reason trump all else in leading to humanitarian action. Rorty in particular cautions
that the flawed “idea that reason is ‘stronger’ than sentiment, that only an
insistence on the unconditionality of moral obligation has the power to change
human beings for the better, is very persistent”.^11 Indeed, much writing on
humanitarianism focuses on the area of unconditional duty, yet references to the
“humanitarian impulse” are at least partial acknowledgements that reason alone is
often insufficient to motivate us to act. If we are to follow Rorty’s warning, to
understand how people heed calls to action, we need to examine the affective
content of our humanitarian impulses. That is, we should turn to the bonds of
sympathy, empathy, compassion and pity that constitute the social texture of
humanitarianism.
There has been a revival of interest in these bonds in recent years, which
draws largely on two key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment: David Hume and
Adam Smith. For instance, to develop his own concept of a “sentimental
education”, Rorty draws (via Annette Baier) on Hume’s understanding of sympathy.
Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments , and the account of sympathy it contains,
has become increasingly important in the work of Amartya Sen on our responses to
injustice (see Chapter 5), and lies at the heart of Luc Boltanski’s important work on
the mediation of suffering, which will be returned to later in this chapter.^12 But
perhaps most interesting at this point in the argument is the work done by Nancy
Sherman on the “moral attitudes that undergird a commitment to humanitarian
intervention” and on the moral psychology that underpins the humanitarian
impulse.^13 She draws on both Hume and, especially, Smith to emphasise the central
place within humanitarianism of empathy. Empathy is currently the focus of much
11
12 Rorty, "Human Rights, Rationality and Sentimentality", 181.
Luc Boltanski, Distant Suffering: Morality, Media and Politics , trans. Graham Burchell
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Sen, 13 The Idea of Justice.
Nancy Sherman, "Empathy, Respect, and Humanitarian Intervention", Ethics &
International Affairs 12 (1998): 103. Sherman uses the phrase “humanitarian impulse”.
Sherman, "Empathy, Respect, and Humanitarian Intervention": 119. Sherman makes a
similar argument, with a different emphasis in Nancy Sherman, "Empathy and Imagination",
Midwest Studies In Philosophy 22, no. 1 (1998). See also Suski, "Children, Suffering and the
Humanitarian Appeal", 210.