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Toppling the Dehumanization Thesis
Eliane Mitchell
30 April 2018
Often, the perpetrators of the worst atrocities in human history have used rhetoric that labels the group they oppress as animals or objects, like "vermin" or "roaches." In turn, philosophers, such as Philosophy Talk's featured contributor David Livingtone Smith, argue that dehumanization enables the infliction of widespread violence since the perpetrators think of their victims as "nonhuman." While this "dehumanization thesis" certainly sounds intuitive, is it correct?
In this article from The New Yorker, Paul Bloom argues that the dehumanization thesis is limited. Perpetrators of violence are often aware of their victims' humanity and simply intend to exert power over another human. Bloom also suggests that violence does not entail a "blindness to moral considerations," for violence can reflect the desire to "exact just vengeance, or to teach someone a lesson." In this way, punitive violence, for example, recognizes that the victim is a moral agent and fully human.
Bloom uses other examples in this article to make his point, including philosopher Kate Manne's work on sexual violence and philosopher Martha Nussbaum's discussion of "dehumanization" as not, by necessity, indicative of cruelty. He concludes "that our best and our worst tendencies arise precisely from seeing others as human."
Read the article for a deep exploration of the subject here:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/27/the-root-of-all-cruelty
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Related Shows
Forbidden Words
Oct 21, 2012Some words, like n****r, ch*nk, and c*nt, are so forbidden that we won't even spell them out here.
Are Some People Better Than Others?
Dec 02, 2012Egalitarian principles play an important role in our moral and political discourse. Yet there’s no doubt that some people are smarter, ...
Humanity Violated
Aug 20, 2017People tend to treat other people who differ from them, even in seemingly small and insignificant ways, as less than fully human.
Can Speech Kill?
Dec 10, 2017Free speech is one of the core tenets of our democracy. We’re inclined to think that more speech is always better.
Misogyny
Feb 25, 2018With the recent #MeToo viral campaign, along with the wave of prominent male figures toppled for being serial sexual harassers or worse, the topic of misogyny has come into sharp focus.
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