Is misanthropy justified?

General Philosophy
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Humans, since their inception thousand upon thousands of years ago in east Africa and their gradually expansion across the entire globe, have displayed moments of pure brutally, hatred, and zero remorse. From hunter-gathers to Islamic conquests to to the world wars to the genocides and wars of the modern age are perfect dispalys of this pure brutally, hatred, and zero remorse of the human species.

Misanthropy is defined as a distrust, dislike, or hatred towards the human species by fellow human beings. Misnathropy is driven by three main factors: (1) Social rejection; (2) Moral dissappointment; (3) Exploitation. In regards to social rejection, repeated rejection breaks the fundamental expectation of human belonging and as a defensive mechanism, the individual in question begins to start aticipating hostility causes individuals to reject society first to protect themselves, these hurt individuals focus only on negative human traits, ignoring positive interactions. Moral dissappointmet is driven by witnessing widespread cruelty, corruption, or environmental destruction and exploitation resulting in misanthropy is as a result of being repeatedly used or manipulated by others for personal gain. (As a small side note, ument expectations are often a driving factor of misnathropy due to individual holding a high moral standard of human beings that people inevitably fail to meet.)

Misanthropy often leads to violence, motivted by years upon years of developed distrust, hatred, or disliking of humanity. A perfect example of this is the case of Elliot Rodger. On may 23, 2014, Elliot Rodger carried out out a misanthropic rampage that resulted in him stabbing three people: Weihan Wang, Cheng Yuan Yong, and George Chen in a stabbing attack at a shared apartment. Before the stabbing attacks, Rodger took xanax and looked up pornography online and searched the terms “quiet silent kill with a knife” and “how to kill someone with a knife” before practicing stabbing on his bed sheets and pillows. Rodger armed himself with a six-inch “SRK” knife and eight-inch hunting knife. He would go on to shot three people fatally, shot seven people, injuring them and hit seven people with his BMW, also injuring them. He would shot himself in his BMW after crashing it and getting into a shootout with police officers. Elloit’s attack was motivated by misanthropy since he faced sexual and social rejection. Misnathropy has been a driving factor in mulitple mass shootings and mass masscares throughout human history. Colmunbine, Kerch Polytechnic College Massacre, and many more.

In conclusion, misanthropy often manifests in violence as a result of social rejection, moral disappointment, and exploitation, violence against individuals innocent indivduals is never the answer to social rejection, exploitation, or moral disappointment or even all from a specific group of humans not related to there source of social rejection, exploitation, or moral disappointment. Glofiying these indiviudals and even being inspired by them instead of rejecting their reasons and potential seeking mental health services puts wider human society at risk since this only puts us in a tree of copycat attacks and more suffuering. While the origns of misnathropy can be justified, the wider outcome is often, and in the case of mass violnce, is never justified.

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I’ve known a lot of misanthropists. None of them have been particularly nasty or physically violent. Perhaps this thesis needs more precision. What is it that causes people to commit violence? I doubt it’s just hatred. I tend to think fear is a more significant motivator.

I only say this because I have worked a lot with drug dealers and violent offenders just out of prison. Most of them are violent because the world they live in is paranoid and fearful of rivals, and they are anxious not to be slighted in front of others. Violence is a tool for control and respect. In my experience, it’s brought out far less often simply for the sake of hatred.

In the mental health literature, antisocial personality disorder is sometimes conflated with misanthropy. Misanthropy seems primarily to be a folk concept rather than a clinical diagnosis. A person with a history of complex trauma who develops enduring personality pathology, such as an antisocial PD (formerly referred to as sociopathy), may sometimes resemble what people commonly mean when they use the word misanthropy, although the two concepts are clinically distinct. These individuals can be extremely dangerous. Violence and exploitation of others seems to be how they make sense of the world.

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Here’s an interesting article, not a justification but an analysis and exploration:
Philosophical Misanthropy | Issue 139 | Philosophy Now

A broader look: Misanthropy - Wikipedia

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I am not sure what “justified” can even mean here. A justification suggests either a moral or factual argument somebody might marshall to defend their own misanthropy, but that seems to imply that people have a choice about this. I don’t think many people choose to become misanthropic. It just happens to them. I don’t think we can hold it against them.

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The link from misanthropy to violence seems tenuous. In my experience misanthropy is mostly about disappointment. Regarding the title of the topic, misanthropy is supposedly only ever justified if it includes the misanthrope themselves in its calculations, at least in part.

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Thats not a remotely recognisable description of any human society. There are approximately 6 violent deaths per 100,000 in the western world.

Those are not the main causes of violent crime in society. Violence is often accompanied by other antisocial behaviours in individuals that exhibit poor impulse control. Its often also associated with substance abuse.

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I would like to thank all of you for the constructive feedback. Am aware this essay of sorts is not the best and in the future, I aim to create a more detailed essay on misnathropic crime.

Kind regards,

Charles Taylor Oliveria

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I look forward to reading your essay.

I notice you’ve already written a political and cultural thought experiment — ‘Islamic Republic of Britain’:
Charles Taylor Oliveria – Medium

That piece explores tensions between religious absolutism and democratic governance.

It made me wonder whether you’re exploring the idea that misanthropy can be ‘justified’ in relation to authoritative systems — religious or governmental — especially where they control or exploit particular groups.

Would your proposed essay include this aspect of ‘violence’?

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In your essay, you have blurred the lines between violence against the “in-group” and the “out-group.”

For example, below is named violence against the “out-group”

These sorts of violence are not based on misanthropy, but fear of the “other” - and require that the other be turned into enemies. It is about protecting your own against those who may pose a risk to your “in-group.”

It requires a “us-vs-them” mentality - a mentality often encouraged by an authoritarian’s propaganda.

Violence within the “in-group” - those close to you - can be sparked by different motivations. The example you give seems to demonstrate a mentally-ill individual -

But, in typical “in-group” relationships, misanthropy is not the norm. Indeed, most of us would do anything for our family members.

When I think of a misanthrope, I think of a cranky old person who has had a lot of disappointments in life, and tends to blame others for their lack of happiness.

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I knew a misanthrope. I found him sad and lonely. He wasn’t a terribly upstanding guy and he took criticism very personally. We were friends sort of, mostly because I just let him be. I could see though why many wouldn’t just let him be because what he was wasn’t super wonderful. He ended up moving around the country, restarting over and over, never getting away from himself. I don’t miss him, but appreciate this thread so I could reminisce.

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Honestly, great to know this remindered of him/her in what I would assume had somewhat of eye-opening effect on you.

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Am shocked you found my medium. I am planning in the future to write more essays there and also I aim to post videos on my channel. Yes, I would be interested in covering misanthropy in governmental systems in my future essay and potentially my channel.

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I think you’re conflating something else with misanthropy. What you’ve described isn’t what you say it is. There are people who’re perfectly ok with violence and its attendants.

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The topic of misanthropy interests me because I once had the opportunity to analyze a specific case of a man who simultaneously claimed two things about himself: that he was a sincere Christian and that he was a misanthrope.

I’d like to discuss this particular case of misanthropy. While exploring the concepts, I first noticed a certain complexity in the very concept of “misanthrope.” More precisely, we define a misanthrope as someone who feels hostility or hatred toward others, and who justifies this hostility through a certain notion of human imperfection. In other words, we’re not simply talking about someone who dislikes others, but about someone who uses their moral or anthropological judgment of people as the basis for their attitude toward them.

Therefore, in my opinion, several conditions must coincide for this type of misanthropy to arise:

  1. The existence of a specific human community.

  2. This community must reproduce a normative morality of a certain kind, one that is sufficiently high in its demands.

  3. A specific subject must accept these moral principles as a significant, perhaps even the highest, measure of goodness.

  4. The subject must discover a systematic discrepancy between the behavior of others and this measure.

  5. This discrepancy must be interpreted not as an isolated imperfection of individuals, but as evidence of a general moral decline.

  6. As a result, a leap occurs from assessing the actions of specific individuals to assessing the individuals themselves, and then humanity in general.

The result is a rather curious construct. Society produces a certain normative system, cultivates in individuals the ability to distinguish between good and bad, and instills high moral expectations, and then the same individual discovers that society itself does not live up to its own norms. They begin to judge people based on the norms they received from society itself, and ultimately come to the conclusion: “People are bad.”

In this sense, misanthropy can be seen as an extreme form of moralizing: the subject doesn’t simply evaluate individual actions as bad, but gradually transforms the moral assessment of behavior into an assessment of the person themselves.

Here, however, an important distinction must be made. Not every hatred of people is misanthropy in this sense. A person can hate a specific person, a group, or even an entire society for a variety of reasons. What interests me is precisely the case when hatred arises from a moral judgment and then becomes universalized.

Similarly, I would be hesitant to label a “misanthrope” someone who arrived in a particular community from another culture with their own moral values ​​and, based on these values, considers the community where they now live to be morally corrupt. I would recommend a different definition and would not like to consider these cases now.

But let’s return to the part of the question that I have chosen as significant for myself. A high moral standard does not make a person a misanthrope. The question is what they do with the discrepancy they discover between the norm and the actual behavior of others. Doesn’t such a subject arrogate to themselves a moral absolute (the right to speak on behalf of the absolute)?

Psychiatry still doesn’t have a precise distinction between health and illness. However, I’m groping for a fine line here: the subject’s assertion that they have the right to speak on behalf of an imagined (or accepted) absolute merits detailed study. In fact, I’m not a psychiatrist, but in my subjective opinion, this transition I so painstakingly described above doesn’t occur in the mind of a healthy person. This is my value judgment.

Also, returning to the original post, with your permission, I’d like to draw attention to one detail and ask you a question.

The detail that stands out is this: the assertion that misanthropy itself often leads to violence is too “strong.” There are many additional links between aversion to humanity and mass violence: the mere statement “I hate humanity” doesn’t necessarily entail the statement “therefore I have the right to harm people.” You can hate humanity and become a hermit; you can even philosophize. =) Therefore, the causal connection between misanthropy and violence must be substantiated, not simply assumed.

Here’s my question: When writing your text and preparing your essay, are you interested in misanthropy per se, or is it a convenient tool for describing the ills that befall your society? So the crux of the matter is this: do you want to explore misanthropy itself, or do you want to construct a convenient construct that would possess some explanatory power regarding what you dislike, which could then be used as an element of propaganda or policy?

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I would answer the question by stating that I have ills against humanity that have become strong thoughts in mind and due to this am intrested in misanthropy as a medium of explanation for this strong thoughts of violence against humanity.

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A fairly honest answer (assuming it’s not trolling). However, if possible, I would ask you to explain and demonstrate the criteria for achieving your goals.

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In this of potentialy, ‘pseudo-mianthropy’ , I don’t have a specific critea to achieving any goals really. I have been ‘rotting’ in a sense. As depressive as this sound, the only forum of interaction I have really is on this forum, am not anti-social, still do attempt to socialize but my physical socializing is very limited due to my intrests being opposite of those who are around me. That’s even why I call myslef thelonelyphilosopher and other similar tags in a active social media accounts. If you could provide some informational assistance, feel free to share.

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Unfortunately, I have nothing to offer you. I am neither a professional in the study of human souls, nor a mentor or guru. I don’t know how one should “should” behave in such situations or what to offer.

On the other hand, I can assure you that your words have evoked a certain empathy in me (though perhaps you don’t need it).

But what’s truly interesting is research into misanthropy itself, as a phenomenon. Research of this kind, so as not to have predetermined conclusions that I will reach as I go along. I’m interested in research as a process of discovery—to find out what’s inside. In my first answer, I attempted to take a step in this direction and begin to uncover. If you’re interested, we could have a good discussion.

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Fair point. Potentially I can vent out my ills of humanity through more peaceful means rather than violent ones