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Agency, Humanitarianism and Intervention

This article examines some of the justifications that have been proffered as to why “we” should sacrifice in the name of common humanity. The first section examines the views of two leading thinkers who reject the statist paradigm, Bhikhu Parekh and Michael Walzer. Focusing on Parekh's and Walzer's conception of the state as a moral agent, and their conviction that states should engage in humanitarian intervention, the article argues that the problematic nature of the state as a moral agent is posed most starkly in relation to military humanitarian intervention. The theme of the second section is the critique of foundationalist claims to moral knowledge. Non-foundationalists emphasize the contingent nature of human solidarity, and this article focuses on the work of Richard Rorty. He is very critical of the claim that it is possible to construct a non-foundationalist universalism, and this controvery is increasingly prominent in the discipline of international relations. The final part of the article analyzes the attempt by Richard Falk and Ken Booth to construct a non-foundationalist defence of ethical universalism. By focusing on both foundationalist and non-foundationalist theories of human solidarity, the article attempts to provide insights into the question of how far different metatheoretical positions lead to different views of moral agency.