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Development Education and Research and Development ethics . Carol Healy Carol.healy@nuigalway.ie Development Education and Research Network, NUI Galway www.nuigalway.ie/dern. Synopsis. Meanings of development Key ethical themes The ethical turn in development
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Development Education and Research and Development ethics Carol Healy Carol.healy@nuigalway.ie Development Education and Research Network, NUI Galway www.nuigalway.ie/dern
Synopsis • Meanings of development • Key ethical themes • The ethical turn in development • The landscape since the 1990s and globalization/ Alter-globalization • Discussion- the contribution of philosophy
Key Reading • Gasper, (Des 2004) The Ethics of Development: From Economism to Human Development. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press • Seers, Dudley (1979) ‘The meaning of development’ reprinted in S. Corbridge (ed) (2000) Development: Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences Routledge
Additional Reading • Cowen and Shenton (1995) ‘The Invention of Development’ in S. Corbridge (ed) Development: Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences. London:Routledge • Dower, N (1998) ‘Aid Trade and Development’ pp137-57 in World Ethics: A New Agenda. Edinburgh University Press • Toye, John (1993) Dilemmas of Development –reflections on the counterrevolution in development economics. Oxford: Blackwell • Chatterjee, Deen K (2004) The Ethics of Assistance: Morality and the Distant Needy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press • Goulet, Denis (1995) Development Ethics: A Guide to Theory and Practice London: Zed • Goulet, Denis (1983) ‘Obstacles to Development- an ethical reflection’ World Development 11 (7) 7-26 • Nederveen Pieterse, J (2001) Development Theory: Deconstructions/Reconstructions. London: Sage • Polanyi, K (2004) The Great Transformation • Tucker, Vincent (ed) (1997) Cultural Perspectives on Development. London: Frank Cass/ EADI
Development • Conventionally seen as a post-1945 discipline, applied to “Third World” contexts • An emergent and contested concept • Positivist, Utopian AND critical, dystopian views • Multiple development theories
What do we mean by ‘development? • Economic growth Dudley Seers (1979) critique • What is happening to poverty? • What is happening to unemployment? • What is happening to inequality? • UNDP defines human development as ‘the enlargement of peoples choices’ • A. Sen (1999) Expanding freedom and removing various types of unfreedom as means and ends of development • Economic Growth
Key ethical themes • Since development is concerned with choices, it is also concerned with differing conceptions of value (the “good life”) • Relationships between means and ends • Deprivation and inequality • Violence • The public intellectual, public goods and public interest • Representing the (less powerful) other • What about cultural difference? • Linking development and rights • “Helping” and the nature of duties and obligations
The ethical turn in development • Critiques of development in theory and practice have a basis in ethical concerns • Means-ends debate since 1960s • Critiques of Economism, Eurocentrism, neocolonialism, cultural imperialism • Human costs of neoliberalism – disillusionment and the 1980s “lost decade” • “Alternative”/“Post development” - the end of development?
The landscape since the 1990s • Globalization and Alter-Globalization • The rediscovery of “Civil society” • “Global governance” or Global Ethics? • Inequality, violence and non-sustainability are still the biggest problems • What about cultural difference?
Neoliberal globalization FREE MARKETS are BEST Society must politically REORGANIZE production and social relations to free markets All countries, communities, people benefit - symmetry Market Utopia ‘alter globalization’ Free markets can be obnoxious Society must politically re-organize production and social relations to govern markets Polarization and asymmetry are the status quo - must be addressed Stark Utopia Globalization – beliefs, policies, outcomes
Lessons from the past “belle époque”. “…the idea of a self-adjusting market implied a stark utopia. Such an institution could not exist for any length of time without annihilating the human and natural substance of society; it would have physically destroyed man and transformed his surroundings into a wilderness” (Karl Polanyi, 1944: 3)
Polarization AND deprivation – the poor ARE falling further behind and the incomes of 40% are too low 1992 2005 UNDP HDR1992, 2005
The contribution of philosophy • ‘The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones…’ J. M. Keynes • ‘The significant problems that we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.’ A. Einstein • Humanism • The resources of critique • Conceptions of justice