Des Gasper

The Ethics of Development

From Economism to Human Development

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

An introduction to the field of ethics and development for students and practitioners. Development ethics is concerned with major socio-economic change: *the meanings given to societal development *the types, distribution and significance of its costs and gains *value-conscious ways of thinking about and choosing between alternative paths and destinations. It helps in identifying, considering and making ethical choices about societal development and in identifying and assessing the explicit and implicit ethical theories. This book focuses on clarifying what is meant by "development". Its central thread is the reassessment of economic growth, asking who benefits? The author considers why economic growth and respect for diversity are widely seen to be good. and examines the moral implications of this view, drawing on the ideas of Len Doyal, Ian Gough, Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen. Dealing carefully and sympathetically with a range of viewpoints, the book aims to present them in a way that contributes to intelligently selective use of them and to their improvement. Key Features Provides case studies on famine and other emergencies, land alienation and land reform, industrialisation, globalisation, international debt, colonialism, post-colonialism, international aid, health and malnutrition, violence, forced displacement, and gender equity Areas covered in the case studies include: Zimbabwe, India, sub-Saharan Africa (Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Ghana, Sudan), South Asia (Sri Lanka and Bangladesh), and Ireland Places emphasis on probing and clarifying the meanings, uses and areas of relevance of key concepts including 'development', 'efficiency', 'effectiveness', 'equity', 'needs', 'freedom', 'choices', 'culture' and 'community' Pedagogical features include easy-to-grasp tables and figures, discussion questions and suggestions for further reading Offers a self-contained introduction to development ethics aimed at undergraduates, professionals and the general reader Includes a discussion of what ethics is and what methods it can use Individual chapters are ideal as the main teaching material for sessions with an emphasis on participatory discussion

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Edinburgh University Press
• Seitenzahl: 255
• Erscheinungstermin: 4. März 2004
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 234mm x 160mm x 14mm
• Gewicht: 413g
• ISBN-13: 9780748610587
• ISBN-10: 0748610588
• Artikelnr.: 22164934

Autorenporträt

Des Gasper is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, a centre of development studies where he is currently Dean of teaching. He is co-author (with Raymond Apthorpe) of Arguing Development Policy (Frank Cass, 1996).

Inhaltsangabe

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.