Rorty’s move as primarily methodological for our purposes, it becomes rather
productive. Seeing key markers of humanitarianism, such as a hatred of cruelty, as
ironic in the Rortean sense that their content can never be linked to a definitive,
groundable account, allows us to view humanitarianism as a discussion in which
different understandings of what is cruel can be negotiated. It is important to note
that many of the participants, and many of their views will most likely be
profoundly unironic. But as our understanding of humanitarianism is composed by a
changing set of such views, the category makes sense as an ironic construct, if we
prefer not to await final adjudication on which of those unironically-held beliefs of
what is cruel is transcendentally true. All the more so if we suspect that such
adjudication may be both impossible and undesirable. As a more general comment
on Rorty’s work, Bernard Williams suggested that: “once one goes far enough in
recognizing contingency, the problem to which irony is supposed to provide the
answer does not arise at all”.^44 The recognition of contingency can be seen, in
Williams’ view, as a liberation from an illusory, “scientistic” search for political and
ethical absolutes, devoid of any contingent historical perspective.^45
If we can get rid of that illusion, we shall see that there is no inherent
conflict among three activities: first, the first-order activities of acting and
arguing within the framework of our ideas; second, the philosophical activity
of reflecting on those ideas at a more general level and trying to make
better sense of them; and third, the historical activity of understanding
where they came from. The activities are in various ways continuous with
one another. This helps to define both intelligence in political action
(because of the connection of the first with the second and the third), and
also realism in political philosophy (because of the connection of the second
with the first and the third.) If there is a difficulty in combining the third of
these activities with the first two, it is the difficulty of thinking about two
things at once, not a problem in consistently taking both of them seriously.^4644
Bernard Williams, "Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline", Philosophy 75, no. 4 (2000):
- Italics in original. 45
Ibid.: 491. Both professional humanitarians’ reluctance to embrace contingency, and the
limitations of the pursuit of ethical and political 46 absolutes, will be at the heart of Chapter 5.
Ibid.