackluster attitude to put a framework in place that will make corruption an unprofitable venture. By its nature, it can slow down a nation‟s growth and development, and ensures the people get little returns from their leaders. Apart from that, it weakens a leader‟s sense of value and judgement in the discharge of his/her duties to the people. In Nigeria, the problem of corruption is visible in the power sector, electoral system, custom service, the police force, etc. It is also in the three arms of government – legislature, executive and the judiciary, the oil and gas sector, etc, just as it manifests in the malfunctioning of the nation‟s refineries and other allied sectors, education sector, etc. In fact, there is no sector in the Nigerian economy where you will not find one form of corruption or another going on.

404 Corruption thrives or persists in most human societies because of so many factors. First, because those charged with leadership responsibilities are not committed to fighting it since they are direct beneficiaries. To this end, we agree with Momoh (1991: 135) that, what is lacking “is the will and honesty to fight corruption.” This lack of will is a consequence of the fact that their hands are tied and, as such, they feel threatened as Momoh further observes when suggestions on how to curb it are being made. Second, corruption thrives and persists in

Nigeria because those who have been found guilty of corrupt practices have not been dealt with accordingly and the practice of retrieving only part of their loot does not and cannot check the trend. Third is the lack of accountability on the part of leadership in political office.

In fact, a corrupt leadership cannot fight corruption successfully as is the case with the

Nigerian government, with or without commitment. Right commitment comes with free choice and resolve of the will before it can be effective. A manipulated commitment can never achieve its goal because it is not freely chosen by the individual. Corruption is a function of greed, self-interest and indiscipline of human desires. This is why the observation made by

Aderinto is instructive. According to him, the problem with Nigeria as a country since independence “has been lack of the right leadership that is able to identify the interest of the society and who possess the will to pursue such interest with dogged determination”

(Aderinto, 1985: 134). That means, as Momoh (1991: 130) concludes, “if a ruler puts the interest of the people and the nation first he would need not line up his pockets with public funds. Similarly, if the ruled thinks of the burden of leadership, the interests of other people and the nation first, he too will not be corrupt and he will perform his duty.” Corruption is deadly and, as a universal phenomenon, wherever it is present there will always be stagnation

405 and underdevelopment. Having seen the danger posed by corruption, how do we get this problem solved or addressed?

As a way of tackling this monster, some scholars, like Momoh (1991:132), advocates the doctrine of “moralism and active oath-taking;” Unah (2002:87) advocates the provision of

“adequate grounds for human transaction of all types and the establishment of the institution of a culture of public accountability;” and Azenabor (2007:28) stresses leadership by example as a panacea for corruption. Other bodies set up to check the menace of corruption in Nigeria by the Nigerian government include the Independent and Corrupt Practices and Other related

Offences Commission (I.C.P.C.) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission

(E.F.C.C.). These moves are quite laudable but to fight corruption to a standstill, we need an idea to ground moralism and active oath-taking, the establishment of the institution of a culture of public accountability and leadership by example. That idea is commitment. Here the thesis of this research work is instructive. This trend can be checked when the thesis of this work is adopted and applied scrupulously to the realm of political leadership in Nigeria. To fight corruption in Nigeria, leadership doggedness, determination and faith are required. Faith will strengthen the government‟s degree of commitment towards the fight. Any political actor or leader who thinks he/she can exercise his/her leadership mandate successfully without commitment is only deceiving him/herself. A leader should not be afraid to take unpopular decisions that will in the long run improve human life even though those decisions might have appeared harsh and anti-human in nature. Commitment will provide you with the resolve, zeal and passion to sail through obstacles. Government must be willing to make the necessary sacrifices and pay the price, knowing full well that “Nothing is gained without sacrifice and

406 price”, that is, nothing good can be achieved without commitment. Therefore, it is hoped that the adoption and application of the thesis of this work by Nigerian political leadership will engender government‟s sincerity, determination, courageous will and the passionate commitment that is needed to tackle the problem of corruption in Nigeria.

Passion means an intense emotion one has towards a task. To be passionate is to be zealous about a chosen task. A political leader who wants to impact lives positively must possess passion because without it he/she lacks the energy or zeal to achieve set objectives. In

Munroe‟s explanation, passion is the discovery of a deep desire borne out of a conviction that renders one possessed by commitment to a purpose. Passion, he said, is what transports the individual into the realm of obligation. Hence, Munroe (2005:56) says “true leadership passion is the discovery of a belief, idea, conviction, or cause not just to live for, but to die for, which focuses on benefiting mankind as a whole.” Passionate commitment allows one to defy danger in accomplishing a daunting task. Passion can be so strong that it leads men and women to risk their lives for its fulfillment. Passion to Kierkegaard is the basis of ethical and religious living. Hence, he argued succinctly that “what our age lacks, however, is not reflection but passion” (Kierkegaard, 1954:53). That is, passion for upright living and fighting social ills. Thus, a leader who lacks passion for a cause can never achieve the desired result.

Passion is the inner drive that propels or energizes us to pursue our dream and conviction to a logical conclusion. Passion engenders total involvement and this is essential to political leadership success. For example, Nelson Mandela‟s resolve to dethrone the apartheid regime in South Africa earned him life imprisonment in 1964. At his trial, Mandela spoke of his resolve (commitment) to stay true to his vision for his country in this telling manner:

407 I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die. (Copeland et al, 1999:885).

Mandela‟s action demonstrates rare courage and commitment to a cause one believes in. His desire of a free and democratic society for all people, black and white alike, engendered passion in him. From Mandela, we can see how an individual human being with passionate commitment and with a sense of purpose can risk his precious life to accomplish a cause. This is what commitment–induced passion does to a man or woman who has resolved to embark on a cause he is convinced of irrespective of the danger it portends. In Nigeria, for example, government‟s welfare programmes across the three tiers of government can never be realized if the leadership in these three tiers of government fails to bring upright commitment to check and deal decisively with corruption.

In addition, since no human society can immune itself from the menace of corruption because it is humanly induced, commitment to the entrenchment of good governance must be instituted because corruption is a product of bad leadership. Governance, as Dafinone (2000:195) explains, refers to:

The business of running a government. It indicates the manner in which authority, controls and power are managed in a nation‟s attempt at developing her social and economic resources. It entails the type of political regime in place, the modes of resource management and the capacity of an administration to initiate, develop and implement policies and successfully carry out the functions of government.

This means that government from all intents and purposes should be run for the sake of a good

life for all and not for the sake of a few as is the trend in Nigeria society. Commitment to good

governance will engender a kind of political society where government is run from an

Aristotelian perspective for the sake of noble action and not mere companionship. The

408 establishment of good governance whose main goal is the promotion of the good of all is one way of checkmating corruption. When a government does otherwise, such a government is said to be governing for its own private interest and this kind of government is often branded a perverted government. Unfortunately, this perverted style is making the rounds in Nigeria where all our supposedly elected or nominated leaders only concentrate on themselves, forgetting those who elected them into office. Though this trend is not only a Nigeria problem, she is the worst hit.

In fact, at the organization‟s level, if leaders in the different organizations in Nigeria were able to use commitment to discipline their egoistic desires and observe the indices that sustain an establishment in their various business operations, most of the liquidations and outright closures that swept across the industries, especially the banking sector, would have been minimized. Ethically committed leaders are an organization‟s greatest asset because “no single factor shapes the result of an organization more than the kind of leaders it raises and recruits” (Bell, 2006:7).This means that an organization benefits more when there is upright leadership commitment to the goals and objectives of the organization. In Nigeria, for instance, the banking sector witnessed a kind of tsunami shake-up due to the integrity question of the leadership in those banks arising from their lack of commitment to observe and apply due process in their-day-to-day operations. An egoistic desire if not controlled often leads to acquisitiveness which is a consequence of corruption. The leadership of these banks was found by the regulatory bodies of the industry to have corruptly enriched themselves to unimaginable sums of money to the detriment of the depositors.

409 At this juncture, we must point out quickly that the poor leadership crisis Nigeria is experiencing at the political and organizational levels came about as a result of leadership failure at the family level. This assertion is premised on the fact that the individuals who emerge as leaders at local, state, and national levels are bred from home. It shows that there is a total collapse of the family value system. The family setting ought to be or is the foundation of any society and it is also where children are taught good morals. In the words of Bell

(2006), the family is “the primary repository of social and moral values.” Good motherhood is the foundation for attaining good leadership in any society because a woman, by virtue of her status, is the home builder and also the closest to the children. The home, as the basis of societal formation is the first point where parents‟ true leadership potentials are discovered and tested. Therefore, if a parent has not learnt how to take the family welfare seriously, he/she will not do better when placed in positions of larger leadership responsibility. This means that if the children in the family who would be the future leaders of any nation are poorly raised it will affect political leaders at local, state, and national level as we have seen in

Nigeria. But in a situation where parents are not committed to their natural parental responsibilities, the results are better imagined. This means that the family holds the key to a healthy society and its development. Parental commitment is stressed to drum the point home that ethically or morally depraved citizens cannot or can never be used to build a sound society and its economy as well as its political leadership. In lending credence to this fact,

Jibril (2006: Xiii) posits that “Good citizens can only emerge or grow out of good parents into good workers or good professionals, good politicians, good public officers, good diplomats and good leaders in the world and other levels.” The point is that lack of parental commitment to teach and educate their children and wards on enduring family and societal

410 values has grossly affected the quality of political leadership at federal, state, and local levels in Nigeria.

7.6 SUMMARY Thus, from what we have observed in this work, it is virtually clear to us that there is no aspect of human life where commitment is not needed, whether negative or positive.

Therefore, the leadership problem facing the Nigeria state at the political level is largely due to the failure of our political leaders to live up to the Kierkegaardian ideal notion of commitment. Kierkegaardian commitment speaks of the “Ethical,” and that is, binding commitment to others and not to self as political leaders in Nigeria do. This is why we have projects that would have improved the quality of human lives abandoned all over the places.

Thus, going by Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment, a leader‟s action should be guided by the principle that to choose a particular value requires that one is committed to it. However, it is worth observing that Kierkegaard himself did not draw these applications and implications because he did not envisage that the idea of commitment in his philosophy can be appropriated to address one of the thorniest social issues of our time, which is the problem of political leadership. Therefore, it is within the ambit of this research to explore the ingredients inherent in his notion of commitment and apply them to address the socio-political problem facing us today. Furthermore, in this chapter, we discovered that commitment is applicable to every aspect of human life, be it institutions of governance or otherwise. To this end, we have unequivocally declared that commitment, whether of an ethical or religious nature, remains the foundation upon which a healthy political leadership that is responsive, responsible and effective can be built and upon which any human activity can thrive. Therefore, its lack will hinder effective and responsive political leadership in any human society.

411 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

RESULTS AND FINDINGS OF THE RESEARCH

Two things are of interest to us here. They are the results and findings of this research.

1. Our findings show that Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment can tackle the problem of commitment in political leadership. Commitment, by its nature and functions, can bring about a responsive and responsible leadership in any society. It will provoke discipline and firm doggedness in the life of an individual. This means that commitment is of practical importance to life at any level of responsibility because it can provide a leader the resolve with which he/she can devote him/herself to duties. Therefore, it will check the endemic leadership failure in the political setting, especially in Nigeria.

2. Our findings show that Kierkegaard‟s stages of human existence - aesthetic, ethical and religious - can bring about the social and human development of the human person.

Kierkegaard actually designed the stages of human existence for the training of the individual to attain moral maturity. In other words, the stages were invented by Kierkegaard to enable an individual attain ethical and religious maturity. The stages were arranged in such a way that an individual can undergo moral training to enable him develop the good character to engender self-control and proper conduct. This will ensure the human and social development of the human person. This status will enhance responsible leadership.

3. Our analysis in the work has shown that commitment is the antidote for leadership ineffectiveness. When leaders begin to bring commitment to bear in their duties, more results will be achieved in terms of service rendered. What makes leadership effectiveness possible is its ability to consciously devote itself to those projects that have direct bearing or relevance to

412 the people‟s needs. Commitment will guide a leader‟s focus and direction so that he/she can concentrate on people-oriented programmes. Leadership effectiveness only comes when a leader is able to anchor his/her duties on commitment and this means that leadership effectiveness is a product of commitment to projects that have relevant bearings on the lives of the people.

4. Our analysis in this work has shown that the foundation for tackling the moral problem in leadership can be laid through the adoption of Kierkegaard‟s notion of ethical commitment.

Kierkegaard‟s ethical stage is a stage where an individual human being lives a life that involves making commitments to the norms, principles and customs of society. A life of ethical commitment is a life devoted to the general principles of society. And any individual living that ethical life has moved beyond the egotistic motives of promoting self-interest to commit him/her to duty through principled commitment to the promotion of general interests. This will help check moral problems like indiscipline and corruption in leadership. Corruption is a moral problem that can affect an individual and make him to act unethically in any level of responsibility

5. Also, our findings show that a strong link exist between commitment, philosophy (ethics) and leadership. True leadership demands price and sacrifice which commitment entails.

Commitment will provide a leader the ethical resolve to tackle intractable socio-political issues like security challenges, religious conflict, ethnicity, etc, that affect his/her followers within a socio-political environment. The research shows that any leader seeking a position of leadership without commitment will not be able to realize set objectives.

413 CONTRIBUTIONS TO KNOWLEDGE

This thesis has contributed the following to the existing body of knowledge.

1. The Ideal of Leadership can be Measured through Commitment. The problem of non- performance in political leadership can be laid to rest through the adoption of the thesis of this work. A leader‟s level of responsiveness can be measured based on how far the leader is able to fulfill his/her electoral promises to the people. The research discovered that one of the reasons why we have so much failure in political leadership in Nigeria, for instance, is due largely to lack of commitment by politicians to deliver on their electoral promises after assuming office. Leaders generally, owing to the nature of their office, require commitment to rise up to their leadership responsibilities. Virtually all the crises whether ethnicity, social, political, religious or security, that greeted Nigeria both in the past and in recent times are a clear failure of commitment to their electoral promises such as keeping Nigeria as one nation, employment generation, provision of social amenities and the guaranteeing of security of lives and properties of the citizens irrespective of where they reside. Leaders in political settings are expected to justify their leadership objectives which are connected to the purpose of politics.

Basically, politics is about improving the quality of human life. A leadership that is focused and committed to its duties works with passion. Commitment engenders passion. Therefore, the work proposes that in resolving the problem of failure in leadership politically, ethical commitment - which is upright dedication, is the key word. Kierkegaard himself obviously suggests this by urging us to embrace ethical commitment so that we will be able to function existentially.

2. Human and Social Development of the Individual. The ability of Kierkegaard‟s theory of ethical commitment to bring about this human and social development of the individual human

414 being to bring about socio-economic and technological development is considered a contribution to knowledge.

3. It engenders our Understanding of Leadership and Followership: The work has enhanced our understanding by shedding light on the umbilical cord that exists between leadership and followership. The work has demonstrated the indubitable fact that no leadership can function without contributions from the followership. Commitment ensures that this bond is maintained because true leadership is located within the purview of followership and, similarly, true followership is located within the purview of leadership. It means that leadership only makes sense within the context of followership. The adoption of the thesis of this work will help strengthen the leadership-followership relationship and bring about effectiveness in political leadership. Leadership-followership is central to the understanding of leadership effectiveness. A leader needs commitment to engage the followers‟ needs and, in the same vein, the followers need commitment also to enhance and support the leader‟s vision.

4. Introduction of Commitment into Leadership Trait: With the introduction of commitment into the leadership trait, the ethical and moral problems affecting political leadership, especially Nigeria, can be laid to rest. The introduction of commitment into leadership trait will help in the grounding of leadership qualities in action and, as such, leaders will be able to demonstrate substantive political and moral will in resolving the socio-political, religious, moral, educational, and security challenges affecting their domains resolutely. This shows that commitment is a necessary condition for the development of a leader‟s trait and in the light of the above, commitment is seen in this work as a resounding philosophical principle or foundation upon which a morally responsive and responsible leadership can be built or laid

415 in contemporary society. In short, the linkage of Kierkegaard‟s ethical commitment to problems of political leadership is the key contribution of our research to knowledge. This work has brought out these issues for our education and moral rearmament.

5. It Establishes a Connection between Commitment and Leadership: The work has brought this out in full glare that no leadership anywhere in the world can successfully accomplish set objectives in the absence of commitment. This means that there is a connection between commitment and leadership. This work has therefore established the hard fact that a true leader cannot divorce him/herself from the norms of commitment. It is obvious therefore that right commitment is needed by any leader who is prepared to impact lives positively. If a leader wants to succeed in whatever he/she sets out to do, sacrifice and price are inevitable.

Commitment means sacrifice; it means price.

6. The Re-ordering of Human Society: The current moral decadence and socio-political crises threatening human survival in some societies show that many of our societies are in need of moral, social and political re-ordering. The moral, socio-political problem facing most societies, especially Nigeria, can be addressed with the adoption of the thesis of our work. To re-order the Nigerian socio-political state, for instance, commitment is a must. Political leaders must first of all resolve within themselves - a consequence of commitment- before they can check and fight indiscipline, lawlessness, greed, laziness, corruption, etc, in order to entrench discipline, hardwork, patriotism, good manners, tolerance, and statesmanship into the Nigerian society. In Nigeria, for example, agencies such as the Economic and Financial Crimes

Commission (E.F.C.C.), The Nigerian Police Force, The Independent and Corrupt Practices and Other related Offences Commission (I.C.P.C.), Code of Conduct Bureau (C.C.B.), The

State Security Service (S.S.S.) need total and urgent reorganization to make them serve the

416 purpose for which they were established. This calls for commitment, that is, upright commitment. Upright commitment to duty by political leaders will make a big difference in the society. Our political institutions need re-ordering so that politicians will begin to bring good morals and godly leadership to bear in the discharge of their duties. The emphasis on commitment is anchored on the basis that commitment will engender a sense of accountability, responsibility and productivity, which is the hallmark of a re-ordered society.

7. Identification of New Concepts in Philosophy - (I) Commitmentology –

Commitmentology is the science of commitment or the philosophical study of commitment.

The science or philosophical study of commitment is fundamental to the building of the individual moral and religious capacity through appropriate education. This we think also is a major contribution to knowledge.

417 CONCLUSION

The saying that the philosophies that men propound mirror their direction in life is correct.

This assertion is confirmed to a large extent on Kierkegaard‟s philosophical thought. He was raised under a religious environment which he described as strict and where he was taught how to take one‟s duties seriously with a sense of commitment. In addition, he grew up in a society where majority of people lived a false moral and religious life which threatened their genuine human existence. His major concern, therefore, was centered on how to apprehend this inauthentic moral and religious life in his native Denmark. In his determination to arrest this moral and religious decay, he came up with his tripartite theory of stages. This tripartite theory distinguishes three levels of human existence - aesthetic, ethical and religious. He argued that

“the aesthetical way of life is purely egotistic, pleasure seeking, the ethical modifies your action by the demands of duty. But higher than either is the third, the religious level, to which you can cross by “the leap of faith” (Rohde, 1963:9). This means that at the aesthetic level the individual‟s life is wholly dominated by pleasure and self-interest. It is a stage no responsible individual will want to live because it does not bring out the humanness in us. The second level of the theory of stages is the ethical stage. It is a stage where an individual agrees to live a regulated life based on principles of social morality. In other words, it is a stage where an individual principally lives a life that involves making commitments to the norms, principles, and customs of society. The ethical life is a life devoted to general principles. It moves beyond the egotistic motives of the aesthetic. It is at the ethical level that one sets oneself to duty through principled commitment.

The third level of the theory of stages, which is the religious stage, is where Kierkegaard says an individual transcends both the aesthetic and ethical and moves beyond what principle or

418 obligation requires. Kierkegaard designed this stage to account for the inadequacy of human reason to resolve certain human existential problems that reason is incapable of resolving. It is a stage where, Kierkegaard says, an individual is faced with the bare fact of reality by relating moral and religious tenets to real-life situations. Kierkegaard‟s three stages of human existence is anchored on his existentialism which stresses action through personal commitment, responsibility, involvement, engagement, etc, as the basis for authentic human existence. With the theory of stages, Kierkegaard was convinced that authentic moral and religious individuals would be attained because he has taken into consideration the dynamic aspect of human nature.

This is the basis for which he grounds his ethics on commitment in his theory of stages.

Commitment, therefore, becomes the basis upon which a responsive and responsible leadership can be gauged or measured in any human society. To this end, we can confidently say that ethical commitment as proposed by Kierkegaard finds absolute relevance to our present state of affairs because it will help address the problem of commitment in political leadership that has led to moral laxity and monumental corruption in a society like Nigeria. Commitment is very vital to human existence since no aspect of human life can attain its maximum in the absence of commitment. In this research, we have posited the thesis that the notion of commitment in

Kierkegaard‟s philosophy can be adopted to address the dearth of responsive and responsible leadership in contemporary societies that have leadership problems of a political nature. This is because we have discovered that lack of upright commitment (ethical) is responsible for both past and present leadership failure by political actors.

Consequently, this research submits that for a leader to be able to act responsively, responsibly, and selflessly the leader must embrace commitment wholeheartedly. This is where the application of Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment is instructive because it has provided this

419 missing existential gap in leadership, especially political leadership which hitherto was not there. It will influence a leader‟s positive approach to duty with a sense of resolve and dedication to ensure that basic human needs such as food, shelter, care when wounded or sick and security in time of danger are met; and the management of the diverse constituents including the equitable distribution of resources, natural and human, in the state so that people will be able to live a good life. May (1981:66) quotes Benedict Spinoza as saying that the purpose of government is “to preserve sufficient security so that each man may live without fear of his neighbour.” Though no government can totally meet the needs of everybody in the society, the government can provide the enabling environment through which individuals can discover and realize their existential possibilities. Leaders must learn to choose a sense of upright commitment to drive their mission; otherwise they will not be able to achieve set objectives. Thus, this research has shown clearly that responsive and responsible leadership is possible at the political level in any human society only if political actors chose to embrace or imbibe the theme of commitment and properly channel and direct them to solve human problems. Commitment entails passion, involvement, responsibility, sacrifice, risk, etc, through which a task is accomplished. Therefore, if we take this orientation to the arena of political leadership, it is very obvious that we will achieve more credible results than we are achieving today. This precisely is what commitment in Kierkegaard‟s philosophy stands to achieve.

Imbibing the ethical and religious ways of doing things will engender sacrificial spirit in the heart of our political leaders. To this end, the research has shown that right commitment is the antidote to failure in political leadership and other spheres of human endeavour. With this submission, it is hoped that this research will focus our minds on “COMMITMENT”, that is,

“existential” commitment as the basis for human and societal development.

420 RECOMMENDATIONS

The following are our recommendations:

1. Commitment should be Educationalized: The research recommends that this all-important principle of commitment, which has the potential to enhance the quality of human life and societal development when imbibed or inculcated, should be made part and parcel of our educational curriculum so that it can be taught at pre-school, primary and post-primary school levels. We need to be taught this concept early enough before we are formed in character and develop to the point when it becomes difficult for us to embrace or before we begin to hear it in faith clinics, business summits, entrepreneurial programmes and workshops by motivational speakers. The point we are making here is that when commitment is made part of the school curriculum and we are taught early enough to approach life or every genuine human endeavour such as hard work, respect for others, discipline, justice, equity, accepting responsibility for one‟s action etc. with a sense of dedication and determination, then we will grow up with the spirit that commitment is what we need to achieve success in any worthy human endeavour.

Commitment is an existential virtue that needs to be inculcated into people‟s lives before they are formed in character and habits.

2. Commitment as a Basis for Service: Commitment should be made the benchmark for service at any level of responsibility. Therefore, those political actors who are aspiring to be leaders must be ready to abide by, and commit themselves to the national cause in terms of service delivery. That is, they must be ready to demonstrate the sense of commitment to the national cause. Consider a minister of education whose children are not schooling in Nigeria!

How do you expect such a minister to be totally involved and be committed to the smooth

421 running of Nigerian schools? Or a minister of works who does not travel by road but by air!

How will he or she know the state of bad roads and make the commitment to put them in good and usable condition? Genuine commitment will make our political actors place national interest above selfish interest. Commitment will engender a sacrificial spirit that will help check a culture of defective leadership because as we write this work, moral defects, abuse of power, privilege and trust, misuse of resources, corruption and hypocrisy have become associated with leadership today perhaps more than at any other time in human history.

Political actors should know that leadership demands a price which only a person with a true sense of commitment will be willing to pay.

3. Commitment as National Ideology: Commitment, by its nature, should be developed into a national ideology. This means that commitment should be taken as an ideological tool to re- orientate the behavior of the people to adopt a new culture of self-discipline so that it becomes the content or thinking characteristic of an individual, group or culture. Reorientation of human purpose, values and ethical practices can only be accomplished through an act of commitment.

This means Nigeria should adopt it as an ideology of life and be given a national promotion and made a subject to be incorporated in the syllabuses of all levels of institution – primary, secondary and post-secondary. This is because we have come to realize from Kierkegaard‟s notion of commitment (i.e. ethical commitment) that the self-worth, dignity, uniqueness, well- being, growth and development of any individual depends on commitment to self-discipline.

This means that commitment should become our second nature and when it is adapted to our way of thinking and doing things, a new Nigeria will be born where individuals act with a deep sense of dedication to a worthy cause. When we are driven by the spirit of commitment in the

422 pursuit of our chosen course, it does not only lead to success but also brings out the humanness in us leading to the enhancement of quality lives lived by the individuals and which consequently translates to society‟s growth and development. This is why we recommend here that through commitment to duty (i.e. doing what is expected of us) we can successfully overcome endemic leadership failure, underdevelopment, career failure, parental failure, tackle corruption, student apathy to study, maintain a crime-free and stable society and run efficient rail, transport and judicial systems, as well as armed forces, football academy, health-care system, refinery, energy sector, communication, education, custom service, productive manufacturing sector, tax regime etc. According to Kierkegaard, commitment is a sacrifice one makes for his real self to manifest in accomplishing a chosen goal.

4. Commitment as a Basis for Consistency and Sustainability: That to sustain the current democratic process in Nigeria and elsewhere in the world, deliberate ethical commitment to implementation of vital democratic procedures and values such as periodical elections, registration of all eligible voters, free and fair voting system, proper separation of powers between the executive, judiciary and the legislature, and good governance must be sustained.

Furthermore, we recommend commitment as the basis for action since we have discovered that

Nigeria‟s problem is neither military rule nor democracy, nor true federalism but that of lack of moral and political will to enforce policies that will engender improvement in human life. In fact, Nigeria‟s leadership needs commitment to guarantee food sufficiency, agricultural expansion, industrial development, qualitative education, good governance, social order, the rule of law, wealth and job creation, security of lives and properties, and to entrench a corruption-free society where zero tolerance for corruption is sustained. More importantly, if

423 the honour and dignity of Nigeria must be developed and sustained, commitment to moral uprightness and ethical considerations between the various nationalities that make-up Nigeria must be promoted. Consequently, it is argued that if commitment means getting bound to do something, or getting resolved to do something, or is seen as a pledge, promise, unwavering resolve, risk, sacrifice, dedication, unconditional devotion or ontological responsibility one has made to accomplish a chosen or given task for human development and societal growth, then it is needed by all rational human beings to achieve their existential purpose.

5. Commitment should be Personalized: It is suggested here that we personalize commitment because it is in its personalized state that its fruitfulness and meaningfulness are revealed. In fact, commitment is more actionable in its personalized state. Furthermore, experience has shown that the bedrock of human and societal development is largely dependent on individuals‟ commitment to a cause. This is to say that when an individual A or B does his/her moral and legally assigned responsibilities with a deep sense of commitment, life will become livable and meaningful. This individual commitment, which is a consequence of personal commitment makes participation in form of involvement easier because when one knows that if one give oneself to executing a particular responsibility, it will enhance one‟s being as well as others around one and ones social environment, then, one will be committed to it. From

Kierkegaard‟s pronouncement about commitment, it is recommended that we need commitment to assume our personal and national responsibilities. Thus, personal or individual commitment as emphasized by Kierkegaard is key needed to the transformation of the individual socially and morally.

424 6. Choosing the Ethical Existence: This recommendation is based on the outcome of this research that the ethical existence entails a life that involves making a principled commitment to the well-being of others. Thus, a leader who wants to fulfill his leadership duties and contribute meaningfully to the well-being of others MUST avoid the aesthetic way of life where only the leader‟s interest is pursued to the detriment of others. To avoid this uncommitted way of life, the leader is advised to choose the ethical way of life because it entails genuine involvement of commitment to duty. At the ethical level, which depicts action and victory, a leader is principally involved in the well-being of others with a sense of resolve.

It is at this level that a leader fulfills one of the basic themes of existentialism, which is, being- with-others. A leader should know that the followers and the led are the quintessence of leadership and as such should know that he/she is there primarily to serve others before his/her own interest. This is where he/she needs commitment to transcend egotistic interest.

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