ETHICS AND AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT 2020/2021

The course aims at addressing issues related to ethics and development in Africa: therefore the concept of “ethical development”. It is concerned with application of ethics to development in the public domain and the effect of this on the individual, society and environment. It does not just make statements about development and ethics in Africa but recognizes that something has gone wrong with development in Africa. It presupposes that Africa has enough resources, human and material, to deal with her problems; that the problem is not economic but ethical and developmental. It is argued that African development has been derailed because the endogenous [internal to Africa] approaches have been largely hampered by exogenous [external to Africa] paradigms which deny the existence of knowledge and science proper to Africa. It further argues that the problems the continent is facing are social constructs and historical and therefore are not inevitable and can be changed, provided the historical distortions that have been caused can be dealt with legally and ethically. It will, thus, examine some historical, ethical and anthropological elements to explain the current underdevelopment on the continent; highlighting internal and external, local and international factors. The need to deconstruct some concepts and the application of the principle of endogeneity will also be highlighted. The Student will be expected to look for ways of dealing with these problems at personal and societal levels.