Being aware of the multidimensional character of the topic and underlining the enrichment of research from different perspectives, the book adopts an interdisciplinary approach. Beyond doubt in the debates around the idea of humanity, religion played a remarkable role. Jewish, Catholic as well as Protestant teaching shaped the notion in many significant ways. It served for various actors such as philosophers, reformists, missionaries, abolitionists, and legal scholars frequently as a fundamental source for inspiring their theories and influencing their action. For this reason, theologians and historians in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and Switzerland provide, for the first time together, innovative perspectives on the European concepts of humanity in practice. Thus, the book promotes an integrative approach to the theme by combining not only different geographical regions but also various historical epochs and academic disciplines in a single volume.
By taking a comparative approach and exploring the intersections of religious studies, international law, philosophy, as well as history the contributors deal with three essential areas: morality and human dignity, humanitarianism, violence and international law as well as finally charity, philanthropy, and solidarity. Within these key areas, the contributors ask which actors used the concept of humanity for which purposes. In other words, what are the concrete implications of theoretical discourses on the concept of humanity to practice in various fields? Furthermore, they investigate to what extend the term is connected to the emergence of normative concepts and guiding principles, implying moral and religious commandments, humanitarian obligations, international law, and human rights. In other words, did humanity become a “moral compass” for societal behavior among human beings in the course of four centuries? If yes, how did this development sustainably influence their action in various fields? In other words, instead of only asking only what the idea of humanity is, the contributors rather want to discuss what does the concept of humanity trigger. They ask how action of taking care for the unfree, the uncivilized, the non-Christian, the wounded, the suffering, the unprivileged, the persecuted, and the helpless was embedded in the notion of a common humanity and contributed for crystalizing various concepts? Overall, it is the aim of this volume to address the remarkable entanglement of diverse actors, of religious, political, military, civilian, legal, and cultural relations, and of national, international and transnational perspectives.
Table of Contents:
Fabian Klose and Mirjam Thulin
Introduction: European Concepts and Practices of
Humanity in Historical Perspective
Part I: Humankind and Humanity
Francisco Bethencourt
Humankind: From Division to Recomposition
Paul Betts
Universalism and its Discontents:
Humanity as a Twentieth-Century Concept
Part II: Morality and Human Dignity
Mihai-D. Grigore
Humanism and its Humanitas: The Transition From
Humanitas Christiana to Humanitas Politica in the
Political Writings of Erasmus
Mariano Delgado
“All People have Reason and Free Will”: The Controversy
Over the Nature of the Indians in the Sixteenth Century
Judith Becker
Conceptions of Humanity in Nineteenth-Century German
Protestant Missions
Robert Brier
From Emancipation to Transcendence? Dignity, Catholicism,
and the Changing Imageries of Humanity in Post-War Europe
Part III: Humanitarianism, Violence, and
International Law
Thomas Weller
Humanitarianism Before Humanitarianism? Spanish Discourses
on Slavery From the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century
Fabian Klose
“A War of Justice and Humanity”: Abolition and Establishing
Humanity as an International Norm
Kerstin von Lingen
Fulfilling the Martens Clause: Debating “Crimes Against
Humanity”, 1899–1945
Esther Möller
Between Globalisation and Contestation: Humanity as a Polemical
Concept Within the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
Part IV: Charity, Philanthropy, and Solidarity
Joachim Berger
“Une oeuvre internationale d’un caractère humanitaire”:
The Appeal to Humanity in International Masonic Relations
Katharina Stornig
Between Christian Solidarity and Human Solidarity:
Humanity and the Mobilisation of Aid for Distant Children
in Catholic Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century
Gerhard Kruip
The Unity of the Human Family: A Foundation for Global Justice
Part V: Epilogue
Johannes Paulmann
Humanity – Humanitarian Reason – Imperial Humanitarianism:
European Concepts in Practice