A Christian social ethical response to poverty: Economic development through the eyes of poor women in developing countries

This research is a study in Christian social ethics using Amartya Sen's capabilities approach and Ivone Gebara's ecofeminist epistemology as resources for a deeper understanding to the moral question---why in the 21st century are there still large populations enslaved to a life of deprivation? By focusing on the most destitute of populations, the plight of poor women in the two-thirds world, this study shows the inadequacy of liberalizing economic controls without first creating the social conditions necessary for economic growth to truly benefit all concerned. It questions the values embedded in our secular and religious institutions---values that are linked to hierarchical and patriarchal notions of social order---which collude to ensure that poverty remain systemic, recurring generation after generation. It argues that a primary change at our core identity level---as individuals, communities, and nations---needs to occur before the poorest of the poor can be freed from a life without dignity or choice. It offers as a normative theo-ethical framework the scriptural command of love of neighbor as a place outside the system in order to evaluate and improve this system that contributes to continuing deprivation. Using Augustine, Aquinas, and Levinas to reassess the meaning of neighbor-love, this framework argues for an ethic of responsibility, which poses a set of moral questions that all members of the system---individuals, multi-national corporations, religious institutions, global organizations---must address in order to break this cycle of perpetual poverty.