This volume brings into conversation two major moral traditions in the social sciences and humanities that offer common areas for understanding, interpreting, and transforming the world.
Over the last decade, moral theologians who work on issues of poverty, social justice, human rights, and political institutions have been finding inspiration in the capability approach (CA). Conversely, social scientists who have been working on issues of poverty and social justice from a CA perspective have been finding elements in the Catholic social tradition (CST) to overcome some of the limitations of the CA, such as its vagueness regarding what counts as a valuable human life and its strong individual focus. Integral Human Development brings together for the first time social scientists and theologians in dialogue over their respective uses of CST and CA. The contributors discuss what their mutual grounds are, where they diverge, and where common areas of collaboration and transformative action can be found. The contributors offer a critical analysis of CA from the perspective of theology. They also provide an original account of CST. The book offers a broader historical, biblical, social, economic, political, and ecological understanding of CST than that which is currently available in the CST literature. The book will interest students and practitioners in global affairs, development studies, or the social sciences who seek to better understand the Catholic tradition and its social teachings and what they can offer to address current socio-environmental challenges.
Contributors: Séverine Deneulin, Clemens Sedmak, Amy Daughton, Dana Bates, Lori Keleher, Joshua Schulz, Katie Dunne, Cathriona Russell, Meghan J. Clark, Ilaria Schnyder von Wartensee, Elizabeth Hlabse, Guillermo Otano Jiménez, James P. Bailey, Helmut P. Gaisbauer, and Augusto Zampini-Davies.
Table of Contents:
Introduction by Séverine Deneulin and Clemens Sedmak
Part 1. Foundations
1. The anthropologies of CST and CA by Amy Daughton
2. Orthodox personhood: Clarifying the anthropological presuppositions of human
development by Dana Bates
3. Freedom and agency: A conceptual exploration within CST and CA by Lori Keleher
4. Dignity and community in CA and CST by Joshua Schulz
5. Persistent gender inequality: Why CST needs CA by Katie Dunne
6. Integral ecology: Autonomy, the common inheritance of the earth and creation theology by Cathriona Russell
7. Caring for the earth: Challenges for CST and CA by Clemens Sedmak
Part 2. Common Ground for Action
8. Development as freedom together: Human dignity and human rights in CST and CA by Meghan Clark
9. Encounter and agency: An account of a grassroots organization in Uganda by Ilaria
Schnyder von Wartensee and Elizabeth Hlabse
10. Agency, power and ecological conversion: The case of the Conflict-Free Technology
campaign by Guillermo Otano Jiménez
11. Integral human development: A role for children's savings accounts? by James P. Bailey
12. Preferential option for the poor and solidarity in practice: A Salzburg initiative to
combat child poverty in Romania by Helmut P. Gaisbauer
13. Combining CST and CA to promote integral human development by Séverine Deneulin
and Augusto Zampini-Davies
Conclusion by Clemens Sedmak and Séverine Deneulin
About the Author :
Séverine Deneulin is the director of international development at the Laudato Si' Research Institute, Campion Hall, University of Oxford, and an associate fellow at the Oxford Department of International Development. She is the author of Human Development and the Catholic Social Tradition: Towards an Integral Ecology.
Clemens Sedmak is the director of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies and professor of social ethics at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of fourteen monographs, including The Capacity to Be Displaced: Resilience, Mission, and Inner Strength.
Review :
"The wide range of authors and the variety of approaches, from analysis of literature and critique of limitations of one or another position, to reports on actual development work in different parts of the world, make it a rich compendium contributing to an important conversation between Catholic social teaching and the capability approach." —Patrick Riordan, S.J., author of Recovering Common Goods
"This is a book to borrow and relish. ...It wrestles thoughtfully with an issue that should concern us all in a pluralistic world that faces very serious, human-induced, global challenges." — Church Times
