Kirk on Humanitarians

The humanitarian denies the existence of sin, declaring that what we call “sins” are not moral matters at all, resulting instead from circumstance, faulty rearing, or social oppression. In the view of the humanitarian, sins–and crimes, too–are the work of “society”; and sinners and criminals are victims, rather than unjust offenders. Such reasoning is the consequence of holding that man and society may be perfected through mere alteration of social conditions without the intervention of divine grace.

The humanitarian frequently proclaims his abhorrence of severe punishments–perhaps of any punishments. Why? First, because of his illusion that no human being possesses the ability to make moral choices. Second, because of his horror of inflicting pain. He leaves no ultimate justice to God, because he fancies that no God exists. The mere preservation of one’s comfortable earthly life is his obsession, he fancying that man is not made for eternity.

On the other hand, the humanitarian fulminates against those who disagree with his principles. Thus there occurs the phenomenon called “the humanitarian with the guillotine.” … As Edmund Burke put it, speaking of the humanitarian Jacobins, men who today snatch the worst criminals from the hands of justice tomorrow may approve the slaughter of whole classes. Humanitarian apologies in our own time for butchery by Communist revolutionaries sufficiently suggest the persistence of this curious intolerant humanitarianism. The idealogue need merely proclaim that his object is universal happiness here below, and he is approved uncritically by the humanitarian.

Excerpt from Russell Kirk, “The Meaning of Justice,” in Redeeming the Time (193-4).