Originally published in 2011 with additional front matter and subtitle: Humanitarian violence from Arendt to Gaza.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 167-182) and index.

Chapter one. The humanitarian present. 665 -- Lesser evildoers -- Pangloss's Law -- Calculating machines for the reduction of evil -- An ethical governor -- War of the mad -- Bulls and spiders.

Chapter two. Arendt in Ethiopia. On omelets and eggs -- The politics of compassion -- Challenging third worldism -- Humanitarian optics -- The testimony of the dead -- Armies of compassion -- Minima moralia -- Aid archipelago -- Polis and the police.

Chapter three. The best of all possible walls. Material proportionality -- Wallfare -- Milgram in Gaza -- A legislative attack -- Anarchists against the law.

Chapter four. Forensic architecture: only the criminal can solve the crime. Before the forum -- Speaking bones -- The era of forensics -- Dying to speak -- The forensics of forensics -- Forensic fetishism -- The thirtieth civilian -- The design of ruins -- The devil's advocate -- Epilogue: The destruction of destruction.

Presents an exploration of the philosophy underpinning Western humanitarian intervention. The principle of the lesser evil--the acceptability of pursuing one exceptional course of action in order to prevent a greater injustice--has long been a cornerstone of Western ethical philosophy. From its roots in classical ethics and Christian theology, to Hannah Arendt's exploration of the work of the Jewish Councils during the Nazi regime, the author explores its development in three key transformations of the problem: the defining intervention of Medecins Sans Frontieres in mid-1980s in Ethiopia; the separation wall in Israel-Palestine; and international and human rights law in Bosnia, Gaza and Iraq. ... he shows how military and political intervention acquired a new humanitarian acceptability and legality in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. --Adapted from publisher description.