Why is development an ethical issue? - Global poverty DFID ' 1.2 billion people whose lives are blighted by poverty, and who are robbed of their dignity in a world of growing wealth and material plenty'

Freeing people from extreme poverty in which many people live is the central or underlying concern for development ethicists.

Aid agencies are accused among other things of wasting, mismanaging funds, promoting dependency, neo-colonialism

Do we have a moral duty to help those less fortunate? Dev ethicists try to address this. Far from clear what the best methods to address poverty are. And those choices throw up their own ethical dilemmas.

Gasper explains 'the options do not consist of one robust path to Heaven plus innumerable paths to hell'

Key areas of concern in development ethics - poverty reduction, health, unbalanced distribution of the costs of change, natural environment, cultures, peace and security

The scope of development ethics should be global, not just southern developing countries

Gasper on the central insights of the field of DE - 1. Development as a societal improvement is value relative , therefore requires discussion. 2. Human costs and suffering must be taken into account, their nature and distribution. 3. Non-development too can have terrible costs, and therefore is not necessarily an option. 4. Must identify and compare alternatives

Crocker identifies 3 main soiurces of theory and inspiration for the moral assessment of theory and practice of economic development 1. Activists Gandhi, who criticised 20 century colonialism and orthodox forms of economic development. 2. American scholars Goulet, boths ethics and development would benefit from interaction . 3. Anglo-American moral philosophers Singer who wanted to deepen and broaden the debate about famine and relief.

The field of development ethics has therefore been influenced by a range of different thinkers, traditions and disciplines.

Utilitarians - simple aggregation and max individual utilities. Rawlsians - income and wealth max for the least well off. Libertarians - equal freedom from interference of governments and other people. Singer - if can relieve suffering and death without sacrificing anything of comparable worth we are morally obliged to do so.

Poverty and inequality: our moral obligations

The global poverty crisis - 2005 865m people lived on the equivalent of less than $1 a day

Why is there such inequality in the world? - legacies of uneven development caused by the industrial revolution and by European imperialism and colonialism? Development traps?

Collier - bottom billion like the 14th Century in Europe - argued that countries have fallen into development traps eg conflict trap - Need to be at peace to develop successfully. Natural resources trap - with natural resources find that their other exports are made noncompetitive due to currency valuation inflated