ABSTRACT
Humanity as a principal organizing idea in political and ethical discourse is being used as a polemical tool, as a descriptive category, and as the embodiment in social reality of essential ethical and spiritual ideals. Ambiguity and confusion results from this multiple usage, which limits the potential contributions of the idea of humanity to what I have called “moral globalization.” This chapter depicts this use and abuse of humanity, so as to clarify the situation and make the case for reserving humanity as a term designating both biological inclusivity of all persons and moral expectations of treatment of humans in accordance with international law and human rights. It considers three aspects of the current discourse on humanity: the distinctively current problems of clarifying the boundaries of humanity biologically and politically; the efforts of international law to provide a normative infrastructure that confers rights and imposes duties on all human beings; the more ambitious undertaking of establishing an aspirational future for political communities based on realizing the ethical potentialities of individuals and groups throughout the world, a dynamic associated with moral globalization.
