Development as Service: Worldviews, Law and Sustainable Development Goals

This refreshing account of comparative wellbeing perspectives of the Global South of Ubuntu, Buen Vivir and Gross National Happiness sheds a new light on sustainable development debates, arguing for the notion of culture underlying all development. Instead of Development as Freedom, it proposes Development as Service, centering around reciprocity. The central Sustainable Development Goals perspective of "Leaving no-one behind" and sustainable growth is still caught in the development logic of linear growth, individualism, and the hierarchy of developed versus developing states. This book is a must read for philosophers who are willing to think beyond European philosophy, new economists interested in reshaping today's paradigms, innovative lawyers with an environmental heart or human rights interest, and all people who seek new meaning in today's society, as well as for those who yearn for a dialogue between worldviews of the Global South and science.