deepening development ethics

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Deepening Development Ethics:From Economism toHuman Development to Human SecurityDES GASPER and THANH-DAM TRUONG

Development ethics as practice-oriented thought has arisen at anintersection of theorising about norms and values with various streams ofexperience. New ethical questions are now triggered by changes thataccompany the process of globalisation. The latter has tended to erodenational boundaries, create new spaces and practices, and generatesimultaneously new opportunities and forms of suffering. These emergingethical questions require a corresponding social analysis and additionalsources of ethical thought. In this paper, we will trace the progress ofdevelopment ethics and suggest that the field would benefit from linkagesto ethical traditions that emphasise the transformation of consciousnessand attitudes in service of human security as a higher goal. We show the

value of the addition to the human development discourse of humansecurity, particularly its motivational basis and focus on right. But bothhuman development and human security discourses require a furtherconsolidation by way of greater focus on sources of ethical commitmentand recognition of others as fellow human beings.

INTRODUCTION

The system of world governance based on the seventeenth century Westphalian model of sovereign states has been undermined by many forces.Dissatisfaction grows with a concept of security which absolutises the state,

readily sanctions use of military force, and is blind to the polymorphousnature of social power related to gender, class, ethnicity, religion and age and its deployment within and across territorial boundaries. These variouspower bases interact to create complex matrices of human rights abusewithin the domestic jurisdictions of many nation-states. The abuses oftenremain invisible or stay concealed on the purported grounds of nationalsecurity and social and/or cultural order. Notably many of the effectsimpact on women, as shock absorbers, custodians of the private andreproductive spheres of life that are neglected or undervalued incommercial calculations and mainstream economics. The existence of such

impacts is not new. In the recurrent Third World Holocausts of the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth century, which Davis [2001] has helped torecover from oblivion, tens of millions of poor people perished in largelyavoidable famines.

Non-military security issues with human rights implications have emergedor become more visible and acquired transnational characteristics since theend of the Cold War. They include environmental threats, the AIDSpandemic, the instability of the global financial system, illicit and unsafepopulation movements across borders, and the spread of organisedcriminal trafficking of drugs, arms and persons. The state-centric approach

to security is inadequate when the configurations of security aretransnational.

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This emergent world poses many challenges in development ethics, whichwas constructed from considerations about the ethics of local interventionbut which over time has grown, in the work on rights-based developmentand human development, into wider ranging systems of normative

thought. In this paper, we trace the progress of development ethics andsuggest that the field can benefit from linkage to ethical traditions thatemphasise the transformation of consciousness and attitudes in service ofhuman security.

THEORIES AND PRACTICES

Development ethics is a space of analysis, evaluation and action regardingthe trajectory of societies, with special reference to suffering, injustice andexclusion within societies and between societies at a global scale. Its typicalfocus on humans in their own right, irrespective of location, rather than asabstract functioning units in an economy, supports a politics of socialchange that accepts human dignity as a priority. The development ethicsfield lies at the intersection of various streams of practice and traditions oftheorising. Table 1 presents some bodies of practice in which ethical issueshave been perceived and grappled with, at least sometimes, and shows how theyintersect with streams of theorising, generating many types of thought andaction.

Much development ethics literature has arisen in the italicised cells inTable1, where some schools in moral philosophy and social science, notablyincluding critiques of mainstream economics, address issues arising insocio-economic development policies, programmes and projects. This workis diverse, since the schools are diverse utilitarian, Aristotelian, Kantian,existentialist and more but a major thrust is captured by the label FromEconomism to Human Development [Gasper, 2004].The leadingtheoretician here has beenAmartyaSen, and the leading policy practitionerwasMahbub ulHaq, founder of the UNDP Human Development Reports(HDRs) and the human development movement in development analysisand advocacy [Sen, 1999; Haq, 1999]. The work led by UNDP, Haq and Sen

has established a Human Development Approach which has achieved,remarkably rapidly, a significant degree of institutionalisation, seen in theproduction of recurrent Human Development Reports from global down tolocal levels and the adoption of many of the concepts of humandevelopment. Thematrix inTable 1 is a tool for thinking about work indevelopment ethics, not a facsimile portrait. It lacks a time dimension;there are overlaps between some strands; and other areas of practice andof theory could be added. Sources not highlighted in the table but ofincreasing importance in development ethics include feminist theory andstruggles for gender justice, and migration, in the same way that

emergency relief and intervention have become a source of ethical

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questions and examination [Truong, 1997; Gasper, 1999; Gasper andTruong, 2005].

THE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVE

Human development (HD) thinking has broadened the range of objectivesthat are routinely considered in development debate and planning. Someother aspects of the HD perspective are less obvious but also significant.First, Haq led a rejection of partitioned thinking, namely the analysis ofprocesses and connections only within conventional disciplinary andnational boundaries and thus within the supposedly largely separate spacesof national economies. He espoused and practiced a form of joined-upthinking which was not misleadingly restricted by those boundaries.

Second, the HD approach (HDA) also takes a step towards what might betermed joined-up feeling. As in pure utilitarian or human rights philosophy,

the field of reference is all humans irrespective of their location in theworld. The approach in this form assumes and contributes to what might betermed global solidarity. Global ethics then emerges as a significantoffshoot, for example in UNDPs work on global public goods.

Third, this humanism implies a view of the self as organically embeddedand socially influenced, but not as purely sociallydetermined.WhileHDArequires such a view it has not, however, elaboratedit, except perhaps in the contributions ofMartha Nussbaum [e.g. Nussbaum,1999, 2001].

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issues have been perceived and grappled with, at least sometimes, andshows how they intersect with streams of theorising, generating manytypes of thought and action. Much development ethics literature has arisenin the italicised cells in Table 1, where some schools in moral philosophyand social science, notably including critiques of mainstream economics,address issues arising in socio-economic development policies,programmes and projects. This work is diverse, since the schools arediverse utilitarian, Aristotelian, Kantian, existentialist and more but a

major thrust is captured by the label From Economism to HumanDevelopment[Gasper, 2004].The leading theoretician here has been

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Amartya Sen, and the leading policy practitioner was Mahbub ulHaq,founder of the UNDP Human Development Reports (HDRs) and the humandevelopment movement in development analysis and advocacy [Sen, 1999;Haq, 1999]. The work led by UNDP, Haq and Sen has established a HumanDevelopment Approach which has achieved, remarkably rapidly, a

significant degree of institutionalisation, seen in the production of recurrentHuman Development Reports from global down to local levels and theadoption of many of the concepts of human development.

Thematrix inTable 1 is a tool for thinking about work in development ethics,not a facsimile portrait. It lacks a time dimension; there are overlapsbetween some strands; and other areas of practice and of theory could beadded. Sources not highlighted in the table but of increasing importance indevelopment ethics include feminist theory and struggles for genderjustice, and migration, in the same way that emergency relief andintervention have become a source of ethical questions and examination[Truong, 1997; Gasper, 1999; Gasper and Truong, 2005].

THE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVE

Human development (HD) thinking has broadened the range of objectivesthat are routinely considered in development debate and planning. Someother aspects of the HD perspective are less obvious but also significant.First, Haq led a rejection of partitioned thinking, namely the analysis ofprocesses and connections only within conventional disciplinary andnational boundaries and thus within the supposedly largely separate spaces

of national economies.He espoused and practiced a form of joined-upthinking which was not misleadingly restricted by those boundaries.

Second, the HD approach (HDA) also takes a step towards what might betermed joined-up feeling. As in pure utilitarian or human rights philosophy,the field of reference is all humans irrespective of their location in theworld. The approach in this form assumes and contributes to what might betermed global solidarity. Global ethics then emerges as a significantoffshoot, for example in UNDPs work on global public goods.

Third, this humanism implies a view of the self as organically embedded

and socially influenced, but not as purely socially determined. While HADrequires such a view it has not, however, elaborated it, except perhaps inthe contributions of Martha Nussbaum [e.g. Nussbaum, 1999, 2001].

Last, while seeking to move beyond mainstream economics, Sen and Haqaimed to bring most of its practitioners with them. Sens capabilityapproach and the HDA mainstream still bear many of the features ofeconomics discourse which other disciplines and audiences can findproblematic [see e.g. Truong, 1997; Gasper, 2002]. For example:

Against the generalised slogan Development is the expansion ofhuman capabilities we must ask: capabilities for which persons?Which capabilities, why and to what end? Sens later slogan

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Development as freedom provokes similar questions [Gasper andvan Staveren, 2003].

In contrast to the human rights tradition, HDA did not establishguarantees for individuals, although it has a serious concern forequity. Nussbaums work, focused on constitutional anchoring of

basic rights, confronts this issue [e.g.

Nussbaum, 2003]. The HDA has recently sought an accommodationwith human rights thinking [UNDP, 2000]. It remains concernedthough about traditional human rights formulations as absolutist,arbitrary and excessively focused on the state [e.g. CHS, 2003: 28].

The question remains as to why should one care about individuals andparticular capabilities. HDA presumes rather than directly constructs amotivational basis for such concern. So in fact does much of the humanrightstradition, but its more familiar language connects more readily tomotivating factors. Only a minority of HDA writers have addressed explicitlyattitudes and motivation.

Recent work seeks to reduce these limitations and deepen the HumanDevelopment approach, for example by clarifying relationships of humandevelopment to culture [WCCD, 1995; UNDP, 2004]. Haq warned againstthefossilisation of HDA that could be induced by its rapid institutionalisation.He urged ongoing criticism and innovation, and himself led the work on

human security in the 1994 HDR. Subsequently, Sen has been at theforefront of its extension, including as co-chair of the report Human SecurityNow [Commission on Human Security, 2003].

THE LENS OF HUMAN SECURITY

The new discourse of human security addresses the question ofguarantees for individuals, and the need for a motivational basis, includingby connecting to a foundational rationale for human rights in terms of basiccapabilities which concern areas of basic need. It complements and extendsthe discourse of human development in a number of ways [Truong, 2005a,

2005b; Gasper, 2005].

Methodologically and in policy outline, the approach appears the same ashuman development: an insistence on being empirical and trackingconnections between economy, polity and society, including in the arenasof armed conflict and war. Haq brought militarisms opportunity costs aswell as its direct costs to the centre of the stage. Estimates like thefollowing have become commonplace:

The World Bank and the United Nations estimate that if four days worth of

the annual military expenditure worldwide were diverted into educationevery year, that would provide the funding needed to achieve worldwide

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primary education by 2015 [CHS, 2003: 11718]. Feminist theory exploresmilitarisms cultural impacts and consequent indirect effects on everydaylife.

What then, if anything, does a human security discourse add? First, it

concerns itself with the stability and security of peoples capabilities (seenas the real opportunities of achievement which are open to them and whichthey have good reason to value), not only their average level. Second, bycentring on the concrete needs of socially embedded individuals, it has aless generalised and abstract character. A concern with securing needfulfilment starts with a concern for specific basic goods: life, health, dignityand peace. The label humansecurity, initiated to draw a contrast with the security of states, makes usthink about what is human, what is the content of being human that shouldbe secured.

It provides a better grounding for the existing human developmentdiscourse in the mud, as Manfred Max-Neef would insist and directsattention towards the most vulnerable groups and their diverse systems ofself-protection. Third, this substantive focus on basics gives the discourse astronger existential footing, a more vivid and moving content, a strongermotivational base. Thus Penz [2001] diagnoses the human securitydiscourse as a step in a cosmopolitan direction. In these last two respects itis close in character to Nussbaums human development theory, but with amore limited, concrete, pragmatic focus on the basics.

Consider, for example, the comments of one of the presidents (Carazo) ofCosta Rica who built its welfare state: I knew the Costa Rica of socialinjustice: a country of people without shoes or teeth, without [a] university,with scarcely half a dozen high schools . . . It was a Costa Rica without alimit of working hours, in which children also worked as grown ups; . . .[where] life expectancy was barely more than 40 years. I saw the sick askfor hospital attention as charity . . . Workers had no vacations, no dismissalnotice, no severance pay . . . A Costa Rica without social guarantees. [Citedby Mora, 2000: 24]

The country of people without teeth in the first half of the twentieth

century now has higher life expectancy than the USA. The MDGs are not yetabout helping people to have teeth, but they are in the same spirit.

These evocations from the notion human security grow out of thevagueness and pluriformity of the notion in current usage. Evocativenessand richness of content are not inherently mistakes in ethical concepts, butcan bring dangers of confusion and drift in meanings. We must distinguishfor example between socioeconomic security and psychic security. The twoare not always closely related.

Psychic security can be obtained in various ways besides socio-economicsecurity, some of them admirable, some undesirable. Psychic security via a

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belief in a simple true personal identity, typically from membership insome group, carries dangers and can sometimes be at the cost of opennessand humanity to those outside the group.

Human Security Nows policy agenda includes attention to the moulding of

such basic perceptions, and to more cosmopolitan education that canteach students to reason, to consider ethical claims, to understand andwork with such fundamental ideas as human rights, human diversity andinterdependence . . . to grasp the reality of human interdependence moredirectly and more widely . . .[and] instil in the content of education a newemphasis on ethical values and on public debate and democracy [CHS,2003: 122]. Education concerns not only children, but also adults, includingthe police, the armed forces, private security forces and others with accessto the means of coercive force [CHS, 2003: 122]. It should include genderawareness, conflict management, and opening up of perceptions of identity,to see oneself as having multiple identities [CHS, 2003:123]. The last of themain recommendations is to strengthen activities for Clarifying the needfor a global human identity [CHS, 2003: 1412], in addition to theawareness and respect for profound diversity.

THE CHALLENGES TO DEVELOPMENT ETHICS

Something important has happened in the degree of attention todevelopment ethics in the past 15 years: there has been more attention atthe level of literature and theorising; less, yet with significantachievements, in the worlds of policy, education and action for example

concerning debt, child poverty and child labour, the greater centralityofficially granted to human rights, and so on. Whether the changes outsidethe world of words are judged encouraging depends on what one takes asthe basis for comparison. More should have happened, but at leastsomething did.

The preoccupation with theory, in the revival since the 1970 s of academicpolitical philosophy and substantive ethics triggered by Rawlss [1971]work, may have brought insufficient explicit attention to motives andfeelings. In the thought experiment that Rawls used to render plausible histheory of justice, the veil of ignorance, he sought to incorporate intuitions

about fairness into the design of the original position and then rely only oncalculations of self-interest. It seems an inconsistent approach, which failsto explore sufficiently the emotional building blocks of ethics.

Without a starting point of concern, care and motivation, developmentethics will have little impetus. Jonathan Glovers survey of twentieth-century inhumanity looks back to Thucydides account of the negotiationsbetween the militarily dominant Athenians and the city of Melos in thePeloponnesian War. The Athenians, from their position of strength, listenedto and rejected every plea from the Melians made in terms of fairness,

sympathy, compassion or rights. They insisted on Melian subordination inplace of neutrality, besieged the city, massacred its male inhabitants of

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military age when it surrendered, and sold the women and children asslaves [Glover, 2001: 2830]. Writing at the same time as Britishimperialism presided with Olympian indifference over immense famines inIndia, Nietzsche commended the Athenians stance to the aspirants toworld power in late nineteenth century Germany. The stance remains

widespread, bedecked sometimes in the philosophical vestments ofrealism in the International Relations Literature.

Both Sens work on human development and official human rights discourseare driven by motives of concern and care about the effects of an unjustworld. Yet they have not highlighted and consolidated the nature and roleof such motivation and how it becomes translated into action. A humanrights language is anyway insufficient, and must be complemented by theacceptance of duties and the practice of virtues, appropriate ethicalattitudes and skills [ONeill, 1996]. These are rooted in fundamental humancapacities and proclivities for reflection, empathy and compassion [Truong,2005a]. Some authors on human development ethics such as Giri andNussbaum [see e.g. Giri, 2002; Nussbaum, 2001] seek to fill such lacunae inHDA by drawing from other traditions in moral philosophy, spirituality andsocial theory. We suggest here and discuss elsewhere [Gasper and Truong,2005] the relevance of feminist care ethics, a modern branch within thefamily of forms of ethics which stress the role of virtues [Slote, 2002].

Rawlss theory achieved impact not only through its elaborate reasoningbut because it could tap and tacitly educate relatively widespread ethicalintuitions in his chosen North American audience. Sens work has achieved

similar or greater impact, far beyond the academic world, partly because ofhis adoption of a more morally evocative vocabulary of entitlements,functionings, capabilities, agency and freedoms than in the existingeconomics of welfare and policy. Drawing on studies of successfulintellectual boundary objects [Star and Griesemer, 1989] which manage tobridge the worlds of science and policy and acquire authority and influencein policy-oriented science, St. Clair [2004] argues that in the emergence ofethics in development theory and policy, the effective boundary objects arethose which have had a strong ethical charge, and that connect well tofeelings and intuitions. She judges that human security can be an effectiveboundary object [see also Gasper, 2005].

Work on human security has been with us for over a decade. For the workto acquire more influence than most development ethics has so far, it mayhave to employ methods with greater emotional depth, such as lifenarratives and intimate studies of life spheres: methods borrowed from thearts and humanities. It and development ethics more broadly have to widentheir scope to cover emotions and motivations, as is done in the literatureon ethics of care. In other words, work on human security requires amethodological broadening, to add to its broadened scope in terms ofthemes and sectors.

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THE NEED FOR EXISTENTIALLY AND EMOTIONALLY GROUNDEDETHICS

Early modern social theory in Europe emerged during the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries in the transition from an era driven by inter-religious

European conflicts to a world dominated by economic forces and inter-statecompetition on a global scale. Thinkers like Mandeville, Hume and Smithadvocated strong reliance on a market system, as being guided by and inturn fostering more peace- and progress-giving motives the Interests asopposed to the volatile Passions which fuel war [Hirschman, 1977]. Smithargued that, if properly channelled, self-interest is the most reliable way tobuild prosperity and peace. But while passions can be destructive, it wouldbe erroneous to think that all passions are undesirable and dispensable, orthat cooperation and mutual help are dispassionate. Smith himself gaveenormous weight to the role of the moral sentiments which sustain humansociety, includingmarket functioning [Smith, 1759].Others took over hisanalysis of the market system and presumed that only the amoralsentiments, the desires for material gain and personal convenience, werenecessary for its effective, indeed socially optimal, operation. Similarlyunbalanced are some present-day attempts to analyse violent conflictssolely as dispassionate struggles for gain.

Giri [2002: ch.12] argues persuasively that social ethics requires deeperpictures of the person and of how persons relate with others; attention tohow reasoning, reasonable and compassionate individuals are fostered; andempirical study of how committed, sympathetic reasoning can be embodied

and sustained in social practices and styles of ethical argumentation. Hereflects on the roles of case studies and biographies, noting Gandhisinsight that people impervious to reason may still be susceptible toinfluence via their capacity for sympathy.

Giri [2002] argues that Sens conceptualisation of human well-being lacksan adequate conception of personhood and a dynamic perspective on selfdevelopment. Sympathy, said Sen in mid-career, is when a persons ownwell-being is affected by the situation of other persons; commitment iswhen a person acts in support of other persons or other causes eventhough this does not improve his/her own well-being [Sen, 1979]. Evidently

by well-being Sen here meant felt well-being or gratification. His definitionof the label sympathy as gratification from another persons well-beingassumes that this gratification is the only possible sort of feeling-with-others, and implies that non-gratification types of feelings towards othersrequire a different name (he chose the word commitment). Giri prefers theordinary usages of sympathy (feeling-with others) and of commitment(dedication to others). Hence like Smith he stresses that, in these senses,sympathy sustains commitment rather than the two being mutuallyexclusive categories as in Sens usage. Nor are they marginal matters:mental health requires at least some degree of orientation to other people.

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Sen has proposed that democracy prevents famines, in contrast to thecalculated neglect practised by the Imperial British authorities in India orIreland. Case studies of contemporary India showthatwhile formal politicaldemocracy mitigates famine, it does not prevent it;marginalminorities canbe ignored [Currie, 2000].Underlying Sens hypothesis is an optimistic

vision in which democracy increases not only (1) the flow of information,but also (2) the respectful and sympathetic awareness of others and (3) thewillingness to contribute to help them, at least if other relevant peopleshare in doing so (collective altruism [Penz, 1986: 20210]).Unfortunatelydemocracy alone does not guarantee any of these three, at national oreven subnational level.Within the United States, as in India, formaldemocracy co-exists continually with the destitution and malnutrition oflarge groups.

Giri brings in a richer picture of human personality than Sen has used, andthis leads to a profound critique. He proposes that Sens capabilityapproach does not focus on personal growth, or on the nature, as opposedto only the idea, of human agency, or on the development of a space forcriticism of the self-justificatory claims of ones freedom [Giri, 2002: 210].The approach [does] not embody striving for self-development on the partof the poor . . . [and] lacks an objective of self-actualization or self-realization or self-extension [Giri, 2002: 230].

[T]he reasoned deliberation that Sen is looking for requires much morethan reason [Giri, 2002: 239]. Sens ethics remains too much in the mouldof Rawls, lacking an adequate psychological basis.

Sennetts [2004] study of respect perhaps carries further warnings for Sensvariant of human development theory. In Sennetts view, opportunity andcompassion make an unhappy marriage: opportunity brings inequality, andthe creaming off of the brightest of the poor(er), while charity wounds asMary Douglas declared, and is anyway undermined by inequality [Sennett,2004: ch.5, Compassion Which Wounds; Douglas, as cited by Sennett,p.149]. In circumstances of inequality, compassion easily degenerates intopity and becomes experienced by receivers as contempt. Receiverstypically share Mary Wollstonecrafts [1792] perception that It is justice,not charity, that is wanting in the world.

Building self-respect amongst the poor by meritocracy is no solution,suggests Sennett, for it rapidly brings the departure of those who aresuccessful, out of their low-income community. The required response tothe inevitable inequality of capitalismmay not be for the state to (further)promotemeritocracy and opportunity, or to offer conditional handouts to bemonitored in an audit-dominated society [Power, 1997], but instead toguarantee access to basic needs.

Costa Rica currently has two ex-presidents charged with corruption, and a

third who prudently resides abroad. Mora [2000] reports a growing mentaldistancing of its affluent urban groups from the expanding urban

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underclass, and growing feelings that the poor, while indeed multiplydeprived, are in one way or another outside society weird, contrary andnot possible to help or not deserving of help: not one of us. Fightinghuman development deficits requires human development policies andinvestments which should be cost-effective; and a conducive macro

environment, economic and political (no waste, no war). But it alsocentrally requires ethical commitment: recognition of others as fellowhuman beings.

From the 1991 Human Development Report on, Haq highlighted the lack ofpolitical commitment, rather than lack of resources, seen in many low-income countries [Haq, 1999]. Haqs legacy, the MDGs, are a tool togenerate such political commitment. By focusing on the real basics, thepeople without teeth, they have captured attention, including fromdistanced elites. They provide a yardstick by which leaders will be judged.Targets alone are not self-fulfilling.

Such issues become harder still in international relations. The goodwill thatis feasible between family and friends, and to some degree within a localcommunity and to a lesser extent a nation, becomes yet thinner. Haq andlike-minded progressives made important steps in demonstrating how aidbudgets are actually allocated and could be reallocated, and by obtainingrich governments commitment to the MDGs. Here again to declare targetsis not the same as to implement them. Also requiredforMDGimplementation is a strategy to influence ethics and perceptions, asthe Human Security Now [CHS, 2003] report highlights.

We applaud Human Security Nows agenda of ethical debate and education;and recommend, as part of that, more attention in development ethics tothe literature on caring and its role in moral thought. This should includeauthors who discuss what types of extension or supplementation may bepossible in arenas beyond carings cradle, the family.

CONCLUSION: GLOBALISED SENSIBILITY? GLOBALISED SECURITY?

Development ethics as a field of thought focuses on the overall trajectoriesof human communities and on the life paths of the individuals who

constitute and cross those communities. Its agenda increases in urgency inthe face of globalisations vast and varied impacts, which render somegroups highly vulnerable. We require, and are unevenly moving towards, aglobal framework of ethics, comparable to the earlier emergence of nationalsystems of rights and responsibilities. Will this emergent global frameworkbe one where might makes right and the universal principles are those ofmarket (and other) power, or one based on principles of universal humandignity and fundamental human rights [Held, 2004]?

We have looked at responses in development ethics to these challenges.

Besides the elaboration of theory and drafting of conventions, such asreferred to in Table 1, attention is needed to the emotional, perceptual and

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existential grounding of ethics. The human development approach has, as agreat strength, attempted joined-up thinking: trans-disciplinary integrativeanalysis of development. It remains weaker with respect to its humanelements. The approachs previous omission of basic guarantees foreveryone is being remedied by connection to the human rights stream and

the recent reformulations of human security; but as yet it lacks a sufficientbase of understanding concerning the nature of personhood, identity andmutual concern, and of what produces such concern. It presumes and isconducive to ethical universalism in the sense of promoting joined-upfeeling global sympathy, concern and commitment but needs a moreemphatic and profound grounding for this. (Nussbaums work is anexception in these respects, but she has an outlier role within the HAD[Gasper, 2003].) The less generalised, less abstract focus in humansecurity work, on securing basic needs, can support concern, motivationand respect for the diversity of experiencing, assessing and fulfilling needs.We noted however that socio-economic security need not bring psychicsecurity, and the language of human security is at some risk of beinghijacked by the psychic insecurities of the rich [Gasper, 2005].

We conclude that the field of development ethics needs to be deepened tobetter serve those adversely affected by processes of globalisation. Itshould enrich its conception of the human being. Vulnerability andcapability are two sides of the coin of being human. The virtue of careconnects the two, and must be fostered for democracy, solidarity and socialjustice to be possible. And, second, we should enrich the notions of well-being used in development ethics, drawing for example from the gender-

sensitive study of care and routine life maintenance, which offers insightswhich can be extended to face issues of care beyond the household or localcommunity [see e.g. Folbre, 2001; Sevenhuijsen, 1998; Yeates, 2004]. Suchdeepening may help to shape moral responsibility and reciprocity betweenpersons as citizens within a state and between citizens of different states.

REFERENCES

CHS (Commission on Human Security), 2003, Human Security Now, New York: CHS.

Currie, Bob, 2000, The Politics of Hunger in India, Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Davis, Mike, 2001, Late Victorian Holocausts, London and New York: Verso.

Folbre, Nancy, 2001, The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values, New York: The New

Press.

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Gasper, Des, 1999, Drawing a Line Ethical and Political Strategies in ComplexEmergency Assistance, European Journal of Development Research, Vol.11, No.2, pp.87114.

Gasper, Des, 2002, Is Sens Capability Approach an Adequate Basis for a Theory of HumanDevelopment?, Review of Political Economy, Vol.14, No.4, pp.43561.

Gasper, Des, 2003, Nussbaums Capabilities Approach in Perspective, Working Paper 379,Institute of Social Studies, The Hague,http://www.iss.nl.

Gasper, Des, 2004, The Ethics of Development From Economism to Human Development,Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Gasper, Des, 2005, Securing Humanity: Situating Human Security as Concept andDiscourse, Journal of Human Development, Vol.6, No.2, pp.22145.

Gasper, Des and Irene van Staveren, 2003, Development as Freedom - and as what else?,Feminist Economics, Vol.9, Nos.23, pp.13761.

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