It typically takes a normative stance, asking and answering questions about the nature of ethically desirable development and what ethics means for achieving development, and discusses various ethical dilemmas that the practice of development has led to.
Its aim is to ensure that "value issues" are an important part of the discourse of development.
This involves asking not only how to realize the goals of development but also what are ethical limits in their pursuit.
[1] Denis Goulet, one of the founding fathers of the discipline, argued in The Cruel Choice (1971) that "Development ethics is useless unless it can be translated into public action.
The central question is: How can moral guidelines influence decisions of those who hold power?