Title: Reclaiming Value in International Development
1Reclaiming Value in International Development
- Chloe Schwenke, Ph.D.
- Fulbright Associate Professor, Ethics and Public
Management Programme, Department of Philosophy,
Faculty of Arts - Makerere University, Kampala
2The Wandegeya woman and child
- Unhealthy environment
- Begging as a way of life?
3Do I give her money?
4Considerations
- Provide a modicum of relief
- Encourage her dependency an inducement to her
and her baby to remain in that dangerous
environment - Handouts may discourage her from seeking a more
sustainable and wholesome lifestyle - My own sense of identity and connection with
those around me
5Where do I stop?
- Do I give her something every single time I see
her? - If not, why not?
- Do I invest in her welfare more substantially,
helping her out of poverty? - Is she motivated to pursue such a course?
6What if?
- What if she has some deeper psychological
problems? - What of the many, many, many more persons like
her? - Why this one woman and her child, and not them?
7The situation in the North
- Over 1.6 million persons in an austere and
undignified existence - Seeking a basic (perhaps the most basic) human
right security - Escape from the atrocities of the LRA
- Making human dignity and the value of a human
life meaningless terms?
8An extreme moral dilemma
- Two decades of inhumanity and brutality
- Abduction of children for child soldiers or sex
slaves - Sadistic torture and mutilation of innocent
civilians - How to respond morally?
- Who is accountable?
9The view from Washington
- Encountering poverty a less frequent, less
extreme experience - Victims of conflict largely invisible
- Most development, peacebuilding, and foreign
aid is conceived of, managed from, and taught in
a Washington environment
10Insulating ourselves
- Washington environment makes problems of
development and conflict remote, abstract - Here no such excuse for moral detachment
- Yet to wealthier Ugandans and expatriates,
victims and causes of poverty and conflict are
often viewed as abstract phenomena - We avoid looking the problem in the face
11The sin of abstraction?
- A useful, essential analytical method
- Maintain an objective perspective, unclouded by
emotion - Finding the statistical footprint of
- Global poverty and injustice
- Poor governance and corruption
- International crime and terrorism
- Brutally violent conflict
- Globalization
12Yet we seek to know
- Why are poverty, poor governance, and conflict
such intractable problems? - Why does the moral dimension goes largely
unstated? - Too painful to ponder?
- An old story?
- An insolvable but remote conundrum?
- Is confronting poverty and conflict at a personal
level counterproductive?
13The economics lens 1
- Relatively easy to apply
- Empirical dimensions of development, governance,
and conflict essential to our effectiveness and
understanding - Statistics are amoral and value-free
14The economics lens 2
- More tractable
- Less prone to emotionally clouded or sentimental
reactions - More relevant in our economics-based worldview?
15Through the economics lens
- The poor clearly not living quality lives
- 2.4 billion lack access to basic sanitation
- More than 1 billion exist on unsafe water
- 800 million persons are undernourished
- 34,000 children younger than five die each day
from hunger and preventable disease - More than one third of all human deaths linked to
poverty and violent conflicts - such deaths are mostly preventable!
16Lost from the economic lens
- The plight of one mother and child begging in
Wandegeya - among the fortunate ones?
- Is the mere fact of continued survival
fortunate? - What ought a human life to be like?
17Economism an ideology
- The prevailing worldview
- Human activity and decision-making a function
of economics and the market - Success and effectiveness of social, political,
and cultural institutions judged on - the nature of the flow of capital
- the existence of effective competition
- The maximization of profit
- The ultimate unit of measurement the
(self-interested) individual
18The statistical trade-off
- Converting the faces and the voices of the poor
into data - We lose something important!
- We become less sensitive to urgency and the moral
challenges of development
19Trading off the moral burden?
- Ignoring or abstracting away the personal
tragedies of poverty doesnt diminish the moral
burden it doesnt go away - The mother and child at Wandegeya will be there
today, and tomorrow - The tragedy in the North continues
20Inescapable moral dilemma
- Societies defined by interdependencies
- Complex web of obligations many moral and
ethical. - Why is development dialogue, research, policy,
and practice not commonly thought of in moral
terms?
21Where is the moral lens?
22Valuing life
- Where we draw the threshold on
- Basic services?
- Basic nutrition?
- Basic human rights and freedoms?
- Basic opportunities?
- Basic human dignity?
- Or something more?
- Who ought to decide?
23The left out questions 1
- How ought we to value a human life?
- How ought we to allocate the available resources
to those in need? - What more ought we to do to assist others in
need, and why? - What responsibility do those in need have?
- Agents for their own solutions to their poverty
and conflict?
24The left out questions 2
- When we draw the boundaries of our moral
community, who ought to be included? - Who left out?
- Why?
- Why ought we to care about and act to alleviate
the plight of those less fortunate? - The economics lens grows dark
25Morality is
- Moralities differ in their
- content rituals, sexual practices, minimizing
harm to others - foundational premises commands of God, human
nature, reason - Arbitrary morality might allow slavery,
cannibalism, or racism
26Confusion through the moral lens?
- Moral point of view must be ordered if it is to
be of value as a tool for improving human
development - Ethics is the ordering of moral value systems
- Through ethics, moral concepts can be
systematically considered, evaluated, and applied
27But whose values?
- What does morality mean?
- For each individual
- For our society
- For our choice of priorities and actions
- Morality is about values, but whose values?
- How do we decide?
28The values landscape
- Societies are shaped by
- Cultural values
- Religious values
- Secular values
- Idiosyncratic personal values
- Societys identity a set of shared values
- Forged as much by the conflict of values as by
their harmony
29Ethics
- The discipline that society uses to reconcile and
reach consensus on values - Ethics brings order and structure to moral values
- Deliberating on what is good or right (and
bad and wrong), virtuous or vicious - Creating rational and persuasive moral systems
- Considers fundamental principles that
- Define values
- Specify and assign moral obligations
30International Development Practice
- The development industry
- Economism has framed development into a business
- Development pursued using
- The rules of business
- The virtues of efficiency, effectiveness
- Accountability to those who provide the funding
(taxpayers or contributors)
31Motivating development actors
- Different values and motivations
- Professionalism
- Ideological or political frameworks
- Few stop to reflect on values
- All share some sense of bringing aid and
assistance to the needy - Helping them altruism, or moral obligation?
32Guiding development actors
- How ought priorities to be set and by whom?
- How do we navigate morally between
- us vs. them
- rich vs. poor
- North vs. South
- without ethical guidance?
33Development Ethics
- Ethical reflection on the ends and means of
socioeconomic change in poor countries and
regions - In what direction and by what means should a
society develop? - David Crocker
- Development reconceived as beneficial change,
alleviating human misery and environmental
degradation in poor countries, and fostering an
environment of sustainable peace
34The ethics toolkit
- A comprehensive set of moral approaches that
facilitate reflection and dialogue upon the many
urgent moral concerns, motivations, obligations,
and competing priorities associated with
development, governance, and peacebuilding
35Development values and norms
- The subject matter of development ethics
- human dignity
- essential freedoms
- social justice
- peace
- civic virtue
- human flourishing
- the common good
- gender equality
- safety and security
- participation and inclusion
36An academic pastime?
- Choices that individuals, institutions, groups,
and governments make significantly affect others,
for good or for ill - Careful evaluation needed of issues and choices
of development, governance, and peacebuilding - Factually
- Conceptually
- Ethically
- Choices we make may be harmful or even tragic for
some or many persons
37The work of Development Ethics - 1
- Development ethics directly addresses fundamental
and controversial topics - The dignity and worth of each human being
- The moral equality of all human beings
- The moral dimensions that motivate and sustain
development actions - What ought to constitute peacebuilding
- What values and virtues ought to constitute the
good of good governance - Who ought to make development decisions
38The work of Development Ethics - 2
- The meaning of both peace and development
- The extent and nature of our moral obligations to
and claims on others - The moral demands of social justice
- The moral bases of legitimacy of government
- The moral justifications for broad-based
stakeholder participation in analysis,
deliberations, and decision-making on development
and governance
39Turning the tables
- Development ethics places the burden of proof on
any who would deny the validity of the claims of
- Those seeking common standards of international
justice - Those who argue for an ethic of care
- Those who argue that civic virtue is essential to
our social, economic, political, and cultural
institutions
40Facing the truth
- Development ethics exposes the indecency and
moral impermissibility of poverty, violent
conflict, and bad governance - To all human beings
- To the natural environment
41Starting with you!
- Development ethics challenges each of us to
reflect upon our own values and priorities - Such a process can
- be profoundly transformative to our selves, our
communities, our nations, and our world - strengthen our understanding of our common
humanity