CHAPTER 2: CONCEPTUAL DEFINITION OF HUMANITARIANISM
2.4 Philosophical Conceptualization
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The moral justification is however contested by political realist thinkers who view humanity as individually fragmented and in pursuance of individual happiness. They advance that HMIs are prone to abuse (Krylov, 1995: 403). However, proponents of the Solidarist International Society theory have a different view from the Realist thinkers. Wheeler (2001: 309) forwarded a case for a moral justification for HMI when he argued that, “there is often a compatibility between protecting the national interest, promoting international order, and enforcing human rights.” Belloni (2002: 37) puts forward that Solidarists “argue that intervention is a duty in cases of extreme human suffering. Intervention is thought to actually strengthen the legitimacy of the society of states and deepen its commitment to justice.”
However, not all proponents of the International Society theory subscribe to the moral imperative of HMI.
Pluralists, including Hedley Bull, “believe that states can agree only on a minimum set of rules of coexistence, in particular sovereignty and non-intervention. … Humanitarian intervention is a violation of these rules safeguarding the independent choices of other political communities, and is inherently open to the possibility of abuse by the strong trying to coerce the weak” (Belloni, 2002: 36-37). Hence, the concept of HMI has been divisive among the International Society theorists.
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the whole lineage, including the past and future generations (Lauren, 2010: 111). Cicero (1967) agrees with the argument that human beings should be guided by ethical rules when he said that:
How can we say that a youth is a young man of great promise and high character, when we judge him likely to study his own interests and do whatever will be for his personal advantage? Do we not see what a universal upheaval and confusion result from such a principle? It does away with generosity and gratitude, the bonds of mutual harmony. If you lend a man money for your own advantage, it cannot be considered an act of generosity; it is usury and no gratitude is owing to a man who lends money for gain.
This postulation is important in analyzing the concept of humanism especially as it comes up with the issues of generosity, gratitude and mutual harmony. The three issues are central to the solidarity of a society and in cases where they are disregarded society plunges into turmoil. Altruistic actions became the cement of society, hence a society could view itself as a single entity. Cicero distinguishes between lending money for no interest as assistance and doing the same act of lending money but for personal gain as not assistance but usury (Lauren, 2010: 157). The Stoic School of thought also argues that human beings should act according to morals and ethics. In describing the teachings of Zeno, the founder of the Stoic School, Bryant (1866: 21) notes that, “the first Stoic fixed his thoughts chiefly on moral conduct” which is the basis of altruism.
The Stoic School borrowed from philosophers like Cicero who taught the importance of human beings to live virtuous life and shun the pursuit of self-interest. Bryant (1866: 21) in his analysis of the Stoics notes that:
To live according to his true nature is to live godly; godly life is virtue. This is itself true happiness, independently of pleasure in the common acceptation of the terra;
because the supreme good is to follow what the law of nature points out as being good. Virtue having its seat in the soul, outward circumstances cannot reach the good man. As he can distinguish good from evil, he is wise; and this suffices for him. … All vices are equal in degree, because they run counter to the one law of virtue.
While there was an acceptance of the concept of humanity from the Greek philosophers, it also needs to be questioned who were the subjects of such humanity. As argued by Douzinas (2007: 1) Romans took the idea of humanity from the Greeks and used it to distinguish between the civilized humans and barbaric humans who were not subject of ‘the law of the civilized’ humans. There was, therefore selectivity on the application of the concept in Greece between the civilized Greek and the barbarian. It
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therefore stands that the application of the concept of humanity in European and other world civilizations was minimal and exclusive, hence allowing for inhumane practices like slavery to be part of morally unquestionable societal practices.
It is proven by history that the application of the concept of humanitarianism as understood from the Greek concept of civilized human beings and the barbarians was selective until the end of the decolonization of Africa. The colonization of Africa, Asia and Latin America was justified on the basis that people in the colonized world were barbarians and therefore deserved no mercy as given to the civilized human beings of Europe. In Africa, racial segregation was the primary policy of separate development.
This policy was notorious in South Africa where it was pushed by the colonial minority under the term apartheid (Hopkins, 2015: 241-242).
However, the argument of the altruistic nature of humans has not gone without its critics. Arguing on the natural relations of human beings in 300 BC, the Epicurean school of thought advocated that it is natural for individuals to seek individual pleasures and hence self-interest and self-preservation is the primary goal of human beings (Sorabji, 2006: 26). In describing the Epicureans, Bryant (1866: 4) notes that they
“were advocates of the doctrine of the absolute freedom of the human will to choose what is agreeable to it. They denied the providence of God, or that he concerns himself at all about human affairs.” This school of thought maintained that, “happiness consisted in the pursuit of pleasure, and, as all wish to be happy, all should seek after the greatest amount of pleasure to be obtained” (Bryant, 1866: 5).
This line of argument which supports self-inclination rather than societal inclination of humankind is also supported by Mauss (1967: 1) who argues that there is nothing like a free gift. Mauss (1967: 1) notes that, “In Scandinavian and many other civilizations contracts are fulfilled and exchanges of goods are made by means of gifts. In theory such gifts are voluntary but in fact they are given and repaid under obligation”. Therefore in real terms there is no free gift.
There are unwritten rules in societies, specifically in the Scandinavian countries, that for the cordial relations in the society to flourish, there is need to extend ‘gifts’ which should be returned in kind (Mauss, 1967: 1). While there is nothing wrong in having reciprocal gifts, the problem comes when the extending of such gifts is done with a predetermined notion of beneficial returns, an act which Cicero referred not as an act of altruism, but ‘usury’ (Lauren, 2010: 157).
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