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中国伊朗亚洲杯比赛直播's featured contributorDavid Livingtone Smith,认为非人化使广泛的暴力施加成为可能,因为施暴者认为他们的受害者是“非人类的”。虽然这种“非人性化论点”听起来很直观,但它正确吗?

Inthis articlefromThe New Yorker,Paul Bloomargues 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 philosopherKate Manne's work on sexual violence and philosopherMartha 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