Is Dehumanizing Animals Possible?

It is commonly held within feminist philosophy that dehumanization and objectification are closely related, if not equivalent (see e.g., Cudd 2006; MacKinnon 1987; Dworkin 2000). However, I will show that there is at least one significant distinction between the two: that is, we can objectify non-human animals, but we can’t dehumanize them. On the face of it, this might seem like an obvious claim, for how can we strip something of humanity if it doesn’t have any? However, I want to move away from this response, and claim that there’s actually an interesting and complex reason why non-human animals cannot be dehumanized. This is based on a more intricate understanding of dehumanization: it is not merely a denial or negation of humanity, but rather an exploitation of humanity, based primarily on the mechanism of humiliation. That is to say, dehumanization is a particularly human form of debasement that literally cannot be replicated with non-human animals.

Before elaborating on this point about dehumanization, let’s look at how animals can be objectified. Martha Nussbaum (1995) and Sally Haslanger (2002) have articulated an understanding of objectification as a kind of instrumentalization of the target for the objectifier’s purposes. When this instrumentalization occurs in a non-consensual or unequal relationship (such as the treatment of women within a patriarchal society), it is morally impermissible, but there can also plausibly be forms of benign objectification, where we treat others instrumentally but do not harm them through this interaction. It’s clearly compatible with this definition that non-human animals can be objectified: consider the practices of using chickens and cows as food, of horses and oxen for manual labor, of dogs as drug-sniffers, and so on. These tasks all involve the instrumentalization of animals. There may be varying levels of moral qualms here—e.g., we likely find it more disturbing to use animals as food than to use them to detect illegal or dangerous substances. Nonetheless, these examples share the feature of objectifying the animals involved. What about the dehumanization of animals?

Mari Mikkola (2016) and David Livingstone-Smith (2016) have addressed definitions of dehumanization as the mistreatment of the humanity of the target, or as the indefensible setback of one’s legitimate human interests, e.g., through the assignment of a sub-human essence which purportedly justifies certain mistreatments. However, both Mikkola and Livingstone-Smith move beyond the conception of dehumanization as a simple negation of one’s humanity: for instance, Mikkola cites the practice of wartime rape, and claims that the victimized women are raped in virtue of their social standing in their community—that is, recognition of these women’s social roles as community representatives (i.e., their humanity) is a necessary prerequisite for violating their personhood. Livingstone-Smith makes a related point by citing both Kwame Anthony Appiah (2008) and Adam Gopnik (2006). Appiah writes that, while dehumanizing acts may involve comparing the target to subhuman entities like vermin, “they [still] acknowledge their victims’ humanity in the very act of humiliating, stigmatizing, reviling, and torturing them.” In a similar vein, Gopnik claims that “we don’t humiliate vermin, or put them through show trials, or make them watch their fellow-vermin die first.” Even when someone is performing sadistic dehumanizing acts, they still treat the (human) target differently than they would treat an animal. I claim that humiliation plays a key role here, as the simultaneous acknowledgement and degradation of one’s humanity involved in dehumanization typically manifests itself in humiliating practices meant specifically to attack the target’s humanity—i.e., their dignity, social recognition, and self-respect. Both David Livingstone-Smith (2016) and Richard Rorty (1989), among others, have suggested that humiliation is a uniquely human phenomenon: I will develop this point further to argue that, while we can put non-human animals in humiliating positions, we cannot actually humiliate them. This inability to be humiliated thus explains why we cannot dehumanize animals.

The distinct ‘human-ness’ of dehumanization comes from the fact that humiliation, like embarrassment, is a deeply socially ingrained concept. It requires an awareness of the social role or recognition which one is being denied, as well as an understanding of the humiliating aspects of the particular situation (e.g., the way one is perceived by others). Furthermore, there is a difference, though perhaps not a morally significant one, between being placed in a humiliating position and being ‘properly’ humiliated. Because the latter involves adequate understanding of the relevant social hierarchies, we may be able to place children, severely cognitively disabled humans, and non-human animals in what we recognize to be humiliating positions without their being consciously humiliated. For example, we (as adults, well-inculcated in the practices of our society) might recognize it to be humiliating and dehumanizing for an individual to have their head shaved and to be assigned a string of numbers to replace their given name, or to be forced to stand at the front of a crowd naked. However, it is intuitively plausible that these experiences may vary for children or cognitively disabled people, given their (posited) unfamiliarity with the customs for humiliation. To pump this intuition, imagine these situations as experienced by an infant. It is very difficult to get the intuition that a baby would feel any sense of shame or humiliation at having their head shaved, or at being publically naked, or by being referred to by a string of numbers, even if these acts are performed with the intent of humiliating the child. One explanation for the baby’s lack of the relevant complex emotional response is that they do not yet have a grasp on the social norms and stigmas surrounding these practices. Of course, in reality, some young children and disabled persons can actually be aware of the taboo surrounding these acts, particularly the stigma of public nudity. However, in this scenario, they would fulfill the definitional requirements for humiliation, as they would (at least partially) understand the transgression of the act, and as such, would likely feel shame or embarrassment in association with its performance. As such, it is not impossible for these individuals to be humiliated or dehumanized; however, in most cases, such as the previous example with the baby, they may be placed in a humiliating position and yet not actually humiliated by it, given their failure to recognize the humiliating situation as such. To bring this discussion back to the case of animals: I claim that, given their ignorance with our customs and standards of humiliation, we can place an animal in a situation which we recognize to be humiliating: e.g., by the counterfactual understanding that if I (or another person situated in a similar social position) were to be in that situation, we would be humiliated. But the animal does not (and, likely, cannot, given our inhibited communication with them) have this knowledge. As such, even when we place them in a humiliating situation (by our standards), they do not feel humiliated.

In “Comments on a Contested Comparison: Race and Animals,” (forthcoming in Ethics in the Wake of Wittgenstein , 2019), Alice Crary makes a similar observation about the uniquely human nature of dehumanization. This image, from the 2004 PETA advertising campaign, “Holocaust on Your Plate,” visually compares the plights of factory farmed chickens to those of prisoners in a concentration camp. Crary argues that while both the chickens and the prisoners experience certain harms (e.g., physical suffering, losses of freedom of movement, and destruction to social relationships), the men face a further harm on the basis of their humanity. She writes: “By dispossessing people of all their belongings, shaving their heads, forcing them to live packed together, replacing their names with numbers … speaking to them only in language bereft of conventions connoting respect … and subjecting them to complex regulations while withholding the resources requisite for conforming to them … these technologies aimed at reducing human individuals to a condition in which they were no longer recognizable, even to themselves, as social beings endowed with dignity. This is a very particular condition of debasement to which they were exposed specifically as humans.”

To frame this point in the terms I have been employing, while the prisoners and chickens are both placed in humiliating positions, only the prisoners are actually humiliated by these circumstances, given their recognition and understanding of the social practices from which they were exempt (e.g., practices supporting autonomy, dignity, self-respect) and their knowledge of the significance of the treatment to which they were subjected (e.g., imprisonment, public humiliation, and contemptful treatment). This feature of humiliation allows us to claim that the prisoners are dehumanized by these practices, while the chickens, though clearly mistreated, are not. However, both the prisoners and chickens are objectified in a morally impermissible way.

Charlotte Figueroa

Charlotte Figueroa is a second-year BPhil at University of Oxford. She works primarily in philosophy of language, aesthetics, and feminist philosophy. If you would like to see the full version of this paper, you can contact Charlotte here.