Abstract

The extent of Africa’s developmental challenges conspicuously manifests themselves in the poor living standards of most of its people. Poverty, low literacy and life expectancy rate, hunger and poor sanitary environment are some of the features that characterize life in a region widely acclaimed as most backward in the world today. How best should states in the kind of situation most of Africa has found itself react? What areas of life deserve or require the involvement of the state, and to what extent? In this work, I seek to examine the relevance and implications of Karl Popper’s idea of negative utilitarianism. Popper’s position, in summary, is that a state at best ought to pursue piecemeal, the task of managing its people in a way that protects them from exposure to harm, rather than seek to make them happy. I argue that Popper’s position hangs between minimalism and welfarism, thinly disposed to the latter in its objective but privileging the former in its method. This approach, which I refer to as minimal welfarism. My view is that minimal welfarism is incapable of addressing most of the challenges facing contemporary African states. Alternatively, I make a case for greater governmental involvement in improving the living standards of the people and for the development of other dimensions of state.