Hate speech, volition, and neurology

In ‘A Hypothetical Neurological Association between Dehumanization and Human RightsAbuse’,1 GailMurrowandRichardMurrowposit a biological explanationof how hate speech can spur violence, not only among individuals but, even, on a societal scale. They elaborate historical examples, cite to neuronal studies on patterns of responses in observation of pain and suffering to explain the dehumanization that often results from hate propaganda.The authors’ points about the harmful effects of hate speech are salient anderudite, andwecommend themfor their deeply thoughtoutwork.However, their scientific premises rely on significant extrapolations fromneurological theories on manifold human behavior. Hate speakers rely ondehumanizing images to justify exclusion, discrimination, and, in genocidal cases, elimination of identifiable groups. Dehumanization can be both an attack on the target’s dignity and a justification for harmful actions. Statements dehumanizing hated groups often influence the commission of discriminatory conduct.The critical role of rhetoric inmotivating nefarious action is evident in the histories of genocides in Germany, Turkey, Sudan, and Rwanda. In all of these countries, the official spread of malignant and distorted images of the other (Jews, Armenians, Darfuris, and Tutsis, respectively)made it easy to bring the hated groups into disreputewith the population and cleared the way to their mass killing and divestment of property. That neurology can help explain these phenomena cannot be doubted, given that our brains are intrinsic to thought, but that neurology is a sufficient explanation of dehumanization is suspect given the socialization of repeated group defamations. Chiefly, Murrow andMurrow rely on the scientific discussions on ‘mirror neurons’, a relatively