Yes, you’re absolutely right. Academic philosophy has largely failed to engage with contemporary humanitarianism, which is puzzling given that the field of humanitarianism provides plenty of examples of actual moral dilemmas. That failure is also what leads to the situation we have now, where an academic paper that wants to engage with that topic lacks the language to describe it accurately.
This might be because the ethics of humanitarian action is (broadly) a species of virtue ethics, in which those humanitarian principles are the values that need to be cultivated by individuals and organisations in order to make the sort of utilitarian, deontological or other ethical decisions that we are using as thought experiments here, guided by the sort of “practical wisdom” that is often not factored into those thought experiments.
I think the problem is actually reversed. Most humanitarian organisations do not have firm foundational beliefs and are about using poverty porn and feelings of the donor to guide judgements. The language you use of the value of “humanity” is a non-sequitur and doesn’t provide information—even those with high status in humanitarian aid circles like Rory Stewart express a lot of regret over this fuzziness. Put sharply, I don’t think contemporary humanitarianism has language to describe itself accurately and “humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence” are not values but rather buzzwords for charity reports and pamphlets.
From what I’ve inferred is that you’re some sort of Bernard Williams type moral particularism instead of virtue ethics in that you think there are morally salient facts everywhere on the ground in these cases and that the configuration of the morally relevant features of the action in a particular context. But the problem in this discourse is you won’t name the thing you’re defending because I don’t think you know what exactly your moral system is beyond being against thought experiments and vibes of academic philosophy.
This is definitely an uncharitable reading of humanitarian action. The humanitarian principles are rarely to be found in “charity reports and pamphlets” (by which I assume you mean public-facing documents) and if they are found there, they are not the focus of those documents at all. The exception would be for the ICRC, for the obvious reason that the principles largely originated in their work and they act as stewards to some extent.
Your characterisation of humanitarian organisations as “using poverty porn and feelings of the donor to guide judgements” and so on—well, you’re welcome to your opinion, but that clearly obviates the hugely complex nature of decision-making in humanitarian action. Humanitarian organisations clearly have foundational beliefs, even if they’re not sufficiently unambiguous for you. The world is unfortunately an ambiguous place.
(I should explain at this point that I am not a full-throated and unapologetic supporter of the humanitarian sector. I am in fact a sharp critic of the way in which it works, and I appreciate sharp criticism of it in general. But that criticism needs to be well-informed rather than armchair criticism, which I suppose is why I’m in this thread!)
I do in fact practice virtue ethics, and while there is some affinity between humanitarian decision-making and moral particularism, there are clearly moral principles in the former which the latter might deny—the principle of impartiality means that one is required to provide assistance to (for example) genocidaires from Rwanda when they find themselves in a refugee camp in Tanzania, regardless of what criminal actions they might have carried out in their own country.
I’m not sure what you mean when you say that I won’t name the thing defending because I don’t know what my moral system is. My personal moral framework is one of virtue ethics, taking its cue from classical virtue ethics but aware that the virtues of the classical age are not necessarily best for flourishing in the modern age; and my professional moral framework is—as you might have guessed—based on the humanitarian principles.
You might not believe that either of these frameworks is defensible, but that’s different from saying that I don’t know what they are. Could you explain exactly what you meant, and why you believe it?
Ok to be clear, I am 100% certain you don’t know what virtue ethics is because you’re literally describing principles of action not virtues. Virtues in virtues ethics are dispositions we cultivate in ourselves not in the consequence of the world. So taking your example of the “principle of impartiality” is that if you are a virtue ethicist you’re trying to cultivate “impartiality” not duty bound by it. This is also why you’re confused when you name virtues because independence is a virtue in the person receiving aid not in you! Also these are canonically not virtues any well-known virtue ethicist would name!
Moreover, this impartiality is more a metaethical principle that you keep violating in your own examples. If Oxfam trades off 2:1 Bangladeshis to South Sudanese (replace the countries with whatever you want) that breaks impartiality because you are necessarily saying one life is worth more than another (there are morally particular facts that can change this obviously but you keep biting the bullet on any and just say the world is fuzzy!)
Overall, the world is fuzzy but the problem in this chain of logic is your fuzziness in understanding of what commonly used concepts like virtue ethics are. It’s really frustrating when you keep excusing your mistaken understanding of concepts with the world being fuzzy. Please just go read Alastair McIntyre’s After Virtue.
“I am 100% certain you don’t know what virtue ethics is because you’re literally describing principles of action not virtues… Virtues in virtues ethics are dispositions we cultivate in ourselves not in the consequence of the world.”
I fear that it may be you who do not know what virtue ethics is. You refer to McIntyre, who defines virtues as qualities requiring both possession *and* exercise. One does not become courageous by sitting at home thinking about how courageous one will become, but by practising acts of courage. Virtues are developed through such practice, which surely means that they are principles of action.
”Also these are canonically not virtues any well-known virtue ethicist would name!”
I agree. I haven’t claimed that they are, and I’ve referred to humanitarian ethics as a species of virtue ethics for that very reason. But one of the strengths of virtue ethics is that it is possible—indeed necessary—to update what the virtues mean in practice to account for the way in which the social environment has changed—and in fact there’s no reason why one shouldn’t introduce new virtues that may be more appropriate for human flourishing.
“This is also why you’re confused when you name virtues because independence is a virtue in the person receiving aid not in you!… Moreover, this impartiality is more a metaethical principle that you keep violating in your own examples. If Oxfam trades off 2:1 Bangladeshis to South Sudanese (replace the countries with whatever you want) that breaks impartiality because you are necessarily saying one life is worth more than another”
I believe you are confused here. Independence is not a virtue of the person receiving aid but of the organisation providing aid—and here I’ll use the ICRC as the exemplar—which “must always maintain their autonomy so that they may be able at all times to act in accordance with the principles”.
Likewise you are confused about what is meant by impartiality, which requires that the organisation provides aid to individuals “guided solely by their needs, and to give priority to the most urgent cases of distress.” It does not break impartiality to say “We should assist X rather than Y” if X is in greater need, and does not imply that X’s life is worth more than Y’s.
Let’s return to the Bangladeshi schoolchildren. If you allocate resources to support education for 800 girls instead of 1000 boys, it does not necessarily imply that you think girls are worth more than boys (although it might). The decision is being made on the basis that girls’ need for support is greater because they face more barriers to access than boys.
I am not a philosopher by any means, but I simply cannot accept your criticism that I do not understand these concepts, or how they are applied in practice.
This is not how words work. You can’t just say I believe X is a virtue because in humanitarian ethics (which is ill-defined). I truly don’t think you understand the concept of virtue ethics at the end of the day. This sounds mean by it’s definitionally a misunderstanding you keep doubling down on like everything here. For instance you tried to use the red cross as an example but most virtue ethicists wouldn’t abide by an entity holding a virtue (the ICRC can’t cultivate a virtue it’s not a person) -- because that’s definitionally not what a virtue is. You also misquoted Alasdair McIntyre and misrepresented it as shown by the fact your quoting all come from google book snippets from undergraduate classes.
I think you believe what you believe and I’ll leave it at that. This is not a productive conversation. Funnily enough I do not think the paper draft is charitable but I don’t think you fully understand your axiomatic values (you probably are prioritarian not a virtue ethicist). I also think the educating girls example is a very strong prioritarian argument.
“You can’t just say I believe X is a virtue because in humanitarian ethics (which is ill-defined). I truly don’t think you understand the concept of virtue ethics at the end of the day… You also misquoted Alastair MacIntyre and misrepresented it.”
Let me then quote MacIntyre in full, to avoid misrepresenting him.
1.
MacIntyre defines a practice as “any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity”.
MacIntyre gives a range of examples of practices, including the games of football and chess, professional disciplines of architecture and farming, scientific enquiries in physics, chemistry and biology, creative pursuits of painting and music, and “the creation and sustaining of human communities—of households, cities, nations”.
Humanitarian action meets this definition of a practice.
2.
MacIntyre defines a good with reference to their conception in the middle ages as “The ends to which men as members of such a species move… and their movement towards or away from various goods are to be explained with reference to the virtues and vices which they have learned or failed to learn and the forms of practical reasoning which they employ.”
The humanitarian imperative “that action should be taken to prevent or alleviate human suffering arising out of disaster or conflict” meets this definition of a good.
3.
MacIntyre defines a virtue as “an acquired human quality the possession and exercise of which tends to enable us to achieve those goods which are internal to practices and the lack of which effectively prevents us from achieving any such goods”.
Humanitarian principles can be treated as virtues under this definition. They are acquired human qualities which enable us to achieve a good (the human imperative) which is internal to a practice (humanitarian action).
They should be seen as professional virtues in addition to any personal virtues (the more familiar virtues such as courage or patience) that aid workers might cultivate, in the same way that architects would cultivate different virtues to farmers.
4.
MacIntyre asserts that “A practice involves standards of excellence and obedience to rules as well as the achievement of goods. To enter into a practice is to accept the authority of those standards and the inadequacy of my own performance as judged by them.”
The institutions of humanitarian aid—whether operational bodies such as the Red Cross/Red Crescent movement, professional standards such as the Sphere Standards, or communities of practice such as the CALP Network—provide exactly this context.
You are correct to say that those institutions are not themselves possessed of the virtues, but they constitute the practice which is required to acquire these virtues, and within which the exercise of the virtue takes place.
*
This account is inadequate—it does not account for the wider swathe of humanitarian action happening outside the formal humanitarian sector—but it is sufficient to demonstrate that the concept of “humanitarian virtues” is coherent with MacIntyre’s conception of virtue ethics.
I am perfectly happy with the fact that you are not a virtue ethicist, and therefore simply do not agree with this argument. Your accusation that I don’t understand the concept of virtue ethics, however, simply does not hold water.
You’re clear that you don’t wish to continue this conversation because it’s not productive. Nevertheless I appreciate your engagement, so thank you for taking the time to comment over the past few days.
Yes, you’re absolutely right. Academic philosophy has largely failed to engage with contemporary humanitarianism, which is puzzling given that the field of humanitarianism provides plenty of examples of actual moral dilemmas. That failure is also what leads to the situation we have now, where an academic paper that wants to engage with that topic lacks the language to describe it accurately.
This might be because the ethics of humanitarian action is (broadly) a species of virtue ethics, in which those humanitarian principles are the values that need to be cultivated by individuals and organisations in order to make the sort of utilitarian, deontological or other ethical decisions that we are using as thought experiments here, guided by the sort of “practical wisdom” that is often not factored into those thought experiments.
I think the problem is actually reversed. Most humanitarian organisations do not have firm foundational beliefs and are about using poverty porn and feelings of the donor to guide judgements. The language you use of the value of “humanity” is a non-sequitur and doesn’t provide information—even those with high status in humanitarian aid circles like Rory Stewart express a lot of regret over this fuzziness. Put sharply, I don’t think contemporary humanitarianism has language to describe itself accurately and “humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence” are not values but rather buzzwords for charity reports and pamphlets.
From what I’ve inferred is that you’re some sort of Bernard Williams type moral particularism instead of virtue ethics in that you think there are morally salient facts everywhere on the ground in these cases and that the configuration of the morally relevant features of the action in a particular context. But the problem in this discourse is you won’t name the thing you’re defending because I don’t think you know what exactly your moral system is beyond being against thought experiments and vibes of academic philosophy.
This is definitely an uncharitable reading of humanitarian action. The humanitarian principles are rarely to be found in “charity reports and pamphlets” (by which I assume you mean public-facing documents) and if they are found there, they are not the focus of those documents at all. The exception would be for the ICRC, for the obvious reason that the principles largely originated in their work and they act as stewards to some extent.
Your characterisation of humanitarian organisations as “using poverty porn and feelings of the donor to guide judgements” and so on—well, you’re welcome to your opinion, but that clearly obviates the hugely complex nature of decision-making in humanitarian action. Humanitarian organisations clearly have foundational beliefs, even if they’re not sufficiently unambiguous for you. The world is unfortunately an ambiguous place.
(I should explain at this point that I am not a full-throated and unapologetic supporter of the humanitarian sector. I am in fact a sharp critic of the way in which it works, and I appreciate sharp criticism of it in general. But that criticism needs to be well-informed rather than armchair criticism, which I suppose is why I’m in this thread!)
I do in fact practice virtue ethics, and while there is some affinity between humanitarian decision-making and moral particularism, there are clearly moral principles in the former which the latter might deny—the principle of impartiality means that one is required to provide assistance to (for example) genocidaires from Rwanda when they find themselves in a refugee camp in Tanzania, regardless of what criminal actions they might have carried out in their own country.
I’m not sure what you mean when you say that I won’t name the thing defending because I don’t know what my moral system is. My personal moral framework is one of virtue ethics, taking its cue from classical virtue ethics but aware that the virtues of the classical age are not necessarily best for flourishing in the modern age; and my professional moral framework is—as you might have guessed—based on the humanitarian principles.
You might not believe that either of these frameworks is defensible, but that’s different from saying that I don’t know what they are. Could you explain exactly what you meant, and why you believe it?
Ok to be clear, I am 100% certain you don’t know what virtue ethics is because you’re literally describing principles of action not virtues. Virtues in virtues ethics are dispositions we cultivate in ourselves not in the consequence of the world. So taking your example of the “principle of impartiality” is that if you are a virtue ethicist you’re trying to cultivate “impartiality” not duty bound by it. This is also why you’re confused when you name virtues because independence is a virtue in the person receiving aid not in you! Also these are canonically not virtues any well-known virtue ethicist would name!
Moreover, this impartiality is more a metaethical principle that you keep violating in your own examples. If Oxfam trades off 2:1 Bangladeshis to South Sudanese (replace the countries with whatever you want) that breaks impartiality because you are necessarily saying one life is worth more than another (there are morally particular facts that can change this obviously but you keep biting the bullet on any and just say the world is fuzzy!)
Overall, the world is fuzzy but the problem in this chain of logic is your fuzziness in understanding of what commonly used concepts like virtue ethics are. It’s really frustrating when you keep excusing your mistaken understanding of concepts with the world being fuzzy. Please just go read Alastair McIntyre’s After Virtue.
“I am 100% certain you don’t know what virtue ethics is because you’re literally describing principles of action not virtues… Virtues in virtues ethics are dispositions we cultivate in ourselves not in the consequence of the world.”
I fear that it may be you who do not know what virtue ethics is. You refer to McIntyre, who defines virtues as qualities requiring both possession *and* exercise. One does not become courageous by sitting at home thinking about how courageous one will become, but by practising acts of courage. Virtues are developed through such practice, which surely means that they are principles of action.
”Also these are canonically not virtues any well-known virtue ethicist would name!”
I agree. I haven’t claimed that they are, and I’ve referred to humanitarian ethics as a species of virtue ethics for that very reason. But one of the strengths of virtue ethics is that it is possible—indeed necessary—to update what the virtues mean in practice to account for the way in which the social environment has changed—and in fact there’s no reason why one shouldn’t introduce new virtues that may be more appropriate for human flourishing.
“This is also why you’re confused when you name virtues because independence is a virtue in the person receiving aid not in you!… Moreover, this impartiality is more a metaethical principle that you keep violating in your own examples. If Oxfam trades off 2:1 Bangladeshis to South Sudanese (replace the countries with whatever you want) that breaks impartiality because you are necessarily saying one life is worth more than another”
I believe you are confused here. Independence is not a virtue of the person receiving aid but of the organisation providing aid—and here I’ll use the ICRC as the exemplar—which “must always maintain their autonomy so that they may be able at all times to act in accordance with the principles”.
Likewise you are confused about what is meant by impartiality, which requires that the organisation provides aid to individuals “guided solely by their needs, and to give priority to the most urgent cases of distress.” It does not break impartiality to say “We should assist X rather than Y” if X is in greater need, and does not imply that X’s life is worth more than Y’s.
Let’s return to the Bangladeshi schoolchildren. If you allocate resources to support education for 800 girls instead of 1000 boys, it does not necessarily imply that you think girls are worth more than boys (although it might). The decision is being made on the basis that girls’ need for support is greater because they face more barriers to access than boys.
I am not a philosopher by any means, but I simply cannot accept your criticism that I do not understand these concepts, or how they are applied in practice.
This is not how words work. You can’t just say I believe X is a virtue because in humanitarian ethics (which is ill-defined). I truly don’t think you understand the concept of virtue ethics at the end of the day. This sounds mean by it’s definitionally a misunderstanding you keep doubling down on like everything here. For instance you tried to use the red cross as an example but most virtue ethicists wouldn’t abide by an entity holding a virtue (the ICRC can’t cultivate a virtue it’s not a person) -- because that’s definitionally not what a virtue is. You also misquoted Alasdair McIntyre and misrepresented it as shown by the fact your quoting all come from google book snippets from undergraduate classes.
I think you believe what you believe and I’ll leave it at that. This is not a productive conversation. Funnily enough I do not think the paper draft is charitable but I don’t think you fully understand your axiomatic values (you probably are prioritarian not a virtue ethicist). I also think the educating girls example is a very strong prioritarian argument.
[edited for tone]
“You can’t just say I believe X is a virtue because in humanitarian ethics (which is ill-defined). I truly don’t think you understand the concept of virtue ethics at the end of the day… You also misquoted Alastair MacIntyre and misrepresented it.”
Let me then quote MacIntyre in full, to avoid misrepresenting him.
1.
MacIntyre defines a practice as “any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity”.
MacIntyre gives a range of examples of practices, including the games of football and chess, professional disciplines of architecture and farming, scientific enquiries in physics, chemistry and biology, creative pursuits of painting and music, and “the creation and sustaining of human communities—of households, cities, nations”.
Humanitarian action meets this definition of a practice.
2.
MacIntyre defines a good with reference to their conception in the middle ages as “The ends to which men as members of such a species move… and their movement towards or away from various goods are to be explained with reference to the virtues and vices which they have learned or failed to learn and the forms of practical reasoning which they employ.”
The humanitarian imperative “that action should be taken to prevent or alleviate human suffering arising out of disaster or conflict” meets this definition of a good.
3.
MacIntyre defines a virtue as “an acquired human quality the possession and exercise of which tends to enable us to achieve those goods which are internal to practices and the lack of which effectively prevents us from achieving any such goods”.
Humanitarian principles can be treated as virtues under this definition. They are acquired human qualities which enable us to achieve a good (the human imperative) which is internal to a practice (humanitarian action).
They should be seen as professional virtues in addition to any personal virtues (the more familiar virtues such as courage or patience) that aid workers might cultivate, in the same way that architects would cultivate different virtues to farmers.
4.
MacIntyre asserts that “A practice involves standards of excellence and obedience to rules as well as the achievement of goods. To enter into a practice is to accept the authority of those standards and the inadequacy of my own performance as judged by them.”
The institutions of humanitarian aid—whether operational bodies such as the Red Cross/Red Crescent movement, professional standards such as the Sphere Standards, or communities of practice such as the CALP Network—provide exactly this context.
You are correct to say that those institutions are not themselves possessed of the virtues, but they constitute the practice which is required to acquire these virtues, and within which the exercise of the virtue takes place.
*
This account is inadequate—it does not account for the wider swathe of humanitarian action happening outside the formal humanitarian sector—but it is sufficient to demonstrate that the concept of “humanitarian virtues” is coherent with MacIntyre’s conception of virtue ethics.
I am perfectly happy with the fact that you are not a virtue ethicist, and therefore simply do not agree with this argument. Your accusation that I don’t understand the concept of virtue ethics, however, simply does not hold water.
You’re clear that you don’t wish to continue this conversation because it’s not productive. Nevertheless I appreciate your engagement, so thank you for taking the time to comment over the past few days.