Two Views of Assistance

The article makes two substantive contributions to the existing literature on the ethics of international assistance and global justice. First, it builds what we take to be a widely held set of propositions about international assistance into a consistent view (i.e. the relief view), and articulates a strong case against its desirability. Second, it sketches a more attractive alternative (i.e. the development view). To do so the article uses Sen's idea of agent-oriented development as a starting point while at the same time providing a generalization of Sen's account and a justificatory framework that does not rely on the capability approach.