Choice Reviews Online· 2013
The least of all possible evils: humanitarian violence from Arendt to Gaza
- 445citations
- 2013year
Short summary
This paper argues that the principle of the 'lesser evil' has been transformed to justify modern humanitarian and military interventions, granting them new ethical and legal acceptability.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- The 'lesser evil' principle justifies exceptional actions to prevent greater injustice.
- This principle has roots in classical ethics and Christian theology.
- Modern manifestations include humanitarian aid interventions, border walls, and international law applications.
- These interventions have acquired new humanitarian acceptability and legality.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
A groundbreaking exploration of the philosophy underpinning Western humanitarian and military intervention. The principle of the “lesser evil”—the acceptability of pursuing one exceptional course of action in order to prevent a greater injustice—has long been a cornerstone of Western ethical philosophy. From its roots in classical ethics and Christian theology, to Hannah Arendt’s exploration of the work of the Jewish Councils during the Nazi regime, Weizman explores its development in three key transformations of the problem: the defining intervention of Medecins Sans Frontieres in mid-1980s Ethiopia; the separation wall in Israel-Palestine; and international and human rights law in Bosnia, Gaza and Iraq. Drawing on a wealth of new research, Weizman charts the latest manifestation of this age-old idea. In doing so he shows how military and political intervention acquired a new “humanitarian” acceptability and legality in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Choice Reviews Online, 2013 · DOI ↗
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Field: History
HistoryArts and Humanities