ABSTRACT
This chapter explores one particular way in which liberal-egalitarian theories of social and global justice have left a mark on development ethics: it analyzes how these theories have shaped normative understandings of social development. For that purpose it first of all highlights problems of an economic growth–based understanding of development that becomes visible when one adopts the perspective of liberal-egalitarian theories of social or global justice. In addition, it explains how basic needs, capabilities, feminist, human rights, and sustainability theories have also criticized the economic growth–based development understanding, and how their critique differs from that of the liberal-egalitarian theories of justice. Finally, it presents, in some depth, Martha Nussbaum’s justice-based development understanding, and on that basis elaborates on further ways of systematically interweaving the concepts of justice and development.
