The presented passage is the collection of prof. Jan Danecki’s thoughts on social policy. It consists of the fragments of the recorded lectures on the theory of social policy that were given by prof. Danecki in the Institute of Social Policy, Warsaw University in 2002. The focus point of the abstracts is the category of social development and its criteria. On one hand, the certain criteria that allow to regard some processes as a progress may vary, as they depend on given values system. On the other hand, as stressed prof. Danecki, there is a cornerstone in social policy – whenever the social change is being valuated, the ideas that are basis for human rights should be taken into consideration.