人道主义行为:有多人道?

The humanitarian act:how humanitarian?

何谓"人道主义"行动?如果问那些人道主义人士,他们的答案通常是:人道主义是指中立、公正和独立地向身处危难的人提供援助,挽救生命。如果查阅从批判的视角审视人道主义的文献,你会发现答案取决于一种平等的关系。在本文中,我计划在这两个视角之间开辟一条新的思路。从批判理论出发,我认为最好将人道主义理解为一系列社会关系,而非一系列行动。从人道主义部门的标准看法出发,我认为人道主义也建立在结果伦理的基础之上,而这将会使我们的关注点重新回到结果,而非回到关系。我将使用家长主义这一概念来探讨这种"第三条道路"。我们可将家长主义理解为试图用一个行为体的判断来替代另一个行为体的判断,而这么做是为了后者的最大利益、福利或幸福。尽管人们给家长主义下了各种不同的定义,但这些定义都有以下构成要素:关怀伦理、不平等关系、判断替代和结果伦理。我进一步认为,尽管这些构成要素几乎一直存在,但它们在人道主义者与接受者间的关系中并没有得到充分的认可。

What makes an act 'humanitarian'? Consult those in the humanitarian sector, and they will typically respond: the provision of impartial,independent, and neutral provision of life-saving relief to individuals in dire urgency.Consult the literature that examines humanitarianism from a critical perspective,and it will say it depends on a relationship of equality. In this essay I propose to navigate between these perspectives. Following critical theory I argue that humanitarianism is best understood not as a set of actions but rather as a set of social relations. Following the standard view in the humanitarian sector I suggest that it is also founded on an ethic of consequences,which shifts our focus back to results rather than relations. I use the concept of paternalism to explore this 'third way'. Paternalism can be understood as the attempt to substitute one actor's reasoning for another's on the grounds that it is in the latter's best interests, welfare,or happiness. Although there are many different definitions of paternalism, their shared elements include an ethics of care, relations of inequality, the substitution of reasoning, and an ethic of consequences. These elements, I further claim, are nearly ever-present but not always fully recognised aspects of the relationship between the humanitarian and the recipient.