Anti-Climacus

THE PASSIVE VOICE AND HUMANITARIAN CRISES:

So, what I was attempting to say:

There seem to be two general impulses in dealing with humanitarian crises, both of which are wrong, but both of which seem to point to important facts not to forget:

1. To say that a humanitarian crisis is just the responsibility of the country in which it takes place. The attractive aspect of this argument is that it can (though perhaps does not always) recognize that a humanitarian crisis (in the way I'm choosing to define it, as a purely one-state matter) is enodgenous in its history, which is to say that the cause of the crisis arises out of the conditions of that country itself, and not from without (not that I don't think humanitarian crises can be caused in this way, but I think it's much less problematic (philosophically) to call for action when a situation is international in character), and, of course, that this first fact implies that the ultimate solution to the problem will have to be found within the country itself, as well--see the Head Heeb post I link to below for some cases of this, or think of the national reckonings of Argentina, South Africa and Germany with their pasts.

It also implies, I think, that the notion of such a thing as a bystander is wrong--no one in a country with a humanitarian crisis is able to take a neutral position. I meant to gesture to the following bit of Sartre:

"Thus there are no accidents in a life; a community event which suddenly bursts forth and involves me in it does not come from the outside. If I am mobilized in a war, this war is my war; it is my image and I deserve it... for lack of getting out of it [by desertion or suicide], I have chosen it. This can be due to inertia, to cowardice in the face of public opinion, or because I prefer certain other values to the value of refusing to join the war... Any way you look at it, it is a matter of a choice. This choice will be repeated again and again without a break until the end of the war."

and again:

"I am responsible for everything, in fact, except for my very responsibility, for I am not the foundation of my being. Therefore everything takes place as if I were compelled to be responsible." (both from the end of Part Four, Chapter Two, III)

I don't mean to quote him to fully endorse his views (it's not clear to me, for example, that he would be able to properly distinguish between those acting and those acted upon, and that makes a pretty big difference), but merely to suggest that he's right to allude to the fact that even the decisions to not make decisions are themselves decisions. I think this weakens a lot of analysis, because there's a tendency to look at people in countries (other than the victims) as perhaps less than fully possessed of the autonomy to make distinctions between right and wrong. I don't know that they should be let off the hook that easily (I also think there's a tendency to look at people as passive agents to be acted upon, but more on that in the next section).(jpe is also certainly correct that Sartre would not recognize the boundaries of nations as having any particular significance, I hope I didn't give off the impression that I thought JPS would endorse my argument)

Ultimately, though, I think the just-in-a-nation view has to fall apart when it comes to humanitarian crises because the Christian, the liberal, the Marxist, etc all recognize duties or responsibilities to others qua humans, and this sort of analysis can make no room for that.

2. Of course, the international analysis can and does make room for this--it's principle strength is that it recognizes that the rest of the world not doing anything bears a resemblance of kind with people within a country not doing anything, and recognizing that values which are taken to be 1. true 2. transcendant 3. universal require application. I think it generally fails because it posits humanity in a non-complicated way, and assumes that ties of country, language, culture etc are just transitory things that individuals will be happy to do away with--but there's not a lot of reason to think that's true (Head Heeb points out that establishing strong external sovereignty is something post-humanitarian crisis governments tend to want to do, and the internationalist has a hard time explaining that without recourse to some factor of state-identification).

I think it also fails because it tends to look at peoples involved in humanitarian crises as things to be acted upon, and this consequently tends to rob individuals within a country--those doing good and those doing evil--of their agency, and, thus, their responsibility for what exactly is happening in their country.

(I also have a lot of sympathy for the approach taken by Bill Wallo:

"On a geopolitical level, I would say the same is true. I would say that there is an ethical obligation to deal with human rights abuses. But I would say it is indeed “first” the duty of those closest to the problem (namely, those within a nation - we cannot simply ignore national boundaries and issues of sovereignty, even if we would like to do so). As awareness of abuses radiates out from the epicenter and outsiders learn of both the problem and the inability of those “closer” to it to resolve it, they then have to deal with their ethical obligations. It is not a question of suggesting that the outsider’s ethical obligation is somehow less than that of the local; it is instead to establish an appropriate hierarchy of response.")

So when L'Espirit D'Escalier says the following:

"So Nick is correct that the other-citizen is bound by the transcendental conditions of freedom; but his/her responsibility to him/herself in no way mitigates our ethical responsibility, our freedom to help. This is noted by Nick, but the placement of that "first" seems to cut against the plain meaning of this admission.

Politically or pragmatically speaking, this "help 'em iff [if and only if] they can't help themselves" may be correct, and is one I endorse, but if it's being used to transform Sartre's ontological notion of freedom into a political philosophy of rugged individualism, then I don't think it's tenable."

I think that jpe says this because I was being insufficiently clear that I was arguing against the 2nd, internationalist view (Norm's post seemed to be unproblematically asserting humanity and the duty of intervention), thus the "first": we have to be prepared to look and see what's endogenous and be willing to assign praise and blame, and we have to remember when and if we do intervene in foreign countries that we're not going to be able to solve all their problems for them. I'm not entirely willing to adopt the iff statement (yet; haven't spent as much time with the cases as I'd like), because I'm not 100% sure that's the right application of our duty in the event of a humanitarian crisis.