Humanitarianism: Between Morality and Action

This paper aims to focus on the humanitarian concerns that seems to be in force since a few years ago and plays an important role in the contemporary global context. “Different aspects of the humanitarism will be analyzed: its genealogy from its earliest concerns to its actual conformation, the moral aspect as well as the practice itself, and finally its great importance in today societies”.

We will study humanitarian action as a mechanism that combines two worlds in one: on one hand, the moral, playing that role from the point of view of moral formation in the society that develops this action and, on the other hand, acting directly in the context of the situations to which it is directed.

This paper seeks to make a historical review and focus its attention on how the concern on suffering subjects is translated through the analysis on refugee population. A concern that becomes relevant since World War II, and that is seen by many people similar to present times. To face this situation, Europe acts in a contradictory or opposing way: it creates stronger border’s surveillance while tries to promote action protocols, while in the middle of a strong debate about the responsibility of each agent. The communication will intend to analyze this double point of view on morality and action facing current events.