Abstract

The principal thesis of this inquiry is that the problems of Third World underdevelopment, with particular attention to Africa, are moral, and not merely economic or political. ;Our method is dialectical and analytical. We seek to clarify the issues by showing through a valuational analysis of underdevelopment, that the problems of underdevelopment cannot be approached with a supposed value neutrality. Our explication of the nature of the obligation of the rich to help the poor nations in the global context exposes the dialectical tensions posed by international aid. We argue that aid as currently understood is incompatible with the demand of African countries for assistance, based on claims of justice, which maintain that Africa is contributing to the wealth of the rich nations through various forms of exploitation which impair African economic growth, and undergird the present structures of underdevelopment. ;The developed nations' views, represented by two divergent "ethics,"--the "life-boat" and "space-ship" ethics, are examined for their moral cogency. We argue that enlightened self-interest which preserves the dignity and autonomy of the participants in aid transactions ought to be the guiding principle. Hence, self-help properly defined becomes our second postulate. ;Some values and practices which are integral to traditional cultural existence have been indicted for their supposed resistance to change. We attack the notion that change per se can be judged as good outside the context of a people's gestalt; and postulate that the ends of development efforts in Africa must be the wholeness of man, the kind of life which the koinonic values of the traditional societies sought to promote. Our contention is that only that development can be authentic for Africa which respects and enhances the Self-Identity of the African peoples.