As the title may indicate, David Livingstone Smith’s main purpose in ‘On Inhumanity’ is to offer a theory of dehumanization. Smith has previously published a book on dehumanization, Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others (St. Martins Press, 2011). The current book is aimed at a more general readership than the previous one. Smith makes an effort to explain various concepts likely to be considered basic by experts in the field, and the writing style is not what would be considered an academic style. For instance, references to other works are rarely made within the text. However, Smith offers an extensive guide to further resources at the end of the book, for those interested in deepening their knowledge. The result is a very readable book that should be accessible to interested non-experts; clearly written and engaging in its style. The reader is lead through the issues addressed in a most helpful and logical manner and Smith weaves anecdotes from his own and his ancestors’ past into the discussion, making the narrative more vivid. This approach also throws light on the story behind his own engagement with the issues at stake; something that is very helpful when matters such as race and ethnicity are under discussion. 

As Smith points out in Chapter 3, dehumanization is a concept known to many and used in various different, sometimes incompatible, ways. He argues for the importance of choosing one of these conceptions as a focal point for a definition when theorizing about dehumanization. Smith’s chosen definition is what we can call conceptual, in the sense that it concerns people’s attitudes and thoughts rather than actions or behavior: “I see dehumanization as a kind of attitude—a way of thinking about others. To dehumanize another person is to conceive of them as a subhuman creature.[…] When I talk about dehumanization I mean this and nothing else” (p. 19). Dehumanization in this sense is then distinct from various actions that have often been called dehumanizing, such as acts of violence or various kinds of unjust and humiliating treatment. Of course, dehumanization as an attitude may be the cause or instigator of such actions, but that does not make it the same. 

In addition to defining dehumanization, Smith provides a discussion of various other issues that he weaves into his theory, such as race and racism, ideology, dangerous speech, genocide, and cruelty. Race and racism play a key part in his theory, as he considers racism a precondition for dehumanization. The idea is that racism contains the notion of racial essence; that racist attitudes involve thinking of people of different races as essentially different. On that way of thinking, skin color and other known racial markers are considered superficial indicators of an inherent essence. Someone could  look, behave, and pass as White but still be essentially Black. Smith uses the example of Jews in Nazi Germany, many of whom did not look discernably different from Aryans. By Nazi rulers, it was considered important to be able to detect and locate Jews, regardless of their appearance: 

This explains why German citizens were required to document that they didn’t have Jewish ancestors, why Hitler’s government supported biomedical research aimed at finding something special about Jewish blood, and why Jews were marked out as racially alien by being forced to wear the yellow star. And it also explains the long-standing anti-Semitic belief that Jews are, by their very nature, masters of deception and disguise (p. 66).

According to Smith, this conception of race as a potentially hidden essence is an element in a division into ‘us’ and ‘them’ or ingroups and outgroups. Under certain conditions, people come to think of the purported racial essence of others as something sinister and subhuman, which is when dehumanization occurs. Dehumanization can be the instigating factor behind acts of violence, oppression or other injustices towards members of the groups in questions, but it is not the same thing as those acts of violence or injustices. These acts can range from various oppressive practices to genocide. What they share is that they are justified in the minds of the perpetrators through dehumanization. 

Smith’s account is in many ways convincing. However, the fact that it makes racism a precondition for dehumanization gives me some pause. Due to that, sexism, ableism, and various other types of discrimination have to be rejected as roots of dehumanization. For example, women, queer people, and people with disabilities can only be dehumanized on Smith’s account if they happen to be racialized as well. The reason, according to Smith, is that dehumanization can only be based on the notion of an essence that is believed to be hereditary: “The logic of dehumanization is such that if your parents are subhuman, then you’re subhuman too” (p. 181). Smith mentions the possibility of disabled people being dehumanized, in case they have a disability that is considered to be passed to them from their parents, but as gender is not hereditary in that sense, it is impossible for women and trans people to be dehumanized (unless they happen to be racialized). In other words, ableism can in principle be associated with dehumanization, although Smith considers such cases to be rare in reality, but neither sexism nor transphobia can be, even in principle. Smith acknowledges, of course, that sexism, transphobia, and ableism have all been involved in terrible injustices, oppression, and violence. It is just that we cannot call it dehumanization in those cases.

This is my main source of doubt about Smith’s account of dehumanization. The notion of a hereditary essence is an important element in his account of race:

People are racialized when they’re regarded as an inferior natural human kind whose essence is transmitted by descent. That means that many different groups of people can become racialized. Ethnic groups, religious groups, national groups, and even political parties can become racialized, and, therefore, any of these can be dehumanized. (p. 189)

Smith describes convincingly how an emphasis on this racial essence can lead to dehumanization of racialized groups. What he does not explain is why the notion that the essence is “transmitted by descent” is a necessary element when beliefs about a tainted or inferior essence of an outgroup are a factor in the dehumanization of its members. Smith does not deny that members of marginalized groups other than racial groups are sometimes believed to have a shared essence, inferior to the essence of the ingroup or in some way inherently bad, such as in the case of queer people, disabled people, or women. His claim is more finegrained: That it is only a certain type of essence notion that can by the kind that leads to dehumanization as he defines it; namely, the kind of essence that can be considered hereditary. This leaves me with the question of why Smith’s account of dehumanization cannot be inclusive enough to encompass the attitudes leading to humiliation of and atrocities toward, say, women, trans and other queer people, or people with disabilities. The most likely explanation, I take it, is that Smith considers the notion of heredity a necessary element in really thinking of someone as having a subhuman essence. That, however, requires some further explanation.

Another concern is the definition of dehumanization strictly as conceptual, or as an attitude. Smith does explain why he considers this definition important, and how it can cover what we have called dehumanization. But as he mentions at the outset, there are some other things that also get called dehumanization, such as certain actions and behaviors, as opposed to internal attitudes. There may be good reasons for retaining both kinds as something we can call dehumanization: on the one hand, Smith’s version involving thinking of a certain group of people as subhuman, and on the other, activities aimed at certain groups of people that involve treating them as subhuman. There is nothing wrong with Smith focusing on the first version in his account, but it can still be of importance to keep an external version of dehumanization in the picture, along with dehumanization based on factors other than race.

Eyja M. Brynjarsdóttir, professor of philosophy, University of Iceland