The Socio-Cultural Approach to the Moral Agent of Sustainable Development—The Mmadụ

The goal of all political, economic, social, cultural, and ecological interactions is predominantly to create harmony and allow the human person to work towards achieving his or her full potential within varied and interrelated vectors of opportunities. Therefore, the person remains the agent, the receiver, the object, and the subject of the development dynamics itself. To thwart or attack this goal is to detract the human person of authentic freedom. The Afro-Igbo ethnocultural understanding of the human person, Mmadụ, as a ‘distinct being’ who is both autonomous and relational sheds light on the need to maintain balance in the relationship that should exist between the two. A functional mutuality would guarantee and improve human dignity, Ùgwú Mmadụ, while the opposite leads to a loss of Ùgwú Mmadụ. Thus, wherever there is an intrigue that causes a divide in the authentic life of the human person—as is always the case in detractive societies—there must be a need for a remedial ethical regeneration towards viable ecological humanity.