PHILOSOPHY AND PRAXIS

This paper is an appraisal of the notion of the so called ancestral or generational curses - the notion that consequences of immoral or more particularly wicked actions of ancestors can affect the offspring negatively resulting in patterns of failure or negativity. The objective of the paper is to attempt to explain the possibility of generational curses from the perspectives of moral order and scientific theory of epigenetics. The paper, in the light of the scientifically observed cause and effect phenomena in the physical order, also assumes a cause and effect phenomenon in the moral order and secondly attempts to establish that generational repetition of patterns, otherwise understood as generational curses may just be epigenetic procedure. The paper drawing from the observed cause and effect phenomenon in the physical order, believes that similar cause and effect or consequences for actions also exists in the moral order but concludes that epigenetics is responsible for generational transfer of negative patterns or tendencies which produce negative results otherwise regarded as generational curses.

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