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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Philosophy and the State in Africa: some Rawlsian considerations |
Author: | Menkiti, Ifeanyi A. |
Year: | 2002 |
Periodical: | Philosophia Africana: Analysis of Philosophy and Issues in Africa and the Black Diaspora |
Volume: | 5 |
Issue: | 2 |
Pages: | 35-51 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Africa |
Subjects: | liberalism State |
Abstract: | The problem of political disorder in Africa today is at bottom a problem bearing on the unresolved question: what is the proper basis for the enpeoplement of a political people? This article argues that Rawlsian liberalism has an important account to give about this issue. Especially appealing to the African situation are Rawls's strategy of risk aversion, and his general methodology for the avoidance of destructive conflicts. The author defends the view of a managerial State, whose functions are geared to three areas - maintaining security, providing infrastructure, and facilitating trade. The key insight in support of this position is an essentially Rawlsian one. The more individuals and communities are kept from forcing their comprehensive views on one another as a consequence of assigning some sort of moral majesty to the State and its organs, the better for the health of the body politic. To the extent that large impersonal structures are here to stay, and to the extent that loyalty to real persons still matters in the calculus of political life, then a devolution of central power into a pluralist sort of arrangement becomes a necessity. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |