The ‘Beyond-GDP’ discourse as to how to understand and measure social progress is no longer confined to social-scientific development researchers or other academics. Policy makers and civil society at national, inter- and transnational levels are engaged in discussing and devising concepts and indicators that would facilitate assessing social progress domestically and globally. Examples include the ‘Sarkozy-Commission’ on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, the study commission on Growth, Wellbeing and Quality of Life of the German parliament and the European Framework for Measuring Progress of the EU.
What is striking about these processes of opinion and will formation is how little attention they pay to theories of – global – justice. This is perplexing not only because theorizing justice has played such an important role in political philosophy and theory throughout the last decades, but also because according to a very influential understanding justice is the ‘first virtue of social institutions’.
This neglect is curious in light of the fact that the concepts of justice and development are often employed in very similar ways. Conceptions of both of these concepts usually outline a social ideal or provide a normative source of critique of existing social relations. Theories of justice ask both what an ideally just society would involve and what would effectively contribute to less injustice today. Likewise, theories of development in the social sciences also consider what would be the ultimate goal of social change and criticize actual social conditions for reflecting an underdeveloped state of affairs. Despite of these similarities of the aims and critical functions of the usage of the two concepts, few attempts have been made so far to clarify the conceptual relation and tensions between them.
The workshop aims at filling this gap by bringing together political philosophers and theorists, scholars working in development economics and social-scientific development research as well as practitioners from development institutions, so as to exchange their understandings of both justice and development.
Program
Thursday, 13th of December 2012,
2-4 pm
Panel 1: Justice and Development – The Contributions of Economics

Ingrid Robeyns (Erasmus University Rotterdam): “Justice, Development and the Assessment of Economic Policies, Institutions and Systems”
Sanjay Reddy (The New School, NY): TBA
4-4:30 pm Coffee Break
4:30-6:30 pm
Panel 2: Theories of Development – Post-Development and Justice-Based Perspectives
Aram Ziai (Center for Development Research at the University of Bonn): “Some Reflections on the Concept of Development”
Julian Culp (Goethe-University, Frankfurt/M.), “Justice-Based Development – A Discourse-Theoretic Approach”
7:15 pm
Public Lecture
Martha Nussbaum (University of Chicago): “Development and Human Capabilities: The Contribution of a Philosophical Theory of Justice.”
Introduction: Rainer Forst (Goethe-University, Frankfurt/M.)
Friday, 14th of December 2012
10-12 pm
Panel 3: Equality, Development and Democratic Justice
David Crocker (University of Maryland): “Agency and Democracy: Re-orienting Theories of Development and Justice”
Neera Chandhoke (University of Delhi): “Equality for What?”
1:30-3:30 pm
Panel 4: Development – Historical Foundations and Current Problems
Philip Lepenies (Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Potsdam): “Us and Them: Reflections on the Historical Foundations of Development”
Joseph Agbakoba (University of Nigeria at Nsukka): “The Problem of Choice and Responsibility in Modern Africa’s Development”
3:30-4:00 pm Coffee Break
4:00-6:00 pm
Roundtable with Practitioners from Development Organizations
Stefan Gosepath, Professor of Moral and Political Philosophy, Freie Universität Berlin
Angela Hariche, Head of Unit, Global Well-Being Networks, OECD – Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, Paris
Michael Krempin, Senior Policy Advisor, Corporate Development Unit, GIZ – German Society for International Cooperation, Frankfurt/M.
Jean Saldanha, Policy and Advocacy Officer, CIDSE – International Alliance of Catholic Development Agencies, Brussels