Humanity and Humanitarianism: An Ambiguous Connection

The article discusses the relationship between the concepts of humanitarianism and humanity, which the author dissociates from each other, also separating them from the concept of humanism. The author believes that these concepts are often confused, they form a “semantic cloud,” intuitively comprehended as integrity and referring us to the image of man as the center of the world and the subject matter of discussion in ethics, aesthetics, psychology as well as philosophy and other “free arts.” However, these concepts need to be distinguished. Humanism represents a conceptual theoretical setting for considering a person as a free, independent and active being, while, in the author’s opinion, humanitarianism is a literary (philosophical and artistic) form of statements about a person. At the same time, humanity is meant as a characteristic of behavior and attitudes that motivate this behavior, such as the motives of kindness, philanthropy, benevolence. The article reveals the main features of humanitarianism and also shows that humanitarian texts are not always texts originating from attitudes of humanity and pursuing humanity. Literary reflection on the subject of a man does not necessarily need kindness and benevolence. The article provides examples of both the coincidence of humanitarianism and humanity and their divergence. The author draws attention to the existence of humanitarian but not humane texts, some of which cannot be attributed as philanthropic and other ones – as optimistic. The author considers it necessary not to confuse closely related concepts, denoting different aspects of human life and culture.

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