The Ethics of Development

From Economism to Human Development

Bibliographic Data

ID19981473
AuthorsDes Gasper (0000-0002-4614-5454, corresponding author)
Year2004
Publication date2004-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeBOOK
VenueThe Ethics of Development (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherEdinburgh University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1515/9781474468381
OpenAlexW1561547256
ISBN9781474468381
LanguageEN
Citations received33
References cited13

Preface 1. What is the Ethics of Development? 1.1. Why Development Ethics? Cases and Questions Extreme poverty amidst immense riches Health and sickness, needs and profits Towards a 'calculus of pain': recognising varieties of suffering and violence The infliction of costs on the weak: the examples of dams, famines, debt, and structural adjustment Global obligations and universal values? What is development? 1.2. What? On Meanings and Agenda The core agenda of development ethics Emergence and contributors Definitions 1.3. How? On Methods and Roles Methods Possible roles of development ethics Global or Southern? 2. The Meaning of 'Development' 2.1. Purposes and Themes 2.2. Ahistorical Definitions Usages across the disciplines Usages in development studies 2.3. Historically Specific Conceptions Of Development: On Change, Intervention and Progress 2.4. On Improvement: Issues in Normative Ahistorical Definition Development as opportunity or as achievement? Universalism and relativism Commonality? 2.5. Conclusion 3. 'Efficiency & Effectiveness' - Mainstream Development Evaluation in Theory & Practice 3.1. Introduction: Mainstream Value Positions, and Alternatives 3.2. Effectiveness Towards What and For Whom? Effectiveness towards what? Effectiveness for whom? 3.3. Efficiency in Terms of Which Values ? What is efficient depends on what one's values are Tacit variants of economic efficiency: Paretian and utilitarian Concepts of efficiency and practices of victimization 3.4. Setting Economic Efficiency in Social and Environmental Context Limitations of a separate concept of economic efficiency Economic efficiency confined to a delimited role within a human and physical context Means and ends 3.5. Understanding Value-Systems Comparison of value positions in development evaluation The structure of market-oriented arguments 'Consumer sovereignty' 3.6. Conclusion: Beyond Economism 4. 'Equity' - Who Bear Costs and Who Reap Benefits? 4.1. Sacrificing the Weak 4.2. Aspects of Equity Criteria of distributive equity An application to the regulation of grazing in Zimbabwe An application to selection for resettlement in Zimbabwe Positive discrimination 4.3. A Deeper Analysis of Concepts Sen's framework for understanding different distributive criteria Land, returns, and the fruits of effort Whose are the international debts? 4.4. Assessing the Different Interpretations Equality of what? Why equality? Selecting from or interrelating the principles Socio-political contexts 4.5. Conclusion 5. Violence and Human Security 5.1. The Reemergence of Violence and Security as Central Concerns 5.2. Development and Violence as Value-relative? On Concepts 'Violence' 'Development' and peace 5.3. Development as Value-Damaging? Varieties of violence Violence and the economy 5.4. Downgrading the Cost of Violence and Denying Alternatives Market theory: only interests, no passions The downgrading and defining away of costs and alternatives 5.5. Real Alternatives and Painful Choices Notions of tragedy, evil, dilemma Towards a calculus of pain with a respect for persons? 6. Needs and Basic Needs 6.1. First Things First 6.2. The Language of Need Meanings and syntax of 'need' A unifying framework for needs ethics and policy Meanings of 'basic' 6.3. A Richer Picture of Persons Do we need a picture of persons? A better empirical base for prediction and evaluation Reinterpretations of poverty, luxury, and limitless demand 6.4. Dangers in Needs Theories and Ethics Passive and pacifying? Overextended? 6.5. The Discursive and Practical Strategy of 'Basic Human Needs' A required basis for other ethics Steps in operationalization A programmatic alternative to economism 6.6. Conclusions: Beggars can't be Choosers 7. 'Human Development': Capabilities and Positive Freedom 7.1. From Basic Needs to a Fuller Philosophy of Development 7.2. The UNDP Human Development School The Human Development Reports Human Development and Human Rights 7.3. Sen's Capability Approach and 'Development as Freedom' Freedom and Reason Development as Freedom Components of the capability approach Policy orientation 7.4. Doubts and Alternatives Sen's picture of persons, capabilities and freedom Nussbaum's capabilities ethic For and against a universal list of priority capabilities 7.5. Conclusion 8. Cultures and the Ethics of Development 8.1. Can One Criticise Cultures and Yet Avoid Ethnocentrism? Agenda Introductory cases Is liberalism illiberal? 8.2. Culture: The Underlying Issues Conceptions of 'culture' Roles perceived for culture Natural man, plasticine man, and nurtured natural man The uneasy balance between individual rights and group rights Women's right to employment? 8.3. Communitarian Ethics and Cultural Relativism The texture of communitarian ethics Walzer's worlds Communitarianism is based on poor sociology Cultural relativism is inconsistent The centrality of internal criticism 8.4. Cases and Procedures Criteria for just decisions An overview of cases 8.5. Conclusion 9. Epilogue Bibliography

Action (physics) · Dimension (graph theory) · Economics · Engineering ethics · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Geography · Mainstream · Management science · Normative · Political science · Positive economics · Poverty · Process (computing) · Sociology · Sustainable development · African cultural and philosophical studies · Computer Science · Engineering · Human Rights and Development · Income, Poverty, and Inequality · International Development and Aid · Law · Mathematics · Philosophy

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