3071-The political economy of new slavery

Nigel Dower 189
given pre-existing ethical customs and sensitivities, the manner of
helping needs to both respect and take account of these. The manner in
which the process occurs – whether it is democratic and participatory –
is also an important consideration because these values (which are
themselves moral values) are important. Another way of putting this is
to say that there is an ethics of the means. Means have ethical content
both in respect to values independent of the goal pursued and also in
respect to the values implicit in the goal. Gandhi said: ‘the means are
the ends in the making’ (Gruzalski, 2001). In both respects the ethical
content of the means is not simply a function of the causal relation of
bringing about an end. Maximizing a desired outcome or promoting
it efficiently tends to assume the latter relation as the key determinant
of its justification (or else lets in complexity through the back door by
making moral values an outcome).
The second common assumption is that the acceptance of ethics at
all assumes that a person, organization or state is not simply entitled to
promote their own best interests regardless of others. At the least we are
required to adhere to rules constraining our behaviour so that we do not
unnecessarily harm others or frustrate their interests. The majority view
includes assisting others who need our help by means of furthering
justice and combating injustice, whether institutional or perpetrated by
individuals.
But the implications of accepting these two assumptions are not
generally noted. Since we can neither do everything nor nothing, how
much to do and in what ways to respond to the wider world become
open questions. As these are immensely complex issues to do with what
does and does not count as legitimate pursuit of interests in the face of
the impact our actions have on others (or what is and what is not
justifiable interference in others’ lives) and about the extent and
manner of helping, ethical issues to do with development issues abound.
In summary, there is a rich middle ground between an unacceptable
‘maximizing’ approach and moral indifference, a middle ground in
which questions about what helping and furthering justice (including
combating injustice) means, how much to engage and in what ways
arise. (It is worth noting that in some contexts the duty to ‘help’ may
be seen as distinct from duties of justice, including duties to further
justice, and certainly charity and justice need to be distinguished; on the
other hand, in regard to what individuals ought to do to further justice,
they may correctly be described as helping to promote justice or oppose
injustice, and the moral motivations for such acts may be a complex
mixture of benevolence and a sense of justice.)