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DISCOURSE ON CORRUPTION AND COLLAPSE OF REASON IN 

HUMAN AFFAIRS: A PHILOSOPHICAL SOLUTION 

 

Matthew Ike Obijekwu, PhD  

A lecturer at Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Igbariam, 

Anambra State; 

President, Ethics and Values Ambassadors International Association; and 

Director, Dr Ike Obijekwu Centre for Research and Values Mentorship, 

Ihiala 

Mobile: 08063795889; Email: mathewobijekwu@gmail.com  

 

Abstract 

Applying analytic method, the paper contended that corruption in all its 

ramifications appeared to be the main cause of local and global confusion, war, 

conflict, terrorism, discrimination, subjugation, and many other social 

problems. Corruption, which is conceived or defined here as an extreme 

attachment to self, or I (ego), or an extreme group or nation’s attachment to 

herself (extreme nationalism or ultranationalism), appeared to be the cause of 

social injustices, man’s inhumanity to man, exploitation, etc. This paper 

discussed the collapse of reason in human affairs considerably in the 20th and 

21st Centuries. It argued that corruption has led to the collapse of reason in 

human affairs (or relations) across the globe. Herein, definition of corruption, 

types and categories of corruption, which include individual, national and 

international categories of corruption were examined. The concept of 

“Reason”, and further discussion on the movement of Reason in history of 

thought was examined. Further discussion on the categories, instances of 

corruption and collapse of reason within 20th and 21st centuries were made. 

Furtherance, a philosophical solution on the collapsed of reason was offered. 

The paper, therefore, concluded that if humans across the globe should do well 

to understand the natural bond that hold humanity together and as well 

understand the uniqueness of humans, there would be a relative peace and 

harmony across the globe. And extreme biases and prejudices caused by 

corruption of reason should be jettison from human relations across the world. 

Hence, wars, human exploitations and dehumanization orchestrated by 

selfishness and extreme desire to dominate would be reduced, if not 

completely eradicated.   

 

 

 

 

 

 



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Introduction 

The question remains, “how can philosophy intervene in restoring the 

seemingly global collapse of reason precipitated by corruption? Can reason be 

morally redeemed in human affairs? Reason has been seen as the refiner or the 

molder of society right from the ancient time, through medieval period and 

down to modern period of philosophical thought. In contemporary period 

which often be described as 21st Century, reason seems to have lost its 

compass in human affairs or relation. The war presently going on between 

Russia and Ukraine is a typical example of collapse of reason in contemporary 

time. Perhaps, there has been series of wars in the history of humanity, which 

scholars may not have taken time to investigate the impact of corruption 

amongst the causes of these wars. 

 

Reason, in the ancient time, seemed to have refined the non-philosophical 

period in history. Reason, as seen, refined the Egyptian Greek mythological 

periods as the literature of Homer and Hesiod explored relationships or 

interactions between humans; between gods and humans; and between 

humans and the universe. Evidently, the Egyptian and Greek mythologists 

were not enable to subject some of these actions or anthropomorphical status 

of gods to the altar of criticality, rationality and coherency. It was until the 

emergence of pure philosophic thought, that is, the pure application of reason 

through the ancient Egyptians priest-philosophers under the Egyptian Mystery 

System Schools that reason started to take its constructive and reconstructive 

approach. As seen in Imhotep, an Egyptian philosopher who lived about 2980 

B.C during the Third Dynasty;1 Hermes Akheton who also lived around 1350 

B. C nearly one thousand years before Aristotle was born;2 Ptah-hotep, the 

vizier of King Izezi of the Fifth Dynasty- 2000-1780 B.C3 to mention a few. 

An ancient Greek historian and geographer, Herodotus, who lived in the 5th 

Century BC (about 484 to 425 BC), and who gave a detailed account of Greco-

Persian Wars, also showed the primacy of reason in the development of 

thought4. Later philosophers like Thales and other pre-Socratic philosophers 

continued in the West (Greece and Roman Empire) what the Egyptian Mystery 

System Scholars started in South (Africa). Socrates, Plato and Aristotle made 

reason the benchmark for reflection, criticality, rationality and coherency. 

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the subsequent philosophers conceived 

Reason as the refiner of human thought and actions. Even the scholastics, who 

were more theologians than philosophers (theologian-philosophers), described 

Reason as a divine wisdom and handmaid of theology.  

 

With the 20th and 21st Centuries events, one may really doubt or question the 

primacy of Reason due to the extreme manifestation of corruption across the 

globe. In this situation, egoistic emotion orchestrated by personal or collective 



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attachment to material things, or extreme materialism may be, seen 

dominantly suppressing Reason. Hence, the blame on irrationality in human 

relations has been ascribed to, or rather anchored on the influence of, egoistic 

emotion or racial sentiments.  

 

Be it as it may, reason was highly elevated or prized during the Enlightenment 

Period in the history of philosophy. Hegel taught of “universal reason”2 

arguing that reason has been on motion since the history of the world. For 

Hegel, the State was the aftermath of the dialectical movement of thought or 

reason.  

 

Considering the failing human relationship and some events that have been 

occurring across the globe shaping the world and its history, it appears human 

reason is collapsing. This has become visible in the act of dehumanization and 

exploitation of humans by their fellow humans. The collapse of reason can 

also be virtually seen in the taxonomized of the world into First World, Second 

World and Third World, as well as developed and underdeveloped (or 

developing) nations. The accusations and counter-accusations regarding the 

origin of Covid-19; the fear and anxiety caused by emergence of 5G Network 

and troubling issues as they may affect humans across the globe are also 

pointers to the collapse of reason. Along this line are the First World War, the 

Second World War and the waves of the Third World War (as the Russian-

Ukraine war is ongoing) standing as indicators of collapsed and subsequent 

collapse of reason 

 

Understanding the Concept and nature of Corruption 

It is proper to define the concept of corruption here before further discussion. 

One may ask, what is corruption? What is the nature of corruption? Is 

corruption a natural phenomenon? Or better put, “Is corruption nature of 

humans?” Is it in the nature of humans to be corrupt? Under what condition 

can we consider an action or a conduct a corrupt one?  

In tackling the above questions, let me first and foremost begin with the 

correction of the decades held wrong understanding of human nature as 

posited by some scholars. I may completely disagree with Thomas Hobbes, 

who said that humans are wolves in the state of nature. This is an indirect way 

of saying that humans are naturally corrupt in the state of nature. I greatly 

appreciate John Locke’s and Rousseau’s views on the natural state of 

humankind. They asserted that humans were “equal and free” in the state of 

nature, and reason later suggested for peace and protection of lives and 

properties, which was consented to by the members and realized through 

social contract, or communal agreement.  The later manifestation of individual 



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greed could be said to lead to attitudinal or habitual corruption in the state of 

nature – not a manifestation from birth.  

 

Hence, discussion on corruption in contemporary society may expose other 

views on corrupt exhibitions different from the type existed or experienced in 

the state of nature as theorized by the social contract theorists. Even Thomas 

Hobbes’ sense of corrupt nature of humans led to the formation of political 

society, whereas at present, the modern systemic corruption has apparently led 

to the destruction of lives and properties. Corruption may take different forms 

or dimensions. I argue that corruption is beyond taking bribe, and 

embezzlement of public funds. It is beyond that; therefore, limiting corruption 

or corrupt practices to mere taking bribe or embezzlement of public fund is 

limiting the effects of corruption across the globe. Colonialism is a form, and 

advanced form, of corruption; slavery, domination, subjugation, 

marginalization, exclusion, or racism are forms of corrupt practices intended 

to alienate some of section humans from their human nature for selfish reasons. 

These are trans-personal modes(TPM) of corruption.  

 

As it were, corruption is any crime against humanity; any crime that is 

intentionally done to distort common good and retard progress and 

development; it could be done by an individual, or a group. Generally speaking, 

corruption is considered an evil. Based on this, I may argue that corruption is 

not in the nature of humans. Humans are not specifically made to be corrupt. 

Evil, as said by St. Augustine, is a privation in man, and occurs when humans 

decide to choose the opposite of good, which is evil or act in contradiction to 

good conduct. The opposite of evil is good. Heraclitus would want us to 

believe that good and evil are in conflict – the theory of conflict of opposites: 

evil and good, hot and cold, life and death, love and hate, etc. are often seen 

as natural phenomena.  These are how nature unfold itself in the world and in-

the-things around us. But we may still wonder if corruption is a natural 

phenomenon like life and death, evil and good, etc. Is corruption in the nature 

of humans or in-things-in-themselves? I argue that corruption is not a natural 

phenomenon, and it is not in the nature of things (or in human to be corrupt); 

that human beings or persons, out of their individual volition, often choose to 

be corrupt. Humans can never choose to live or die; no one chooses to come 

into the world at birth, but man can choose to kill himself or herself by 

committing suicide when the reason is corrupt. Something is certain here – 

freedom to choose or not to choose in the face of options or alternatives lies 

in, or within, humans. Life is a natural phenomenon likewise death. Whether 

one exists or does not exist, life and death are there as the flows of nature.  

Either - or factor is always before humans. One may decide to either choose 

good or evil, either be corrupt or not. I am not considering corruption as a 



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decay of the human body after death or in a metaphorical sense. I am 

considering corruption as an act or a human conduct or as an attitude. 

Corruption can be seen in various affairs or activities of humans, and in 

various levels. Many definitions have been offered from these perspectives. 

Generally, corruption is defined by World Bank as a form of dishonesty or a 

criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is 

entrusted with a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or 

abuse power for one’s private gain. In this definition, one in power or entrusted 

with authority may choose to be or not be corrupt. It is a choice. This definition 

clearly shows that corruption is not in-the-nature of the individual involved 

but out of one’s decision or choice. For instance, red is in the colour of red; 

green is in-the-colour of green, likewise blue, yellow and other colours. It is 

in the nature of humans to be good, not to be corrupt.  

 

Further, the nature of corruption can be extended to other dimensions. 

Corruption, as we know, may take different forms, namely; bribery, which 

refers to the offering, giving, soliciting, or receiving of any items of values as 

a means of influencing the actions of an individual holding a public or legal 

duty,4 while embezzlement refers to a form of white-collar crime in which a 

person or entity misappropriate the assets entrusted to them.5The World 

Report on corruption include other practices seemed legal in other countries 

but in actual sense are corrupt activities.6Corruption, as said earlier, manifests 

in various human activities such as politics, economics, etc. Political 

corruption, for example, happens when one who is entrusted with a political 

office or other governmental employee acts in official way for personal gain.  

In this line of thought, Stephen D. Morris defines political corruption as the 

illegitimate use of public power to benefit a private interest.7 An economist, 

Ian Senior defines corruption as an action to a thirty party so that he or she can 

influence certain actions which benefit the corrupt, a thirty party, or both in 

which the corrupt agent has authority.8 Daniel Kaufmann, a renowned World 

Bank Economist, extended the definition of corruption to legal corruption 

where power is abused within the confines of the law – as those with power 

often have the ability to make the laws for their protection. The Transparency 

International defines corruption as the abuse of entrusted power for 

private gain. Corruption erodes trust, weakens democracy, hampers 

economic development and further exacerbates inequality, poverty, social 

division and environmental crisis9. 

 

Human nature is naturally endowed, universally accepted and legally 

recognized across the globe; but corruption, as a pervades nature of human 

person, as it flows from his act, is globally a crime against humanity.  

 



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Types of Corruption 

Discussing the types of corruption herein brings us to some other 

understandings of the subject matter. Some previous discussions on corruption 

seemed to have so much limited corruption to intra-personal modes(IPMs) as 

against the trans-personal modes (TPMs). Even the definition of corruption 

can be approached from various dimensions due to the variables that constitute 

corrupt practices; one can easily feel and experience the effects of corruption 

politically, economically, socially, and mostly be felt in leadership. Corruption 

is an ethical issue in society, which has been affecting humanity in different 

ways. It is a human conduct or action. In talking of corruption, human person(s) 

is/are involved.  

 

Elliot Kimberly Ann, in his work Corruption Overview and Recommendations, 

gave three types of corruption, namely; petty corruption, grand corruption and 

systemic corruption.10. Suffice to say that as there are variant definitions of 

corruption, there are also types of corruption. There are manifestations of 

corrupt activities in both low and high levels in human activities.  Petty 

corruption is said to occur in a smaller scale, especially in our daily activities 

where in public services, we meet people or public. Such places include fuel 

stations, police station, registration offices, school offices, etc. Grand 

corruption occurs at the high levels of government in such a way that there is 

grave diversion of the political, legal and economic system. The third type of 

corruption is the system (or endemic corruption). Lorena Aleazer and Raul 

Andrade assert that this type of corruption is primarily due to the weaknesses 

of an organization or process. It can be contrasted with individual officials or 

agents who act corruptly within the system. According to him, the factors that 

encourages the systemic corruption include conflicting incentives, 

discretionary powers; monopolistic powers; lack of transparency; low pay; 

and a culture of impunity.11 

 

Dimensions/Stages of Corruption 

We may approach the discussion on corruption in two forms; broad and 

narrow forms of corruptions. Corruption may be simply conceived as a 

conflict of interests between the individual interest and collective interests. 

The narrow form of corruption is when corruption takes a particularistic nature, 

that is, when an individual is involved for selfish reasons or self-interest as 

often observed within a state or a nation.  The narrow sense of corruption can 

be known as intra-nation corruption (Intra-NC), while the broad sense of 

corruption can be termed an inter-nation corruption (Inter-NC). Herein, our 

discussion of corruption will be more of inter-NC as it has led to the global 

collapse of reason.  

 



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Let me briefly propose some stages of corruption, such as individual stage, 

national stage and international stage of corruption. let me bring to our 

awareness that the individual stage and the national stages of corruption falls 

within the Intra-NC. There is another stage/dimension of corruption which I 

may not discuss in details here. This is known as epistemic corruption, which 

involves the conscription of human knowledge and denial of the epistemic 

contributions by other sections of the world. The main effect of this kind of 

corruption is that it retards knowledge; it consumes inclusiveness and 

integration in knowledge. Epistemic corruption is seen in the writing of the 

history of philosophy by the western philosophers, where Africa’s epistemic 

contributions in the development of western thought were excluded. C. 

Onyenwenyi, in his work, Africa Origin of Western Philosophy12, extensively 

discussed this kind of exclusion of knowledge which I describe as an epistemic 

corruption.  

   

The first stage of corruption is the individual stage of corruption, which is the 

lower stage of corruption. Often, the evil of corruption is nurtured and 

precipitated by individuals but in the limited or narrow sense. The individual 

stage is the fragment of the whole in the further stages of corruption. In this 

stage, self or ego beclouds the individual reasoning, and misdirects the will. 

At this level also, no sense of commonness can be seen rather self-interest. So 

the individual is the sole administrator in this type of corruption; individuals, 

at this stage, are the carriers of the modes of corruption in the atomic forms. 

This stage is a limited stage because the individual can be checkmated by the 

state through her legal structures, functional or working institutions. When the 

entire state or nation is corrupt, the second stage of corruption emerges which 

is always coordinated and systematically done by the state actors.  

 

The second stage of corruption is the national stage. This is the conglomeration 

of the individual interests or group interests; a clique of decision-makers or 

leaders. Illustratively, a situation where an individual is interested in 

appropriating resources of a country, where he or she is a citizen or a member, 

and fortunately discovered that there are other persons who have the same 

interest in the resources, instead of being alone in the game to avoid being 

decimated or overridden by other competitors, decides to connive with them 

to milk the nation’s resources. Politicians are good at this type of corruption. 

As it was said that there is no enemy is politics, rather partners in crime. The 

national level of corruption is the type of corruption a nation undertakes within 

the framework of the country’s activities. This type of corruption is often seen 

in an authoritarian society, oligarchical society, or where tyrant leaders 

determine the future of their citizens. Nigeria is a typical example of this type 

of corrupt nation. This is where the executive, judicial and legislative arms of 



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government are all involved in corrupt practices. One hardly obtains justice in 

such a society. In a situation or in a country where the judicial, executive and 

legislative arms of government are all corrupt, the country and the whole 

system in that particular society or country would be in jungle or survival of 

the fittest. It would be in a state of war or anarchy where life is” short, brutish, 

nasty and poor” according to Thomas Hobbes. 

 

The third stage of corruption occurs in the international relations or 

engagements with other countries. This stage of corruption is considered under 

the Intra-NC. This occurs when a group, an organization or a nation decides 

to exploit, marginalize, subjugate, colonize, or dominate other groups, 

organizations, or nations in the quest to acquire more. This is done by 

extending beyond their boundaries, especially to those countries that have 

what they desired (natural resources) but are economically and politically 

incapacitated to protect themselves or determine their future progress due to 

self-imposed challenges or external challenges. Africa and other developing 

nations have been involved or so much affected by this type of corruption. For 

some decades now, the future of most African nations are determined and still 

be determined by the developed countries (or world powers like America, 

Chine, France, Britain, Russia, and others) through the International Monetary 

Fund(IMF), the World Bank and other international financial institutions. This 

type of corruption is likened to a systemic type of corruption. The individual, 

national and international stages of corruption can be likened to the petty 

corruption, grand corruption and systemic corruption by Elliot Kimberly Ann. 

 

Corruption Inducement 

Experience has shown that corruption may be induced by different human 

traits or factors such as psychological (or emotional), social, political and 

economic factors. The main factor amongst these factors is often associated 

with the psychological inducement factors: (a) extreme attachment to self or 

ego (egocentrism) on the individual stage, and (b) extreme nationalism or 

ultranationalism in the national and international stages. The extreme 

attachment to self or ego (egocentrism)may say to be the primary cause of 

corruption. This is a situation where an individual placed himself or herself 

over others, and to their detriment, while the extreme nationalism 

orultranationalism is referred to a situation where individual or nations 

promote the interest of one state or people above all others. The term, 

ultranationalism is said to be the key foundation of fascism.13The international 

corruption is often caused by extreme nationalism or ultranationalism; that is 

a situation where nations prized themselves over and above others, or consider 

themselves superior over other nations. 



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We may consider other induced factors of corruption as secondary factors. 

Psychological induced corruption is often caused by lack of self-control or 

self-esteem. Often, one engages in corruption or corrupt activities out of low 

self-esteem, self-insufficiency, anxiety, fear of poverty, wretchedness or greed. 

We may think of other views on the causes of corruption as offered by some 

scholars. Dominik Enste and Christiana Heldman’s book titled, Causes and 

Consequences of Corruption: An Overview of Empirical Results enumerates 

the main causes of corruption, which include; a, the sizes of government; b) 

the democracy and political system; c) the quality of institutions; d) economic 

freedom/openness of economy; e) salaries of civil service; f) press freedom 

and judiciary; g) cultural determination; h) percentage of woman in the labour 

force and in parliament; i) colonial heritage and; j) the endowment of natural 

resources. The authors further enumerate some areas where the impact of 

corruption can be felt, namely; i) investment in general; ii) foreign direct 

investment and capital inflows; iii) foreign trade and aid; iv) official growth; 

v) inequality; vi) government expenditure and services; and vii) shadow 

economy and crime.14 Many other studies on corruption have laid much 

emphasis on likely issues listed above. But little or no attention has been paid 

on self or ego. Some scholars made mention of greed. Greed, as we can see, is 

a negative attribute of self. It is a negation of selfless service or self-sacrifice. 

Whenever one is immersed in greed, reason is beclouded and rationality failed, 

and the resultant effect is the collapse of Reason – irrationality, which reduces 

one to a brute. Corruption often happens due to the failure or collapse of reason, 

that is, the failure of reason to be involved in rationality; in criticality; in 

coherency of thought; and in discovering the truth-value of things.  

Part   

 

Understanding the Concept and Nature of Reason 

What is reason? From the ancient to the contemporary era, the nature of reason 

has been so much contest or debated. The modern usage of the word, Reason 

metamorphosed from a Greek word, logos, which is also the root of the term, 

“logic” (speech, or explanation or an account.15Its direct translation into 

English is gotten from French raison.16 Its further usages like ratio, raison, 

logos and reason were said to be interchangeably used by philosophers like 

Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke as most of their works were 

written in Latin and French. Reason, in a philosophical sense is equated with 

rationality, or rational as an adjective. The term, Reason has been understood 

in different ways: a) as a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or 

event, b; as the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgements 

logically. Proundfoot defines reason as the capacity of consciously applying 

logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim 

of seeking the truth.17 



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He further asserts that Reason is closely associated with such characteristically 

human activities as philosophy, science, language, mathematics, and art, and 

is normally considered to be a distinguishing ability possessed by humans.18 

In this definition, reason seeks or searches for the Truth. In moment of bias 

and prejudice, reason seeks for the truth. Reason is possessed by humans, and 

it is sometimes referred to as rationality.19 Reason involves acts of cognition 

and thinking as well as one’s use of intellect. According to Hintikka, reasoning 

is used in the field of logic to produce logically valid arguments.20 Reason, as 

we can see, is subdivided into: deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning, 

abductive reasoning, and intuitive reasoning. There are other understandings 

or conceptions of reason which we may not go into now due to the scope of 

this work. We may not forget to note, as Foucault says, that reason is the means 

by which rational individuals understand sensory information from their 

environment, or conceptualize abstract dichotomies such as cause and effect, 

truth and falsehood, or ideas regarding notions of good and evil. Michel 

Foucault further asserts that reasoning, as a part of executive decision making, 

is also closely identified with the ability to self-consciously change, in terms 

of goals, beliefs, attitudes, traditions, and institutions, and therefore with the 

capacity for freedom and self-determination.21 

 

According to Merriam-Webster.com, a reason is a consideration given which 

either explains or justifies events, phenomena, or behavior.22 Reasons justify 

decisions, reasons support explanations of natural phenomena; reasons can be 

given to explain the actions (conduct) of individuals. James Rachels’ The 

Elements of Moral Philosophy expresses that using reason, or reasoning, can 

also be described more plainly as providing good, or the best, reasons. For 

example, when evaluating a moral decision, "morality is, at the very least, the 

effort to guide one's conduct by reason—that is, doing what there are the best 

reasons for doing—while giving equal [and impartial] weight to the interests 

of all those affected by what one does."23 Francisco de Goya maintains that 

the “Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters” (El sueño de la razón produce 

monstruos). The term sleep as used by Francisco de Goya may be interpreted 

to mean “collapse” of reason which he said produces monster.  

 

Philosophically, the argument on reason has been an old-aged argument 

starting with the Greek philosophers to contemporary philosophers. In 

philosophy, reason has been argued to be a thing that gives humanity its 

special position in nature. And this was said to be a defining characteristic of 

western philosophy and later western modern science, starting with classical 

Greece.  

 



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In classical period, many classical philosophers conceived nature as being 

teleological, which means that every type of thing had a definitive purpose 

that fit within a natural order that was itself understood to have aims. With 

Pythagoras or Heraclitus, the cosmos or universe is even understood to have 

reason.24 

 

Therefore, considering reason as teleological, it is not just one characteristic 

that humans happen to have, and that influences happiness amongst other 

characteristics. Reason was considered of higher stature than other 

characteristics of human nature, such as sociability, because it is something 

humans share with nature itself, linking an apparently immortal part of the 

human mind with the divine order of the cosmos itself. Within the human mind 

or soul (psyche), reason was described by Plato as being the natural monarch 

which should rule over the other parts, such as spiritedness (thumos) and the 

passions. Aristotle, Plato's student, defined human beings as rational animals, 

emphasizing reason as a characteristic of human nature. He defines the highest 

human happiness or well-being (eudaimonia) as a life which is lived 

consistently, excellently, and completely in accordance with reason.25 

Davidson asserts that Plato’s and Aristotle’s discourse on reason are amongst 

the most debated in the history of philosophy.26 The teleological accounts such 

as Aristotle's were highly influential for those who attempt to explain reason 

in a way that is consistent with monotheism and the immortality and divinity 

of the human soul.27 

 

The understanding of reason in the perspectives of Plato and Aristotle raised 

other views on reason. Citing Plotinus, a neoplatonist, Moore states that the 

cosmos has one soul, which is the seat of all reason, and the souls of all 

individual humans are part of this soul. Reason is for Plotinus both the 

provider of form to material things, and the light which brings individuals 

souls back into line with their source.28 The classical view of reason influenced 

both the Christian and Islamic theologians during the scholastic period. 

Therefore, adopting the classical view of reason by Christian and Islamic 

philosophers gave the understanding of reason another dimension. The 

Neoplatonic and Stoic views were adopted by early church fathers like 

Augustine of Hippo, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa who were seen 

as Neoplatonic philosophers.29They saw reason/philosophy as an 

indispensable instrument given to mankind so that we may understand 

revelation.30 Other Christian theologians like Saint Thomas Aquinas applied 

the idea of reason in the expansion of their doctrine.  

For Aquinas, humans have reason and because reason is a spark of the divine, 

all humans are equal and every human is born with an intrinsic and permanent 

set of basic rights. This became the basis of Thomas Aquinas’s Natural Law.31 



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The Spanish theologians from the School of Salamanca, based on this, 

developed the idea of human rights. During this period, scholastic period, 

scholars like Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus followed the Islamic scholars 

like Alhazen to conceive reason as an intrinsic human ability to decode the 

created order and the structures that underlie our experienced physical reality. 

This interpretation of reason was said to be the offshoot of, or instrumental to, 

the development of the scientific method in the early universities of the high 

middle ages.32 

 

In the modern era, there are a lot of changes in the previous understanding of 

reason. First, the metaphysical or spiritual view of human person was changed. 

Second, the teleological understanding of reason was also replaced as the 

modern European philosophers and Scientists started to question the 

teleological understanding of the world which Aristotle propounded. Nature 

was no longer assumed to be human-like with its own aims or reason. And 

human nature was no longer assumed to work according to anything other than 

the same "laws of nature" which affect inanimate things.33 

 

René Descartes, in 17th century, gave another definition to human being as “a 

thinking being” with his famous maxim cogito ergo sum – I think, therefore, I 

am” defines human beings as thinking rather than a rational being like 

Aristotle. With this understanding, humans are no longer rational beings but 

thinking like other things in nature. For Descartes, any other knowledge 

outside this his epistemological foundation is subject to doubt. In his methodic 

doubt, he threw into doubt every knowledge except that of the mind itself in 

the process of thinking. He said thus: “At this time I admit nothing that is not 

necessarily true. I am therefore precisely nothing but a thinking thing; that is 

a mind, or intellect, or understanding, or reason – words of whose meanings I 

was previously ignorant.”34 

 

Descartes approach was said to be "subject-centred" reason, because it is based 

on the knowing subject, who perceives the rest of the world and itself as a set 

of objects to be studied, and successfully mastered by applying the knowledge 

accumulated through such study. shifting from tradition and many thinkers 

after him, Descartes clearly did not divide the incorporeal soul into parts, such 

as reason and intellect, but describing them as one indivisible incorporeal 

entity.35 Thomas Hobbes described reason as a broader version of "addition 

and subtraction" which is not limited to numbers.36 Hobbes understanding of 

reason is often referred as "calculative" reason. In line with Descartes, Hobbes 

asserted that "No discourse whatsoever, can end in absolute knowledge of fact, 

past, or to come" but that "sense and memory" is absolute knowledge.”37 



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In the late 17th century, through the 18th century, John Locke and David 

Hume developed Descartes' line of thought still further. Hume took it in an 

especially skeptical direction, proposing that there could be no possibility of 

deducing relationships of cause and effect, and therefore no knowledge is 

based on reasoning alone, even if it seems otherwise.38 David Hume, in his 

discourse on reason in his Treatise of Human Nature, remarked thus: "We 

speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion 

and of reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and 

can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them."39 Hume 

further took his definition of reason to unorthodox extremes by arguing, unlike 

his predecessors, that human reason is not qualitatively different from either 

simply conceiving individual ideas, or from judgments associating two 

ideas,40 and that "reason is nothing but a wonderful and unintelligible instinct 

in our souls, which carries us along a certain train of ideas, and endows them 

with particular qualities, according to their particular situations and 

relations."41 

 

In the 18th century, Immanuel Kant, having faulted Hume, demonstrated that 

a "transcendental" self, or "I", was a necessary condition of all experience. “By 

the basis of such a self”, suggested Kant, “it is in fact possible to reason both 

about the conditions and limits of human knowledge. And so long as these 

limits are respected, reason can be the vehicle of morality, justice, aesthetics, 

theories of knowledge (epistemology), and understanding.”42 

 

For Kant, the great achievement of reason (German: Vernunft) is that it is able 

to exercise a kind of universal law-making. Kant was able therefore to 

reformulate the basis of moral-practical, theoretical and aesthetic reasoning, 

on "universal" laws. Here practical reasoning is the self-legislating or self-

governing formulation of universal norms, and theoretical reasoning is the 

way humans posit universal laws of nature.43 Under practical reason, the moral 

autonomy or freedom of human beings depends on their ability to behave 

according to laws that are given to them by the proper exercise of that reason. 

This changed the earlier view of morality, which depended on religious 

understanding and interpretation, or nature for their substance.44 

 

 

According to Kant, in a free society each individual must be able to pursue 

their goals however they see fit, so long as their actions conform to principles 

given by reason. He formulated such a principle, called the "categorical 

imperative", which would justify an action only if it could be universalized: 

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that 

it should become a universal law.45 



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In contrast to Hume then, Kant insists that reason itself has natural ends itself, 

the solution to the metaphysical problems, especially the discovery of the 

foundations of morality. Kant claimed that this problem could be solved with 

his "transcendental logic" which unlike normal logic is not just an instrument, 

which can be used indifferently, as it was for Aristotle, but a theoretical 

science in its own right and the basis of all the others.46 

 

Jürgen Habermas asserts that the "substantive unity" of reason has dissolved 

in modern times, such that it can no longer answer the question "How should 

I live?" Instead, the unity of reason has to be strictly formal, or "procedural". 

He thus described reason as a group of three autonomous spheres (on the 

model of Kant's three critiques). He writes thus: 

Cognitive–instrumental reason is the kind of reason employed by the sciences. 

It is used to observe events, to predict and control outcomes, and to intervene 

in the world on the basis of its hypotheses; 

Moral–practical reason is what we use to deliberate and discuss issues in the 

moral and political realm, according to universalizable procedures (similar to 

Kant's categorical imperative); and 

Aesthetic reason is typically found in works of art and literature, and 

encompasses the novel ways of seeing the world and interpreting things that 

those practices embody. 

 

For Habermas, these three spheres are the domain of experts, and therefore 

need to be mediated with the "lifeworld" by philosophers. In drawing such a 

picture of reason, Habermas hoped to demonstrate that the substantive unity 

of reason, which in pre-modern societies had been able to answer questions 

about the good life, could be made up for by the unity of reason's formalizable 

procedures.47 

 

From the above exploration, we can see that the concept of reason has been 

much criticized or debated upon. Many philosophers like Heidegger, Hegel, 

Hamann, Herder, Kant, Roty, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Foucault, etc have 

contributed to the debate on what reason means, or ought to mean. Some, like 

Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Rorty are skeptical about subject-centred, 

universal, or instrumental reason, and even skeptical toward reason as a whole. 

Others, including Hegel, believe that it has obscured the importance of 

intersubjectivity, or "spirit" in human life, and attempt to reconstruct a model 

of what reason should be. Some thinkers like Foucault, believe there are other 

forms of reason, neglected but essential to modern life, and to our 

understanding of what it means to live a life according to reason.48 



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As a result, a number of proposals have been made to "re-orient" this critique 

of reason, or to recognize the "other voices" or "new departments" of reason. 

For example, in opposition to subject-centred reason, Habermas has proposed 

a model of communicative reason that sees it as an essentially cooperative 

activity, based on the fact of linguistic intersubjectivity.49 Nikolas Kompridis 

has proposed a widely encompassing view of reason as "that ensemble of 

practices that contributes to the opening and preserving of openness" in human 

affairs, and a focus on reason's possibilities for social change.50 The 

philosopher Charles Taylor, influenced by the 20th century German 

philosopher Martin Heidegger, has proposed that reason ought to include the 

faculty of disclosure, which is tied to the way we make sense of things in 

everyday life, as a new "department" of reason.51 In the essay "What is 

Enlightenment?", Michel Foucault proposed a concept of critique based on 

Kant's distinction between "private" and "public" uses of reason. This 

distinction, as suggested, has two dimensions: 

Private reason is the reason that is used when an individual is "a cog in 

a machine" or when one "has a role to play in society and jobs to do: 

to be a soldier, to have taxes to pay, to be in charge of a parish, to be a 

civil servant". Public reason is the reason used "when one is reasoning 

as a reasonable being (and not as a cog in a machine), when one is 

reasoning as a member of reasonable humanity". In these 

circumstances, "the use of reason must be free and public."52 

 

Regeneration of Reason in the History of Thought 

In the history of philosophical thought, the period known as the “Dark Age” 

was the first period in the collapse of reason due to war and other human 

actions. During this period, there was a serious intellectual, political, social, 

moral and cultural decay. The ancient Greek Philosophers like Socrates, Plato, 

Aristotle and others did produce so many classical literatures in arts, music, 

and politics. Some of these works were destroyed as a result of war or natural 

disasters. As a result, a gap was created in the intellectual world until the 

renaissance era. The term, “renaissance” was so much emphasized in the 

history of intellectual development. It was used to express the period of 

revitalization and regeneration of social, political, intellectual, moral, cultural 

and economic milieu and of all that were lost during the Dark Age. Some of 

these classical works of arts and music were discovered and recovered.  Later, 

there were emergences of classical scholars who ventured into politics, social, 

and cultural reformations. There was also intellectual and academic 

regeneration. Reason played significant role during this period.  

 

Another era that goes with the “renaissance era” was the enlightenment period. 

This was the age of reason. This period was a period of a paradigm shift from 



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the epistemologico-dogmatic paradigm. Describing the enlightenment period, 

Ramose writes thus: 

Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-

incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man’s inability to 

make use of his understanding without direction 

from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage 

when its cause lies not in the lack of reason but 

in lack of resolution and courage to use it 

without direction from another. The motto of 

enlightenment period is: Sapere Aude! “Have 

courage to use your own reason! 53 

This period is the period when the Aristotle’s definition of “man as a rational 

animal” was celebrated. It was seen as the period of human liberation from 

the shackles of dogma. 

 

Corruption and Collapse of Reason in Human Relations 

The term, Ratio Corruptionism may be termed the theory of corruption of 

human reason. The term ratio means “reason”, “rationality” or “ratiocination”. 

Corruptionism, particularly, is the view that emerged after the physical death 

of man. It states that the human being ceases to exist but their souls remain 

eternal or persist afterlife54. Thomas Aquinas was the main proponent of 

theory of corruptionism. My concern here is not the physical death of the body 

or the eternality of the soul, but death of, or collapse of, reason in human 

affairs. Just like Nietzsche said that God is dead in the affairs of religion; 

reason is dead in the affairs of humans. Therefore, studying some of the events 

of 20th and 21st Centuries will explicitly uncover my view on the subject matter. 

It is proper at this point to examine some areas where reason may say to have 

collapsed in human relations.  

 

The collapse of reason in the humanness of humanity could be seen in various 

ways or places across the world.  Corruption in itself is an anti-humanness of 

humanity. It is antithetical to common good and development; it is anti-ethical 

for good living.  

 

In the international level, corruption may be said to have destroyed the 

rudiments of democratic principles which include the fundamental human 

rights, equality, and dignity. It often obstructs the maintenance and sustenance 

of human rights, dignity and human equality and other fundamental principles 

of human existence as declared by the United Nations – the 1948 Universal 

Declaration of Human Rights, namely; the right of life, right to dignity of 

human person, right to freedom, right to personal liberty, right to fair hearing, 

right to private life and family life, right to freedom of thought, conscience 



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and religion, right to expression, press and opinion, right to peaceful assembly 

and association, right to freedom of movement, right to acquire and own 

immovable property, right to education, right to vote and be voted for in any 

election.56 These rights are also conceived as inalienable rights.  

 

These rights can only flourish and obtain in an environment where the leaders 

or authorities imbibe the principle of ethics and values -Good should be done 

and evil avoided. Corruption has destroyed reason that formulated and 

articulated these fundamental principles of human life and social cohesion. 

Both individual, national and international corrupt practices are antithetical to 

these basic rights of humans across the globe. From Europe to America, and 

down to Africa, no part of the world is exempted or exonerated from this anti-

humanistic actions.  

 

In the areas of economics and politics, corrupt practices devastate economy, 

political and cultural systems of most states, nations, and the entire world. As 

discussed earlier, I did a little analysis of the concept of corruption where 

different types of corruption were mentioned such as petty corruption, grand 

corruption and systemic corruption. In the stages of corruption, there are 

individual, national and international stages. ….say that “we (Africans) shall 

die like fools if we have a government which is corrupt and is only waiting to 

be given money by the international community.57 So Reason collapsed when 

and where international communities prized economy over human life; 

Reason collapsed when the international policies or international courts is bias 

in delivery of justice across the globe; Reason when and where the 

international community like the United Nations prefers to protect the lives of 

the Western nations (or developed nations) and abandoned those tagged as 

developing nations like Africa, or wish them to be destroyed;or directly or 

indirectly sponsoring tribal, ethnic or communal conflicts; Reason collapsed 

when and where the international community abandoned some nations seeking 

for self-determination due to negligence, human right abuse, marginalization 

and exclusion from government which they should be part of – like the 

Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) by Nigerian Government.  

 

From 1967-1970, during the Nigeria-Biafra War, more than three million 

Biafrans were killed by Nigerian government. At present, many Biafran 

youths have been maimed or killed by the Nigerian soldiers under the 

President Buhari administration. The United Nations, despite Nigeria being a 

member states of the organization, has kept mute over years. So Reason 

collapsed when and where members of the international community 

concentrate in their individual international affairs (like United States’ 

occupation of Iraq, Vietnam War, Libya, etc.) for selfish reasons and to the 



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detriment of other nations. The corruption of reason in Adolf Hitler made him 

to declare Germans the most superior of all races which led to the termination 

of six million Jews in Gas chamber. Reason collapsed in a society where 

colonialism, racism, slavery trade, and any form of dehumanization of humans 

are encouraged and promoted.   

 

The Events within the 20th and 21st Centuries 

One may wonder the connection between corruption and collapse of human 

reason. Corruption, no doubt, has been considered earlier as a crime and anti-

ethical behaviour, conducts, actions or activities intentionally or calculatedly 

done to particularly retard development, and/or to destroy human good and 

progress, and in turn enrich or favour the individual or a group of people 

involved. Corruption, both in individual, national and international levels, may 

be said to be the cause of the most 20th and 21th centuries’ events like wars, 

genocides, conflicts, and other global disharmonies.  

 

Obviously, the 20th Century witnessed is a period of scientific revolution. 

There are a lots of scientific advancement in 20th Century. The century saw a 

major shift in the way that many people lived, with changes in politics, 

ideology, economics, society, culture, science, technology, and medicine. The 

20th century may have seen more technological and scientific progress than 

all the other centuries combined since the dawn of civilization. Terms like 

nationalism, globalism, environmentalism, ideology, world war, genocide, 

and nuclear war entered common usage. Scientific discoveries, such as the 

theory of relativity and quantum physics, profoundly changed the foundational 

models of physical science, forcing scientists to realize that the universe was 

more complex than previously believed, and dashing the hopes (or fears) at 

the end of the 19th century that the last few details of scientific knowledge 

were about to be filled in. It was a century that started with horses, simple 

automobiles, and freighters but ended with high-speed rail, cruise ships, global 

commercial air travel and the Space Shuttle. Horses and other pack animals, 

every society's basic form of personal transportation for thousands of years, 

were replaced by automobiles and buses within a few decades. These 

developments were made possible by the exploitation of fossil fuel resources, 

which offered energy in an easily portable form, but also caused concern about 

pollution and long-term impact on the environment. Humans explored space 

for the first time, taking their first footsteps on the Moon. 

 

One may wonder how these scientific advancements or development have 

served the purpose of humans, or how the events of the 20th century have 

improved global human relations and interactions? The glory of science, 

which should be the source of human transformation and well-being, has been 



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the main source of human sorrow in the 20th and 21st centuries. For instance, 

20th Century witnessed a lot of death due to war, conflicts, terrorist attacks, 

and exchange of nuclear weapons and biochemical weapons across the globe. 

From the sources available, the 20th century has witnessed so many 

occurrences that one may attribute to be the moments of collapse of reason in 

human affairs or human relations across the globe. The 20th century, as usually 

described, is said to begin on January 1, 1901 (MCMI), and ended on 

December 31, 2000(MM)58, while the 21st century began on January 1, 2001 

and will end on December 31, 2100.59This was marked according to the 

Gregorian calendar.  

 

E. O. Wilson’s The Future of Life and R. Leaky’s The Sixth Extinction: 

Patterns of Life and the Future of Humankind mention some of the events that 

dominated the 20th centurywhich include: Spanish flu pandemic, World War I 

and World War II, nuclear weapons, nuclear power and space exploration, 

nationalism, decolonization, technological advances, and the cold war and 

post-cold war conflict. The study on 20th century states that period saw a 

massive transformation of the world order: global total fertility rates, sea level 

rise, and ecological collapses increased; noting further that the resulting 

competition for land and dwindling resources accelerated deforestation, water 

depletion, and the mass extinction of many of the world’s species and decline 

in the population of others; consequences which are now being dealt with. 

Man-made global warming increased the risk of extreme weather 

conditions. …other themes include intergovernmental organizations and 

cultural homogenization through developments in emerging transportation, 

and communications technology; poverty reduction, and world population 

growth, awareness of environmental degradation, ecological extinction,60 and 

the birth of the digital revolution, etc. These scholars argued that the 

repercussions of the World Wars, Cold War, and globalization crafted a world 

where people are more united than any previous time in human history, as 

exemplified by the establishment of international law, international aid, and 

the United Nations. I disagree with them on these statement. At present, the 

world is more divided than united even with establishment of the international 

court, law, aid and the United nations. Even globalization has become the 

weapon of subjugation and domination of less powerful, less political and less 

economic nations.  

 

Going down the memory lane in the history of development and global 

population growth, it was recorded that it took over two hundred thousand 

years of modern human history and six million years of human evolution for 

the world’s population to reach one billion in 1804.61Again that world 

population reached an estimated 2 billion in 1927; and by late 1999, the global 



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population reached six billion, with over half in East, South and Southeast 

Asia.62But this population that has taken the world many years to reach is often 

being destroyed in a twinkle of an eyes by conflict, war,terrorism, genocide, 

biochemical weapons, and other forms of man’s inhumanity.The first world 

war which occurred from 1914-1918, the estimated the total casualtieswas 

placed at forty (40) million, both the military and the civilians.63 Further on 

the records, the number of death as recorded, was 20million and 21 million 

wounded. The military personnel alone were said to be 9.7 million and about 

10 million civilians. This is number of deaths and casualties in one occurrence. 

Some other sources estimated the total deaths to be 10 million, 7 million 

civilians were estimated to have died, 21 million wounded, and 7.7 million 

were estimated to be missing or imprisoned. First World War occurred when 

scientific advancement was still in the lowest level of development. 

 

From 1939-1945, the world experienced another war known as the Second 

World War thattried to consume the entire human race. The Second World 

War has been described in different ways like the deadliest war, most fatal war, 

costliest war, most casualty war just to express how deeply and intensely 

humanity was affected or destroyed. Over 60 million people were estimated 

to have died in the war.64Other sources placed the range from 50-80 million; 

38-55 million civilians were said to be killed, including 13 to 20 who may 

have died from war-related disease and famine. In Soviet Union, 26.6 million 

were estimated to have died and 7.8 million Chinese civilians were also said 

to have also died.65 

 

In the regional levels, they have been series of civil wars, from Africa to 

Europe and other continents of the world; terrorist attacks occur from one end 

of the world to another. The September 9/11,2001 terrorist attack in the United 

States which was said to be carried out by the militant Islamic Terrorist group 

al-Qaeda killed more than 2,996 people and injured 25, 000.66 This event is 

ever fresh in most peoples’ minds, especially the Americans. They probably 

be other unrecorded wars, ethnic conflicts, genocide, or act of man’s 

inhumanity to man across the world that were not formally recording as among 

the events of 20th and 21st Centuries that have seriously affected human 

relations or affairs.  

 

In Africa, particularly, Nigeria, Rwanda and Congo, civil wars, ethnic and 

tribal conflicts have continued to destroy human lives and properties. In 

Nigeria, for instance, Nigerian-Biafran War (Nigerian genocide) costed a lot 

of deaths; the death of about 3 million Biafrans were seemed not to be counted 

or recorded as among casualties of 20th Century. In Rwanda, the Rwanda 

genocide in 1994 was one of the effects of collapse of reason. The Rwanda 



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genocide occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994between members of 

Tutsi minority ethnic group, Hutu and Twa. Guichaouaplaced the estimated 

deaths at 500,000 to 800,000 Tutsi deaths.67; Reyntjens recorded the estimates 

for the total toll including Hutu and Twa victims are as high as 1,100,000.68.  

The Democratic Republic of Congo has experienced two wars within a 

shortest period of time. The First Congo War (1996-1997) was described as 

Africa’s First World War.69 With the international military involvement or 

invasion, the cuts across other African nations like Sudan and Uganda. All in 

view to overthrown and replace the government of the then Zairean president 

Mobutu Sese Seko with the rebel leader Laurent-Desire Kabile. One wonders 

why international militarianism? What is their interest in ousting the 

government or administration Mobutu Sese Seko and replaced by the rebel 

Kabile? Did the replacement bring solution to the already existing problem? 

The answer is “No!” The civil war excavated to the Second Congo War known 

as Great War of Africa or the Great Africa War or sometimes referred to 

African World War. Casualties and losses were estimated at 2,000 Ugandans 

(Kisangani only)70, while 4,000 rebel casualties (Kinshasa only), 5.4 million 

excess deaths (1998-2008)71There have been so many disharmonies, civil wars, 

civil unrest, civil protest across Africa and other places across Europe and 

America. Most of these civil wars, protests, civil unrest include, and not 

limited to:  

 

And during these events many lives were lost. It is proper to note that most 

civil wars, protests, civil unrests were caused by the global collapse of Reason 

due to corruption of the leaders and their cohorts in the individual, national 

and international stages. Some were caused by the selfishness of members of 

the international communities as a result of oil resources like Oil and other 

natural deposit in some countries. The question remains, how do we redeem 

reason? How can reason be redeemed? This will lead us to another section of 

the work, which is titled “philosophic-ethical redemption of reason”. 

 

Philosophic Redemption of Reason 

Philosophy, as it were, searches for the ultimate truth about humans, their lives 

and existence in the world. In this section, therefore, there is an attempt to 

answer the questions: How can philosophy intervene in the redemption of 

Reason? Can there be a global redemption of Reason at all in the affairs of 

humans? Hitherto, one may uphold the maxim that “all humans anywhere in 

the universe are rational beings.” Based on this, the philosophic (ethical) 

redemption of Reason will also be discussed as a way of proffering 

philosophical solution.  Philosophy, over the decades, has been playing a vital 

role in the history of humanity and in human development. Philosophy has 

intervened, and has continued to intervened in structuring and restructuring; 



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shaping and reshaping; constructing and reconstructing of human thinking and 

individual mindsets. At present, philosophy can intervene in the global 

collapse of reason through rational orientation or resetting of human minds 

filled with biases and prejudices. One may wonder how possible this may be. 

Most of global prejudices and biases such as racism, slavery and colonization 

came through indoctrination and epistemic injustices across the world. So also, 

reason can be redeemed through global justice and unbiased analysis, 

discussion or conversation of humanity as one and the same across the world. 

This entails the philosophical discussion or understanding of different 

components of the world stands as the medium through which reason can be 

redeemed. Therefore, promoting this kind of global discourse that harness 

universal image or principles of human person as rational beings despite races, 

gender, ethnicity, sex, etc. can promote values like equality, brotherhood and 

sisterhood of humans across the global.  

 

As seen in Hegel’s Universal Reason, reason is a connective factor – the 

Consummate Reason. Reason, which was so much prized in history of thought, 

can be said to have collapsed in contemporary world; Reason may be said to 

have collapsed in the affairs of humans and in human relationships and 

interactions across the globe.  The collapse of reason could be seen or has 

manifested in the history of the world; in the events and occurrences across 

the world. Karl Marx’s historical materialism expressively and explicitly 

discussed the collapse of reason as caused by exploitation championed. 

Exploitation is a brain-child of corruption. According to Karl Marx, the 

exploitation of the masses by the bourgeois led to the conflict between the 

proletariats and bourgeois.  

 

In philosophy, the debate or controversy between the rationalists and 

empiricists thinkers has based on the innatism (possession of innate ideas as 

the basis of human knowledge and its rejection by the empiricists who 

believed in the sense perception as the basis of human knowledge). One can 

still consider this submission from the perspective of scientific theories on 

human knowledge and events of history - cause and effect as the movement of 

reason is still seen from the pattern of knowledge from physical or material 

dimension regardless of other human psychological (emotional) and spiritual 

constituents, but pays more attention to physical world. One still reflects on 

the questions of epistemological confusion and human condition from the 

Hegel’s philosophy of history where Hegel considered the flow of ‘Reason’ 

as the determinant of the world development.  

 

From this perspective, we can talk of the taxonomy of the world into the 

developed and developing world; the First, the Second and the Third World. 



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It is also based on the dialectical progression of reason that made Hegel to say 

that Reason has not reached Africa because Africa continent has remained 

underdeveloped. Reason is thought, …and thought of what?  

 

Reason in motion is motion of development, change or transformation of the 

world and human minds through knowledge and construction of ethical 

principles for a better and progressive humanity. The flow of thought – 

philosophical thought has placed philosophy at heart of social transformation 

as the ultimate basis of rational, critical, systematic or coherent thought or 

reasoning – thought on how to organize and order the society and as well 

improve human well-being. The ancient philosophers like Socrates, Plato and 

Aristotle where known for their outstanding contributions in this socio-

political input. Even before the argument as earlier said regarding the 

rationalist philosophers: Rene Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz and the 

empiricists: Bishop Berkeley, John Locke and David Hume raised the issue of 

the basis of human knowledge. The ancient Greek philosophers have tried to 

established the impact of human knowledge in social construction and 

reconstruction – the origin of polis stands out here. The contention lies on the 

ability of human mind to plan and provide an ordered society.  

 

Socrates provided the ground for self-knowledge, which is the basis for 

virtuous life – “knowing what is good and doing it”. Socrates argued that 

knowing what to do and not doing it, is evil, and evil is out of ignorance. So 

self-knowledge becomes paramount for doing good, and for good to be done 

and evil avoided.    

 

Edmund Husserl asserts that the task of philosophy is to search for universal 

ideal norms for our thought and behaviour. Philosophy had transformed the 

earlier pre-philosophical mode of human existence which was characterized 

as a naively directed living immersed in the world, in a world constantly 

there.74 Life in the state was practical and even the developing mythologies 

and early religions supported the basically practical concern of individuals and 

larger group. According to Husserl, in his “Philosophy and Crisis of an 

European Man”, there is need to developed a new kind of outlook or attitude, 

namely; a universal critique of all life and its goals.”  73Commenting further, 

he states that this was a critique of all systems of culture that had grown up in 

the life of humankind. The positive side of this critique was its aim of raising 

humankind through universal reason towards a radically new humanity, rising 

above the limited horizons of custom, geography, and social groups.75Noting 

further, Husserl, as cited in Enoch Samuel Stumpf’s Philosophy, History and 

Problem, asserts that what made this possible was a new conception of truth, 

a truth independent of tradition, universally valid, and capable infinite 



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refinement. Here, then, is the origin of the spiritual life, culture of Europe, of 

Western humanity.  It was the Greek, that this new attitude grew up, orienting 

individuals towards their environing world. the systematic formulation of this 

attitude is what the Greek called “Philosophy”.  

 

The etymological ground of philosophy has been understood as philo meaning 

love and sophia meaning wisdom. Philosophy is simply defined as “love of 

wisdom”, and philosophers are known as “lovers of wisdom.” Wisdom is 

thought and thought is in wisdom. Not every thought is thought of wisdom, 

but every wisdom is buried in thought, and wisdom is often expressed or 

manifested in thought, actions, character, or behaviour. In history, reason as 

thought in wisdom could be been in Plato’s origin of state as a natural 

phenomenon – due to insufficient of human need; philosopher’s kings, 

guardians and artisan or origin of state (polis) – justice; Aristotle saw state as 

the highest association of the people; the social contract theories identified the 

role of reason as which suggested for unity amongst the people in the state of 

nature – Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean Jacque Rousseau’s theories 

brought to the fore the role of reason in the formation of political society . 

Hegel emphasized on the role of reason in the world’s history. At this point, 

reason became a system/a universal factor – though Hegel did not recognize 

the individual input the world development/the movement of Reason. This 

implies that Reason ordered the world – the Universe Reason – leads to 

absolute truth. Reason emphasizes in the equality and dignity of all men. In 

the situation of war practiced in the state of nature, Reason calls for peace, 

harmonization, protection and preservation of human live and properties. Even 

people in individual/selfishness, and nasty, brutish, short, suggests peace and 

harmony, when in human licentiousness; reason suggests respect for 

individual liberty, freedom, and happiness.  

 

In the natural flow of things, in the construction or formation of modern 

society, reason has been in the forefront of the natural or world flow. In the 

formation of political society and its implementation, reason also manifests 

itself. The universe reason considers the general humanness. The collapse of 

reason occurs in the situation of corruption, marginalization, discrimination, 

segregation, dehumanization, brutality of humans, slavery, subjugation, and 

exploitation of man by man; reason collapsed in a situation of colonization 

and racism. These factors are anti-reason or anti-rationality.  

 

The nature of man is of good, not of evil. From the history of the world, Reason 

has continued to build. Either or in man’s existence…. Man makes use of logic 

as a tool for correct reasoning. Often logic is used to justify the negative 

thinking which many often consider as reasoning. There is difference between 



Evaia: International Journal of Ethics and Values, Volume 3, December, 2022 

 

25 
 

reasoning and thinking. Every thinking is reasoning and not every reasoning 

is thinking; not every thinking is the coherent pattern of thought, but every 

reasoning is a coherent pattern of thought. There is also positive and negative 

thinking but there is nothing like positive and negative reasoning because 

reason is one and the same. Positive thinking harmonizes, builds, constructs 

while negative thinking destroys and could lead to emotional, psychological, 

physical or spiritual destruction, and human world has been consumed with 

war, terrorism, social injustices and numerous anti-human policies. Reason 

has collapsed in such situations. 

 

Your paper has not done justice to the title and its nuances. It has been an 

endless sojourn into many areas that are less important to the problem you 

intend to solve. I guess your paper is so because it was meant for seminar and 

not intended for Journal publication. To make it a Journal paper will require 

that you revise it. This can be done by sifting out the important points that 

address each sub-title and place them where they belong. Then, the 

unnecessary details, positions of authors, scholars as well as your unnecessary 

arguments and commentaries should be deleted.  

 

Evaluation and Conclusion 

In the ancient period, reason purified the world, but today, reason destroys life 

due to human insatiability, due to corruption and extreme quest for material 

things across the world. We need to go back to the drawing board. Ethics 

becomes the prima facie in the redemption of reason. Humans should be first 

considered in the human affairs. All international policies, national policies, 

even individual policies should consider humans and their basic rights first, 

before any other considerations. I contend that the best way to understand and 

organize humanity is through integrative or inclusive reasoning, and anything 

outside this lead to human exploitation, marginalization, dehumanization of 

some section of the world, segregation and subjugation of human across the 

world due to the feelings of superiority and inferiority; civilized and 

uncivilized; developed and underdeveloped (or developing) and other 

exclusive terminologies that divide the humanity. Certainly, reason collapses 

in such situations. May I also suggest for the interconnectivity, 

interrelatedness and togetherness of all humans across the globe.  

Science and scientific researches are meant for humans, not humans for 

science and scientific researches. Humans should be considered as subjects, 

not objects of research. They should be treated as ends, and not as a means to 

an end – but ends-in-themselves. 

 

 

 



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26 
 

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53. Matthew I. Obijekwu, Anambra State: History, Socio-Political and 

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72. Matthew I Obijekwu, Denial of Global Humanness: A Critical Inquiry 

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76. Ibid, 491. 

77. Ibid, 471. 

 

 

 

 

 


