Psychological Essentialism and Dehumanization 1

Abstract

This chapter discusses how psychological essentialism relates to dehumanization. It will focus on two dimensions of essentialism: entitativity and natural kind thinking, which include different elements of essentialism. Dehumanization as understood in this chapter can be cognitive and/or behavioral and can involve categorical or graded denials of humanness (see Kronfeldner, Introduction to this volume). It will be assumed (rather than discussed) that beliefs in a human essence can catalyze dehumanization: they can strengthen or even immunize the claims made about the differences among people that ground dehumanization. Defending such a catalyzing role of psychological essentialism is a rather weak and uncontroversial claim, even though it is often unclear how exactly the catalyzing works, and even though it is limited to certain cases (see Section 6 on that limitation). That is why the focus in this chapter is on a much stronger and more controversial claim – namely, the claim that essentialism is necessary for dehumanization. This chapter will present historical and psychological evidence that shows why such a necessity-claim is contestable and how it can be revised in light of that evidence. The resulting revision of the necessity-claim will also help in explaining how essentialism catalyzes dehumanization.