BEING THE RIGHT THING - RELIEF AGENCIES, MORAL DILEMMAS AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY IN POLITICAL EMERGENCIES AND WAR

In recent years a new generation of relief workers and relief agencies has become embroiled in the heat of civil wars and political emergenc ies, and the humanitarian community has had to revisit its fundamental principles and address the ethics of what it does. This paper sets ou t Co continue this important debate by emphasising that ethical analys is should always be an essential part of humanitarian practice. The pa per seeks to recognise the difficult moral choices relief agencies are facing today and gives some practical guidelines to relief agency sta ff when confronting the ethics of a given situation, In particular, it hopes to introduce some ethical principles into the debate about huma nitarianism and contribute to the moral vocabulary which is being deve loped to improve relief agencies' ethical analysis. The paper starts b y looking at the essential characteristics of a moral dilemma, and the way in which other types of tough choice can masquerade as moral dile mmas. It then introduces some basic moral principles surrounding the k ey ethical notions of action, consequences and moral responsibility in an effort to shaw how relief agencies might begin to develop a proces s of ethical analysis in their work Finally, it explores how relief ag encies might develop a more intuitive form of ethical analysis based o n an organisational conscience and moral role models.