El plan contingente

IDB CULTURAL CENTER
General Coordinator and Curator: Félix Angel
Assistant General Coordinator: Soledad Guerra
Concerts and Lectures Coordinator: Anne Vena
Cultural Development Coordinator: Elba Agusti
IDB Art Collection Managing and
Conservation Assistant: Susannah Rodee and Florencia Sader
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The IDB Cultural Center was created in 1992 by Enrique V. Iglesias, President of theInter-American Development Bank (IDB). The Center has two primary objectives: 1) to
contribute to social development by administering a grants program that sponsors and cofi
nances small-scale cultural projects that will have a positive social impact in the region,
and 2) to promote a better image of the IDB member countries, with emphasis on Latin
America and the Caribbean, through culture andincreased understanding between the
region and the rest of the world, particularly the United States.
Cultural programs at headquarters feature new as well as established talent from the region.
Recognition granted by Washington, D.C. audiences and press often helps propel
the careers of new artists. The Center also sponsors lectures on Latin American and Caribbean
history and culture, and supportscultural undertakings in the Washington, D.C.
area for the local Latin American and Caribbean communities, such as Spanish-language
theater, fi lm festivals, and other events.
The IDB Cultural Center Exhibitions and the Concerts and Lectures Series stimulate dialogue
and a greater knowledge of the culture of the Americas. The Cultural Development Program
funds projects in the fi elds of youthcultural development, institutional support, restoration
and conservation of cultural patrimony, and the preservation of cultural traditions.
The IDB Art Collection, gathered over several decades, is managed by the Cultural Center
and refl ects the relevance and importance the Bank has achieved after four decades as the
leading fi nancial institution concerned with the development of LatinAmerica and the
Caribbean.
© Inter-American Development Bank and Salomón Lerner, Marcos Aguinis and Darío Ruiz Gómez.
All rights reserved.
INDEX
The Essential Role of Ethics in the Development of Latin America
Lecture by Salomón Lerner ............................................................................................... 1
Convictions That Sabotage Progress
Lecture by Marcos Aguinis............................................................................................ 15
The Diffi culty of Telling the Truth
Lecture by Darío Ruiz Gómez ...................................................................................... 27
THE ESSENTIAL ROLE OF ETHICS
_IN__ _T_H__E__ D__E__V_E__L_O__P_M___E_N__T_ _O__F_ _L_A__T_I_N__ A__M__E__R_I_C__A_
Salomón Lerner
The reasonfor these modest refl ections today
constitutes a crucial subject for Latin
American countries, namely: the role that
ethics is called to play in the ever postponed
expectations for development of
Latin America and the Caribbean.
The urgency to incorporate an ethical
perspective into development theories
and policies is not entirely new, nor is it a
marginal issue in contemporarydiscussion.
Indeed, problems related to moral values
and attitudes are being ever more forcefully
incorporated into a holistic approach to
this subject. That is due largely—I want to
emphasize—to the efforts of thinkers and
scholars identifi ed with this idea of ethics
and development, such as Bernardo Kliksberg
of the IDB.
In this lecture, I propose to discuss the
relationship between ethics anddevelopment
– from a vantage point marked by
the philosophical disciplines of which I am
a proponent, and by the instructive experience
of having observed fi rsthand the ravages
of violence in one society—my own
country, Peru—and with due consideration
of the unsettling questions that the issue
poses for development in our region.
Here I will argue that ethics must be
granted a...