“An ethic of kindness, benevolence and sympathy extended universally and impartially to all human beings.” WikiPedia
Introduction
I do not in any of this mean to say that humanitarianism is a negative thing, I am merely attempting to describe why humanitarianism exists in the world today in much larger proportion than it has in the past.
I hope also in some of this to disagree, hopefully intelligently, with Nietzsche’s claim that humanitarianism decreases the overall strength of the human race, or at least its higher echelons.
Self-interest
Human beings are either entirely or nearly entirely driven by self-interest, this much has been made clear by both ancient and modern philosophy.
Different philosophers have realized this point in different ways.
- Mises said that all people are rational maximizers.
- Nietzsche said that the natural human being attempts to exert his force upon the world surrounding him.
- Plato said that all men desire good things, but each man has his own subjective opinion of the “good” which he came to via his own experiences (both during and before “life”.)
I highly doubt that human nature has changed a great deal in 100 years.
However, 100 years ago it was very common for European nations to do just about whatever they wanted to the rest of the world. In fact, human nature is in all likelihood not very different now than it was in the days of the early church, when Christians were wrapped in lambskin, covered in oil, and burned alive in order to serve as torches.
Humanitarianism goes mainstream
Learning from Dogs 