being taken for granted.”^59 We tend to assume our own humanity, both as a quality
and as a disposition, and are thus easily seduced by appeals that flatter it, as we will
see in Chapter 3. Moreover, it is always easier to see another’s humanity as lacking,
rather than one’s own. Here, the ways in which the principle of humanity has
become taken for granted, not least debates within liberal international political
theory, will be explored, as well as those where we seek to impose our own
conception of humanity on others.
Impartiality
It makes no discrimination as to nationality, race, religious beliefs, class or
political opinions. It endeavours only to relieve suffering, giving priority to
the most urgent cases of distress.^60For Pictet, the next principle, impartiality, is already implied in the first. Vaux
agrees. “Impartiality is an essential quality of humanity because it means that we do
not distinguish between persons. In other words, we are fair.”^61 On the face of it,
this principle is a logical concomitant of the principle of humanity. If we are serious
about a common humanity, we must be impartial and non-discriminatory about
where suffering is most urgent. Impartiality is a clear point of linkage into liberal
political and international political theory. Impartiality has appeared in various
guises from Adam Smith’s impartial spectator to Brian Barry’s conception of justice
as impartiality.^62 As Richard Shapcott points out, there is a clear link here between
the central place of impartiality in humanitarian practice and the importance of an
external, impartial point of judgement in cosmopolitan theorising.^63 But a number
of difficulties emerge here. For humanitarians, being impartial requires making a
judgement about whose suffering is worse, most urgent, perhaps even most unjust.
59
60 From A World Restored , cited in Finnemore, The Purpose of Intervention , 85.
61 Pictet, The Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross , unpaginated text.
62 Vaux, The Selfish Altruist , 5.
Brian Barry, Justice as Impartiality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). Adam Smith,
The Theory of Moral Sentiments 63 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
Richard Shapcott, International Ethics: A Critical Introduction (Cambridge: Polity Press,
2010), 129.