{"id":6247,"date":"2017-12-04T19:10:08","date_gmt":"2017-12-04T18:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/?p=6247"},"modified":"2023-08-09T11:08:03","modified_gmt":"2023-08-09T09:08:03","slug":"how-human-are-the-dehumanised","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/blogs\/thom-scott-phillips\/how-human-are-the-dehumanised\/","title":{"rendered":"How human are the dehumanised?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Developmental psychologist Paul Bloom recently published an article in The New Yorker about dehumanisation<\/a>. He argued \u2013\u00a0drawing on research from many subfields in philosophy, psychology, anthropology and sociology \u2013\u00a0that the way we often think about things like slavery, genocide and misogyny is in some respects upside down. The problem isn\u2019t that people sometimes see others as not human, it\u2019s that they see others as very human indeed \u2013\u00a0with all that that entails.<\/p>\n

In a key passage that elaborates on this idea, Bloom quotes philosopher Kate Manne:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn being capable of rationality, agency, autonomy, and judgment,\u2026 [others] are also someone who could coerce, manipulate, humiliate, or shame you. In being capable of abstract relational thought and congruent moral emotions, they are capable of thinking ill of you and regarding you contemptuously. In being capable of forming complex desires and intentions, they are capable of harboring malice and plotting against you. In being capable of valuing, they may value what you abhor and abhor what you value. They may hence be a threat to all that you cherish.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, far from seeing others as not human, what Bloom and others are saying is that perpetrators of dehumanisation take very seriously indeed the humanness of others: their capacity for distinctly human behaviour. And so what we typically call dehumanisation may actually be \u2013 from a cognitive, evolutionary, and naturalistic point-of-view \u2013 an extreme means of trying to manage social\u00a0relations.\u00a0(None of this is, of course, any form of justification. The science is orthogonal to the morality.)\u00a0This is all in clear contrast to most other approaches \u2013 even other evolutionarily- and cognitively-minded approaches, such as in David Livingstone Smith’s book\u00a0Less Than Human<\/em> \u2013\u00a0which tend to take the word dehumanisation at face value, as the removal<\/em> of humanness from others.<\/p>\n

Bloom and Manne’s thesis invites, I think, an interesting comparison with evolutionary theories of morality.<\/p>\n

Humans are a massively social species. One distinctive feature of our sociality is the extent to which we\u00a0cooperate. Many evolutionarily-minded scholars have, in this light, studied morality as\u00a0an cognitive adaptation to an environment\u00a0in which we compete to be chosen as partners for mutually beneficial interaction.<\/p>\n

What happens when humans, equipped with these adaptations,\u00a0encounter other humans and believe \u2013 with or without good reason, it doesn\u2019t matter which \u2013\u00a0that they (the focal individual)\u00a0are very unlikely to ever find themselves entering into cooperative endeavours with these others? There is in such circumstances no competition to be chosen and recruited as partners and these other humans are, ex hypothesi<\/i>, a source only of possible costs and problems, with no commensurate upside.\u00a0Such beliefs could in turn create space for the characterisation of others as, for instance, parasites, and hence for\u00a0treating them very poorly indeed. The demonisation of immigrants in contemporary political discourse is but one modern manifestation of these dangers, and Bloom’s article describes several others.<\/p>\n

To speculate: might the opposite be possible too? If and\u00a0when we see others as sources only of possible benefits, with no\u00a0downside risks, do we thereby create space for\u00a0idolatry and worship? Are, in other words, dehumanisation and idolatry two sides of the same coin? Are we equally prone to each?\u00a0If not, why not?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One of Theodore De Bry’s illustrations for Bartolome de Las Casas’ Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies.<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Developmental psychologist Paul Bloom recently published an article in The New Yorker about dehumanisation. He argued \u2013\u00a0drawing on research from many subfields in philosophy, psychology, anthropology and sociology \u2013\u00a0that the way we often think about things like slavery, genocide and misogyny is in some respects upside down. The problem isn\u2019t that people sometimes see others […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1048,"featured_media":6306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[285],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow human are the dehumanised? - International Cognition and Culture Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/cognitionandculture.local\/blogs\/thom-scott-phillips\/how-human-are-the-dehumanised\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How human are the dehumanised? - International Cognition and Culture Institute\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Developmental psychologist Paul Bloom recently published an article in The New Yorker about dehumanisation. He argued \u2013\u00a0drawing on research from many subfields in philosophy, psychology, anthropology and sociology \u2013\u00a0that the way we often think about things like slavery, genocide and misogyny is in some respects upside down. 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