The
Specialization in Ethics and Development provides graduate students
and faculty with the opportunity to address collaboratively and
in a philosophically sophisticated manner the difficult ethical
issues that arise in the course of social, economic, political,
and cultural development within an increasingly inter-connected
global context. These issues include, but are not limited to,
the introduction of transgenic crops, climate change, foreign
aid, economic liberalization, the representativeness of international
political organizations, gender equity, the effectiveness of war
crimes tribunals and international courts, and the role of traditional
medicine in addressing health care needs. They are related to
the more general moral problems of autonomy, community, identity,
and justice; and they are issues that are felt acutely within
the economically poorer regions of the world, but are often equally
salient in the economically richer regions.
These
issues in development are part of a complex set of questions about
the ethics of development that connect rich and poor countries.
In whose interests has development occurred? Who has participated
in development projects and initiatives? What exactly ought to
be the goals of development? When we speak of sustainable development,
what social and cultural goods as well as material resources ought
to be sustained that currently exist now and which ones ought
to be transformed or replaced?