Social Justice and the Ethics of Development in Post-apartheid South Africa

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Abstract
This paper explores the meaning of social justice and development in post-apartheid South Africa. It begins with social justice as a process of equalisation, presenting some evidence of the challenge and explaining the difficulty of achieving racial equality. Recognition of changes in national development strategy in the post-apartheid era, and their implications for inequality, leads to discussion of alternative development ethics, which involves reconsideration of what stands for the good life. The possibility of a combination of traditional African communitarianism and the ethic of care is explored, as a basis for an alternative conception of the good. Some impediments to the realisation of such a vision are identified.