I’m disgusted to be a human”: What to do when you hate your own species

The tension between human achievement and the resulting destruction of the natural world has led to a resurgence of anti-humanism, a philosophical stance characterized by disgust or loathing toward the human species. This sentiment, often triggered by the current human-induced climate crisis, is framed not as a modern anomaly but as a recurring historical response to civilizational catastrophe.

According to the advice column Your Mileage May Vary from Vox, these feelings of disgust often mask deeper emotions such as disappointment, sadness and fear. The column suggests that while anti-humanism provides a sense of moral elevation, it often relies on a dualistic misunderstanding of the relationship between humanity and nature.

A History of Anti-Humanism

Anti-humanist sentiments have appeared throughout human history, typically coinciding with large-scale crises. Examples include the bubonic plague in 14th-century Europe, the Wars of Religion in the 17th century, and the emergence of the Atomic Age in the 20th century.

These feelings are reflected in ancient narratives. As early as the 17th century BCE, Mesopotamian and Biblical stories projected human self-disgust onto deities, imagining a Great Flood intended to wipe humanity from the Earth, leaving only a few individuals—such as Noah’s family or Atraḥasis’s family—to be saved in an ark.

In the modern era, this sentiment persists among some environmental activists and is explicitly championed by the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, which advocates for the cessation of human reproduction to allow the Earth to recover.

The Philosophical Roots of Environmental Alienation

The perception of humanity as separate from and destructive to nature is linked to a Western intellectual tradition that emerged during modernity. This dualistic approach was influenced by 17th-century philosophers such as Francis Bacon, who developed the scientific method, and René Descartes, who argued that the soul is distinct from matter and exclusive to humans.

This paradigm shifted the view of the natural world from a subject to be respected to an object to be exploited for human gain. This contrasts with various global traditions—including those of the ancient Greeks, Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Hindus in India, and followers of Shintoism in Japan—which historically held that living and even non-living things, such as rivers or mountains, possessed some degree of soul.

Renaissance Humanism as an Alternative

Prior to the rise of Cartesian dualism, Renaissance humanism emphasized the inherent value and beauty of human existence. The 16th-century philosopher Michel de Montaigne argued that despising one’s own being is a profound malady.

There is nothing so beautiful and legitimate as to play the man well and properly, no knowledge so hard to acquire as the knowledge of how to live this life well and naturally; and the most barbarous of our maladies is to despise our being.

Michel de Montaigne, Essays

Montaigne viewed human life as a gift and believed that the proper response was to cultivate and enjoy it with gratitude. This perspective suggests that while humans are capable of greed and destruction, they are not a stain on nature, but are instead natural organisms—clever apes with an equal capacity for cooperation and care.

Transitioning to Active Hope

Buddhist scholar and environmental activist Joanna Macy proposes a method for dealing with the pain of environmental loss by reframing it as compassion. Macy argues that honoring this pain is evidence of an interconnectedness with other life forms.

This process leads to what Macy calls active hope. Unlike hope as a feeling based on the probability of success, active hope is a practice. It involves committing to act on behalf of what one loves regardless of the guaranteed outcome, a concept rooted in the Buddhist ethos of acting without attachment to results.

Contemporary Intellectual Debates

Current discourse on the future of the species includes a tension between anti-humanism and transhumanism. Author Adam Kirsch, in The Revolt Against Humanity, notes that both views essentially desire the disappearance of current humanity, though transhumanism seeks to achieve this through scientific evolution into Homo sapiens 2.0.

Within utilitarian circles, philosopher Will MacAskill has proposed saturationism, the idea that well-being stops accumulating once the world is filled with enough similar lives, thereby prioritizing variety. However, Alex Chalmers of the Cosmos Institute has criticized this view, arguing that it incorrectly assumes the best future is something a theorist can derive.