Justice, ethics, development

pp. 155-192

in: , Heidegger and development in the global south, Berlin, Springer, 2015

Abstract

The ethics of development is commonly understood as justice for the global south. Phenomenologically, ethics can be seen as springing from our hospitable being in common without exclusivist communion that denies the Other's otherness. Hence, justice need not mean replicating in the global south the "flatness of organized uniformity" wrought by the technological society. Contemporary development ethics and practice are insufficiently critical of the transformation of selfhood imposed by developmentalism in the global south, which plunges vulnerable subjects of development into further marginalization. While desire for good life invites our ethical attention, global justice can mean several things other than the project of unequal duplication of northern opulence in the global south. Global justice calls for understanding the limits of opulence, letting the various conceptions of the good life to flourish and bloom, and contributing positively towards this goal.