Anthropology of Volunteering

To comprehend the significance of volunteering as an embodiment of human rights activity in the history of European civilization is valuable not only for those currently engaged in this work but also for those seeking to better understand what lies at the foundation of European civilization itself.

From the moment the Christian doctrine proclaimed that the suffering of the weak and frail was worthy of attention, this thesis long remained a propagandistic manifesto and a tool of political manipulation. It promised the weak compensation in the afterlife while calling on them to accept their misfortunes in this life — thereby paralyzing, in most aspects, any individual resistance or social movement. Thus Christianity rejected Aristotle’s definition of the human as a political animal — a foundational element of the Hellenistic worldview — insisting instead that the human being is a creature of God and, as such, dependent on the politics of His earthly representatives.

However, Western Christianity, through the separation of ecclesiastical and secular powers, enabled the formation of proto-civic institutions independent of both spheres of authority and allowed the spread of unorthodox views. A clear example of this is the Renaissance and the concurrent Reformation movement.

It was during this time that the idea emerged of the right to interpret reality intellectually, free from dogma. And from the dissemination of such an explosive idea, it was only a small step to the way of assessing facts still inherent to Europe today — commonly known as critical thinking. 

The conflict between asserting and protecting rights on the one hand, and rejecting innovations that might lead to the unknown on the other, grows sharper with each turn of European history. And volunteering stands in the front lines of this conflict. Which gives rise to numerous questions, not easily answered in any definitive or simplistic way.

For instance, is volunteering pure charity, or is it conditioned by additional and external circumstances, such as political ones? In other words, does a volunteer’s empathy extend unconditionally to everyone, or only to select groups of beneficiaries?

Is volunteering identical to social activism, and if not, how do they differ? Does volunteering influence the transformation of stable social institutions, and if so, in what way?

Finally, how did modern European philosophical thought reflect on free will and individual responsibility — without which the evolution of social relations, and particularly their manifestation in the form of volunteering, would be impossible?

These questions — and the attempts to answer them — we intend to explore in a series of publications. European philosophers, sociologists, and legal theorists from various epochs will share their reflections on the subject. This, we hope, will shed light on the path European humanitarian thought has taken over the past nearly five centuries.