intention, for that will yield the most impoverished account that explains neither
inputs nor outcomes in the politics of humanity.^52 Yet another important element
has been missing from the discussion so far: the potential of humanitarian action to
cause harm in a ways that potentially invalidate a plausible categorisation as rescue,
either through the act itself, action leading to unintended harmful consequences, or
through the use of violent means.
IV The Problem of Causing Harm and the Means of Rescue
The potential of humanitarian action to cause harm is now widely recognised. For
example, Mary B. Anderson’s work has noted the negative side-effects that
humanitarianism can have, such as the way aid can exacerbate conflict, or create
dependency.^53 In a famous argument, she called for humanitarianism to strive to
“do no harm”.^54 But is this remotely possible? The potential to cause harm in and
through rescue was surely implicit in the first two sections, indeed in the previous
chapters too. The moment of rescue is necessarily a radically contingent and
undetermined one, wherein different conceptions of the human are negotiated, but
negotiated in a context of fundamental power disparity. This context of inequality,
though, is necessary to the possibility of rescue, just as it is in many areas of our
social life, such as fire fighting or in an intensive care unit. We might well think that
acts of rescue are valuable and tolerate, or even promote, such inequalities. But we
must recognise the potential for harm inherent within them. The most obvious
instance is where the potential rescued agent does not see themselves in need of
rescue at all, and the act of rescue actually becomes the main, unwanted, driver of
change in their life.
The possibility of missionary excesses is one that can never be completely
overcome, for the moment of rescue is always one of life’s “presumptive
52
Yet this is the place where many look, often in the process conflating motive and
intention through the concept of “good intention”. 53
54 Anderson, "'You Save My Life Today, but for What Tomorrow?'".
Anderson, Do No Harm.