Why Assist People Living in Poverty? The ethics of poverty reduction

Publication date: IWP_2016_27
Publication series:
Innocenti Working Papers
No. of pages: 40
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Abstract
The paper provides an examination of the relevance of ethics to poverty
reduction. It argues that linking the shared values that define the social
arrangements and institutions, which we refer to as ‘ethical perspectives’, to
the emerging welfare institutions addressing poverty in developing countries
provides a window into these processes of justification at a more fundamental
level. By ethics of poverty the authors refer to the most basic arguments and
processes used to justify how and why we assist people living in poverty. Given
the extent to which poverty reflects injustice, they argue it is appropriate to
consider poverty in the context of ethics. Drawing
on the recent expansion of social assistance in Brazil, South Africa and Ghana,
the paper shows that ethical perspectives are relevant to our understanding of
the evolution of anti-poverty policy.
Available in:
English