![LeMisanthrope](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/LeMisanthrope.jpg)
Misanthropy is the general
hatred, dislike,
distrust
Distrust is a formal way of not trusting any one party too much in a situation of grave risk or deep doubt. It is commonly expressed in civics as a division or balance of powers, or in politics as means of validating treaty terms. Systems based ...
or
contempt
Contempt is a pattern of attitudes and behaviour, often towards an individual or a group, but sometimes towards an ideology, which has the characteristics of disgust and anger.
The word originated in 1393 in Old French contempt, contemps, ...
of the
human species
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, an ...
,
human behavior
Human behavior is the potential and expressed capacity ( mentally, physically, and socially) of human individuals or groups to respond to internal and external stimuli throughout their life. Kagan, Jerome, Marc H. Bornstein, and Richard M. ...
or
human nature
Human nature is a concept that denotes the fundamental dispositions and characteristics—including ways of thinking, feeling, and acting—that humans are said to have naturally. The term is often used to denote the essence of humankind, or ...
. A misanthrope or misanthropist is someone who holds such views or feelings. The word's origin is from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
words
μῖσος ''mīsos'' 'hatred' and
ἄνθρωπος ''ānthropos'' 'man, human'. Misanthropy involves a negative evaluative attitude towards humanity that is based on a negative judgment concerning mankind's
flaws. These flaws are seen as ''ubiquitous'', i.e. possessed by almost everyone to a serious degree and not just by a few extreme cases. They are also held to be ''entrenched'', meaning that there is either no or no easy way to rectify them short of a complete transformation of the dominant way of life.
The major flaws pointed out by misanthropes include ''intellectual flaws'', ''moral flaws'' and ''aesthetic flaws''. ''Intellectual flaws'', like
wishful thinking
Wishful thinking is the formation of beliefs based on what might be pleasing to imagine, rather than on evidence, rationality, or reality. It is a product of resolving conflicts between belief and desire.
Methodologies to examine wishful thin ...
,
dogmatism
Dogma is a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Isla ...
, stupidity and
cognitive biases, are what leads to false beliefs, what obstructs knowledge, or what violates the demands of
rationality. ''Moral flaws'', like cruelty, indifference to the suffering of others, selfishness and cowardice, are often identified with tendencies to promote what is bad or with inappropriate attitudes towards values. ''Aesthetic flaws'' concern ugliness and include ugly aspects of human life, ugliness caused by human activities, vulgarity and lack of sensitivity to beauty. Proponents of misanthropy often focus on moral flaws and provide various examples of their manifestations, like mass killings, factory farming of livestock and pollution of the environment. Opponents respond to this by pointing out that serious moral flaws are only manifested by a few mentally ill people or under extreme circumstances, which is denied by misanthropes. Another important consideration for arguments based on flaws is that they highlight only one side of humanity while evaluative attitudes should take all sides into account. Other arguments against misanthropy are based not on whether this attitude appropriately reflects the negative value of humanity but on the costs of accepting a position associated with hatred, for the individual and for society at large. Defenders have responded to this by showing how a misanthropic perspective can lead to various different forms of life. While some of them are based on hatred and may lead to violence, others focus more on fear and withdrawing oneself from the negative influence. Further alternatives include resignation and activism fueled by the hope of bringing about radical transformation.
Misanthropy figures in various works of art and philosophy. It is closely related to but not identical with
philosophical pessimism
Philosophical pessimism is a family of philosophical views that assign a negative value to life or existence. Philosophical pessimists commonly argue that the world contains an empirical prevalence of pains over pleasures, that existence is onto ...
, which involves a negative attitude not just to humankind but to life as a whole. Misanthropic considerations have been used as an argument for
antinatalism
Antinatalism or anti-natalism is the view that procreation is wrong. Antinatalists argue that humans should abstain from procreation because it is morally wrong. In scholarly and literary writings, various ethical arguments have been put forth ...
, the view that coming into existence is bad and that humans, therefore, have a duty to abstain from procreation.
Definition
Misanthropy (a word of 17th century origin, from the Greek ''misanthrōpos'') is traditionally defined as hatred or distrust of humankind. But it has been argued in contemporary philosophy that this characterization does not fit all those labeled as misanthropes. On this view, a more encompassing definition sees misanthropy as a negative evaluation of humanity as a whole based on humankind's
vice
A vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character t ...
s and flaws.
This negative evaluation can express itself in various forms, hatred being only one of them. In this sense, misanthropy has a cognitive component: its negative attitude towards humanity is based on a negative judgment about humanity, it is not just a blind dislike.
One important aspect of all forms of misanthropy is that their target is not local but ubiquitous. So the negative attitude is not just directed at some individual persons or groups of people but at humanity as a whole.
This distinguishes misanthropes from groups like
racists,
misogynist
Misogyny () is hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women. It is a form of sexism that is used to keep women at a lower social status than men, thus maintaining the societal roles of patriarchy. Misogyny has been widely practiced f ...
s and
misandrist
Misandry () is the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against men.
Men's rights activists and other masculinist groups have criticized modern laws concerning divorce, domestic violence, the draft, circumcision (known as genital mutilation ...
s, which hold a negative attitude towards certain races or genders, respectively.
So these forms of discrimination and intolerance are not general characteristics of misanthropes.
Both misanthropes and their critics agree that negative features and failings are not equally distributed, i.e. that the vices and bad traits are exemplified much more strongly in some than in others. But misanthrope's negative assessment of humanity is not based on a few extreme and outstanding cases: it is a condemnation of humanity as a whole, including the more ordinary cases.
Because of this focus on the ordinary, it is sometimes held that the flaws are obvious and open to see for everyone but due to intellectual flaws, people tend to ignore them or even praise them as virtues.
Some see the flaws as part of
human nature
Human nature is a concept that denotes the fundamental dispositions and characteristics—including ways of thinking, feeling, and acting—that humans are said to have naturally. The term is often used to denote the essence of humankind, or ...
as such.
Others also base their view on non-essential flaws, i.e. what humanity has come to be. This includes flaws seen as symptoms of modern civilization in general. Nevertheless, both groups agree that the relevant flaws are "entrenched": there is either no or no easy way to rectify them, nothing short of a complete transformation of the dominant way of life would be required, if that is possible at all.
Forms of human flaws
A core aspect of misanthropy is that its negative attitude towards humanity is based on human flaws.
Various misanthropes have provided extensive lists of flaws, including cruelty, greed, selfishness, wastefulness, dogmatism, self-deception and insensitivity to beauty. These flaws can be categorized in various ways. Traditional religious texts tend to focus on ''spiritual flaws'', like impiety. But in the contemporary academic literature on the subject, the focus is more on ''intellectual flaws'', ''moral flaws'' and ''aesthetic flaws''.
While all of these forms carry some weight for justifying a misanthropic perspective, it is often held that moral flaws are the most severe ones, for example, concerning human treatment of animals.
''Intellectual flaws'' concern our cognitive capacities. They can be defined as what leads to false beliefs, what obstructs knowledge or what violates the demands of
rationality.
They include ''intellectual vices'', like arrogance, wishful thinking, dogmatism, stupidity and gullibility, and cognitive biases, like the confirmation bias, the self-serving bias, the
hindsight bias
Hindsight bias, also known as the knew-it-all-along phenomenon or creeping determinism, is the common tendency for people to perceive past events as having been more predictable than they actually were. People often believe that after an event ha ...
and the anchoring bias. Intellectual flaws can work in tandem with all kinds of vices: they may deceive someone about having a certain vice and thereby prevent him from addressing it and improving himself. A cruel person, for example, may convince himself motivated by wishful thinking that he is not being cruel but firm.
Similar considerations have prompted some traditions to see intellectual failings, like ignorance, as the root of all evil.
But the more common approach within the misanthropic literature is to locate humanity's most serious flaws on the
moral level.
''Moral vices'' are often identified with tendencies to promote what is bad or with inappropriate attitudes towards values.
They include cruelty, indifference to the suffering of others, selfishness, moral laziness, cowardice, injustice, greed and ingratitude. The harm done because of these vices can be divided into three categories: harm done directly to other humans, harm done directly to animals and harm done indirectly to both humans and animals by harming the environment. Examples for these categories include the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
,
factory farming of livestock, and pollution causing
climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...
, respectively.
''Aesthetic flaws'' are usually not given the same importance as moral and intellectual flaws, but they also carry some weight for misanthropic considerations. These flaws relate to beauty and ugliness. They concern ugly aspects of human life itself, like defecation and aging, ugliness caused by human activities, like pollution and litter, and inappropriate attitudes towards aesthetic aspects, like being insensitive to beauty.
Arguments for and against
Various arguments for and against adopting a misanthropic perspective have been presented. Proponents usually focus on various forms of human flaws, like the ones discussed in the last section, together with examples for when they exercise their negative influences.
Opponents often respond to such examples by pointing out that they are extreme individual manifestations of human flaws, either by mentally ill perpetrators or by normal people under extreme circumstances, that do not reflect on humanity at large and therefore are unable to justify the misanthropic attitude.
So while there are cases of extreme human brutality, like the mass killings committed by dictators and their forces, listing such cases is not sufficient for condemning humanity at large.
Misanthropes have responded to this type of argument in various ways. Some hold that the underlying flaws are there in everyone, even if they reach their most extreme form of manifestation only in a few.
Others point out that many ordinary people are complicit in their manifestation, for example, by supporting the political leaders committing them, even if they did not directly commit them.
Another approach is to focus not on the grand extreme cases but on the ordinary small-scale manifestations of human flaws, as in lying, cheating, breaking promises or being ungrateful.
A different problem for arguments based on human flaws is that they present just one side of humanity while evaluative attitudes should take all sides into account. So it may be the case that despite having very serious vices, humans may also possess equally important
virtue
Virtue ( la, virtus) is moral excellence. A virtue is a trait or quality that is deemed to be morally good and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being. In other words, it is a behavior that shows high moral standards ...
s that make up for their shortcomings.
While it is difficult to make such comparisons on a large scale, misanthropes have argued that at least for important subfields, like man's
treatment of animals, the scales are clearly tipped against man.
Some arguments against misanthropy are based not on whether this attitude appropriately reflects the negative value of humanity but on the costs of accepting such a position, for the individual and for society at large. This is especially relevant if misanthropy is associated with a hatred of humankind, which may turn easily into violence against social institutions and other humans and may result in a lot of harm. Concerning the misanthropic individual, it has been argued that misanthropy makes one miserable and friendless and thereby deprives us of most pleasures. Defenders have pointed out that misanthropy is not necessarily connected to hatred, violence and friendlessness, i.e. that there are various other misanthropic forms of life that avoid these arguments.
Misanthropic forms of life
![Pieter Bruegel d](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Pieter_Bruegel_d._%C3%84._035.jpg)
While misanthropy is based on a negative judgment of humanity, it is not restricted to just a theoretical opinion.
Instead, it involves an evaluative attitude that calls for a practical response. This is realized in different forms of life that come with different dominant emotions and various practical consequences for how to lead one's life.
These responses to misanthropy are sometimes presented through simplified prototypes that may be too crude to accurately capture the mental life of any single person but instead aim to portrait common attitudes among groups of misanthropes. The two responses most commonly associated with misanthropy are destructive and
fugitive
A fugitive (or runaway) is a person who is fleeing from custody, whether it be from jail, a government arrest, government or non-government questioning, vigilante violence, or outraged private individuals. A fugitive from justice, also known ...
.
The ''destructive misanthrope'' is said to be driven by a hatred of humankind and aims at tearing it down, with violence if necessary.
For the ''fugitive misanthrope'', fear is the dominant emotion and leads the misanthrope to seek a
secluded place in order to avoid the corrupting contact with civilization and humanity as much as possible.
The contemporary misanthropic literature has also identified two other less-known types of misanthropic lifestyles: the activist and the
quietist response.
The ''activist misanthrope'' is driven by hope despite their negative appraisal of humanity. This hope is based on the idea that it is possible and feasible for humanity to transform itself and the activist works actively towards this ideal.
The ''quietist misanthrope'', on the other hand, takes a more pessimistic approach towards what the individual can do for bringing about this transformation. In contrast to the more radical reactions of the other responses mentioned, they are resigned to quiet acceptance and small-scale avoidance.
Misanthropy in art and philosophy
Art
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert ( , , ; 12 December 1821 – 8 May 1880) was a French novelist. Highly influential, he has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country. According to the literary theorist Kornelije Kvas, "in Flauber ...
once declared that he would "die of suppressed rage at the folly of
isfellow men." Misanthropy has also been ascribed to a number of writers of satire, such as
William S. Gilbert ("I hate my fellow-man") and
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
(''
Timon of Athens
''Timon of Athens'' (''The Life of Tymon of Athens'') is a play written by William Shakespeare and probably also Thomas Middleton in about 1606. It was published in the '' First Folio'' in 1623. Timon lavishes his wealth on parasitic companio ...
'').
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dubl ...
is widely believed to have been misanthropic (see ''
A Tale of a Tub
''A Tale of a Tub'' was the first major work written by Jonathan Swift, composed between 1694 and 1697 and published in 1704. It is arguably his most difficult satire, and perhaps his best. The ''Tale'' is a prose parody divided into sections o ...
'' and, most especially, Book IV of ''
Gulliver's Travels''). Poet
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, ''The North Ship'', was published in 1945, followed by two novels, ''Jill'' (1946) and ''A Girl in Winter'' (1947 ...
has been described as a misanthrope.
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and worl ...
's play ''
The Misanthrope
''The Misanthrope, or the Cantankerous Lover'' (french: Le Misanthrope ou l'Atrabilaire amoureux; ) is a 17th-century comedy of manners in verse written by Molière. It was first performed on 4 June 1666 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal, Paris b ...
'' is one of the more famous plays on this topic. Less famous, but more contemporary is the 1971 play by
Françoise Dorin
Françoise Dorin (23 January 1928 – 12 January 2018) was a French actor, comedian, novelist, playwright and songwriter. She was most successful in the 1970s, authored about 30 plays and more than 25 books as well as writing songs for various arti ...
, ''Un sale égoïste'' (A Filthy Egoist) which takes the point of view of the misanthrope and entices the viewer to understand his motives.
With the effect of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
,
George Grosz's Lustmord themed works focused on misanthropy. Some scholars argue that these works are consequences of
misogyny
Misogyny () is hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women. It is a form of sexism that is used to keep women at a lower social status than men, thus maintaining the societal roles of patriarchy. Misogyny has been widely practice ...
and sexual anxieties.
Philosophy
The
pre-Socratic philosopher
Pre-Socratic philosophy, also known as early Greek philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substance of the universe, but the inquiries of thes ...
Heraclitus
Heraclitus of Ephesus (; grc-gre, Ἡράκλειτος , "Glory of Hera"; ) was an ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from the city of Ephesus, which was then part of the Persian Empire.
Little is known of Heraclitus's life. He wrot ...
was by various accounts a misanthrope and a loner who had little patience for human society. In a fragment, the philosopher complained that "people
ereforever without understanding" of what was, in his view, the nature of reality.
In Western philosophy, misanthropy has been connected to
isolation from human society. In
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
's ''
Phaedo
''Phædo'' or ''Phaedo'' (; el, Φαίδων, ''Phaidōn'' ), also known to ancient readers as ''On The Soul'', is one of the best-known dialogues of Plato's middle period, along with the '' Republic'' and the '' Symposium.'' The philosophica ...
'',
Socrates
Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...
describes a misanthrope in relation to his fellow man: "Misanthropy develops when without art one puts complete trust in somebody thinking the man absolutely true and sound and reliable and then a little later ''discovers'' him to be bad and unreliable ... and when it happens to someone often ... he ends up ... hating everyone."
Misanthropy, then, is presented as a potential result of thwarted expectations or even excessively naïve optimism, since Plato argues that "art" would have allowed the potential misanthrope to recognize that the majority of men are to be found in between good and evil.
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
follows a more
ontological
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exi ...
route: the misanthrope, as an essentially
solitary
Solitary is the state of being alone or in solitude. The term may refer to:
* shortened form of solitary confinement
* Solitary animal, an animal that does not live with others in its species
* Solitary but social, a type of social organization ...
man, is not a man at all: he must be a monster or a god, a view reflected in the
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
view of misanthropy as a "beast-like state".
In the
Judeo-Islamic philosophies (800–1400)
This article covers the conversations between Islamic philosophy and Jewish philosophy, and mutual influence on each other in response to questions and challenges brought into wide circulation through Aristotelianism, Neo-platonism, and the Kal ...
, the
Jewish philosopher Saadia Gaon
Saʻadiah ben Yosef Gaon ( ar, سعيد بن يوسف الفيومي ''Saʻīd bin Yūsuf al-Fayyūmi''; he, סַעֲדְיָה בֶּן יוֹסֵף אַלְפַיּוּמִי גָּאוֹן ''Saʿăḏyāh ben Yōsēf al-Fayyūmī Gāʾōn''; ...
uses the
Platonic
Plato's influence on Western culture was so profound that several different concepts are linked by being called Platonic or Platonist, for accepting some assumptions of Platonism, but which do not imply acceptance of that philosophy as a whole. It ...
idea that the self-isolated man is dehumanized by friendlessness to argue against the misanthropy of
anchorite asceticism and
reclusiveness.
There is a difference between
philosophical pessimism
Philosophical pessimism is a family of philosophical views that assign a negative value to life or existence. Philosophical pessimists commonly argue that the world contains an empirical prevalence of pains over pleasures, that existence is onto ...
and misanthropy.
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
said that "Of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing can ever be made", and yet this was not an expression of the uselessness of humankind itself. Kant further stated that hatred of humankind can take two distinctive forms: aversion from men (
anthropophobia
Social anxiety disorder (SAD), also known as social phobia, is an anxiety disorder characterized by sentiments of fear and anxiety in social situations, causing considerable distress and impaired ability to function in at least some aspects o ...
) and enmity towards them.
The condition can arise partly from dislike and partly from ill-will.
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th ce ...
has also been said
to show misanthropy in his concern of the "they"—the tendency of people to conform to one view, which no one has really thought through, but is just followed because "they say so". This might be thought of as more a criticism of
conformity than of people in general. Unlike
Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work '' The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the pr ...
, Heidegger was opposed to any systematic ethics; however, in some of his later thought, he does see the possibility of harmony between people, as part of the four-fold, mortals, gods, earth, and sky.
Related concepts
Philosophical pessimism
Misanthropy is closely related to but not identical with
philosophical pessimism
Philosophical pessimism is a family of philosophical views that assign a negative value to life or existence. Philosophical pessimists commonly argue that the world contains an empirical prevalence of pains over pleasures, that existence is onto ...
. Philosophical pessimism is the view that life as a whole is not worth living or that the world in general is a bad place, for example, because it is meaningless and full of suffering. This view is perhaps best exemplified by
Arthur Schopenhauer, or in its most extreme form,
Philipp Mainländer
Philipp Mainländer (5 October 1841 – 1 April 1876) was a German philosopher and poet. Born Philipp Batz, he later changed his name to "Mainländer" in homage to his hometown, Offenbach am Main.
In his central work (''The Philosophy of Re ...
. Philosophical pessimism is often accompanied by misanthropy by holding that humanity is also bad and maybe partially responsible for the badness of the world. But the two views do not entail each other and can be held separately.
A non-misanthropic pessimist may hold, for example, that humans are just victims of a terrible world but not to blame for it. Eco-misanthropists, on the other hand, may claim that the world and its nature are valuable but for the negative, destructive influence of humanity.
Antinatalism
Antinatalism
Antinatalism or anti-natalism is the view that procreation is wrong. Antinatalists argue that humans should abstain from procreation because it is morally wrong. In scholarly and literary writings, various ethical arguments have been put forth ...
is the view that coming into existence is bad and that humans, therefore, have a duty to abstain from procreation.
An important argument for anti-natalism is the misanthropic argument. It sees the deep flaws of humans and their tendency to cause harm both to other humans and to animals as a reason for avoiding to create more humans. These harms include
wars
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular ...
,
genocides
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lati ...
,
factory farming and
damages done to the environment. This argument contrasts with philanthropic arguments, which focus on the future suffering of the human about to come into existence.
Deep ecology
Deep ecology is a philosophical and social movement that emphasizes the
inherent value
In moral philosophy, instrumental and intrinsic value are the distinction between what is a ''means to an end'' and what is as an ''end in itself''. Things are deemed to have instrumental value if they help one achieve a particular end; intrinsic ...
of nature and advocates a radical change in human behavior toward nature. Various theorists have criticized deep ecology based on the claim that it is misanthropic by privileging other species over humans. For example, in a newsletter by the deep ecology movement
Earth First!
Earth First! is a radical environmental advocacy group that originated in the Southwestern United States. It was founded in 1980 by Dave Foreman, Mike Roselle, Howie Wolke, Bart Koehler, and Ron Kezar. Today there are Earth First! groups around t ...
, the
AIDS epidemic in Africa was praised as a solution to the problem of human overpopulation.
See also
*
Asociality
Asociality refers to the lack of motivation to engage in social interaction, or a preference for solitary activities. Asociality may be associated with avolition, but it can, moreover, be a manifestation of limited opportunities for social relati ...
– lack of motivation to engage in social interaction
*
Antisocial
Antisocial may refer to:
Sociology, psychiatry and psychology
*Anti-social behaviour
*Antisocial personality disorder
*Psychopathy
*Conduct disorder
Law
*Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003
*Anti-Social Behaviour Order
*Crime and Disorder Act 1998
* ...
– disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others
*
Antihumanism
In social theory and philosophy, antihumanism or anti-humanism is a theory that is critical of traditional humanism, traditional ideas about humanity and the human condition. Central to antihumanism is the view that philosophical anthropology an ...
– rejection of
humanism
Humanism is a philosophy, philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and Agency (philosophy), agency of Human, human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical in ...
*
Antinatalism
Antinatalism or anti-natalism is the view that procreation is wrong. Antinatalists argue that humans should abstain from procreation because it is morally wrong. In scholarly and literary writings, various ethical arguments have been put forth ...
*
Cosmicism
*
Cynicism (philosophy)
*
Emotional isolation
Emotional isolation is a state of isolation where one may have a well-functioning social network but still feels emotionally separated from others.
Population-based research indicates that one in five middle-aged and elderly men (50–80 years) ...
*
Hatred (video game)
''Hatred'' is an isometric shoot 'em up video game developed and published by Destructive Creations that was released on June 1, 2015 on Microsoft Windows. The player character is a misanthropic mass-killer who begins a "genocide crusade" to k ...
*
Machiavellianism (psychology)
In the field of personality psychology, Machiavellianism is a personality trait centered on manipulativeness, callousness, and indifference to morality.Jones, D. N., & Paulhus, D. L. (2009). Machiavellianism. In M. R. Leary & R. H. Hoyle (Eds.) ...
*
Misotheism
Misotheism is the "hatred of God" or "hatred of the gods" (from the Greek adjective () "hating the gods" or "God-hating" – a compound of, , "hatred" and, , "god").
A related concept is dystheism ( grc, δύσ θεος, "bad god"), the belief t ...
– hatred of God
*
Nihilism
*
Philanthropy
*
Rational egoism
Rational egoism (also called rational selfishness) is the principle that an action is rational if and only if it maximizes one's self-interest.Baier (1990), p. 201; Gert (1998), p. 69; Shaver (2002), §3; Moseley (2006), §2. As such, it is consi ...
*
Rejection of anthropocentrism
*
Social alienation
*
Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
References
External links
*
* {{Wikiquote inline
Human behavior
Psychological attitude
Philosophy of life
Social emotions