ABSTRACT
Edouard Machery starts with the assumption that dehumanization often involves a license to harm the dehumanized individuals. Because they are not humans, not full humans, deficient humans, or subhumans, dehumanized individuals can be harmed in a way that is not permissible with (full) human beings. That is, when people deliberate about what can be done to others, dehumanized individuals do not figure in their deliberation the way fully human individuals do; they are deprived of their moral standing. Machery's contribution examines how people can be deprived of their moral standing. Recent work in psychology and experimental philosophy suggests that moral standing is attributed to creatures that display one of two characteristics: agency and experience. Historical episodes of dehumanization illustrate how dehumanization often involves the denial of agency and experience.
