Hate as Poison and Cure? Reassessing our Hatred of Hatred

Abstract

Hatred is widely condemned as an unambiguous evil, yet this paper asks whether it might also serve constructive functions. Drawing on philosophical, psychological, and evolutionary perspectives, we argue that hate evolved as an adaptive response to threats of domination and to challenges to shared meaning systems posed by individuals or groups. Hate fulfills this role by motivating action, sustaining focus, fostering coalitional cohesion, providing meaning, and operating as a power-based emotion that can mobilize the subordinated. We then illustrate how hate has been used in revolutionary social movements. While acknowledging its dangers, we contend that dismissing hate as purely toxic overlooks its possible role in signaling injustice and galvanizing resistance. The challenge is understanding when hatred cures rather than poisons.

Mahatma Gandhi, often regarded as the embodiment of nonviolence, was still, nonetheless, a hater. “I can and do,” he wrote, “hate evil wherever it exists” (Gandhi, 2004, p. 37). Although Gandhi hated British colonial rule in India, he maintained that through prayerful discipline he had ceased hating individuals, even “the domineering Englishmen” (p. 37). It was people's inability to “[h]ate the sin and not the sinner” claimed Gandhi, that accounted for why “the poison of hatred spreads in the world” (Gandhi, 1963, pp. 167–168). Gandhi's nuanced portrayal of hatred, coupled with his reference to it as a poison, calls to mind Derrida's (2004) observation that the Greek word pharmakon can mean both poison and remedy. This suggests a provocative question: might hate, commonly condemned as a social toxin, also have constructive or adaptive value?

In this paper, we adopt an interdisciplinary approach to conceptualizing and reflecting on hate. We understand hate as: (1) a powerful and enduring negative emotion, motivation, drive, sentiment, or attitude; (2) that arises when an individual perceives another person or group as having threatened them (either realistically, e.g., through threatening their life, resources or reproductive success, or symbolically, e.g., through threatening their values or identity); (3) with the source of this transgression being attributed to the perceived unchangeable and fundamentally evil character of the other; (4) which manifests behaviorally in efforts to physically, socially, or symbolically eliminate or destroy the targeted person or group (Elster, 2004; Fischer, 2025; Fischer et al., 2018; Kolnai, 1981; Martínez et al., 2022a; Sell et al., 2021; Szanto, 2021). Within this conceptualization are elements that help characterizing the unique features of hate that differentiate it from other antagonistic emotions such as anger (Fischer, 2025). ¹ First, hate involves a specific appraisal: something bad has happened and it is due to a person/group not simply acting maliciously (as is the case with anger) but being intrinsically malicious and/or immoral. Second, hate has a specific goal. It does not aim to correct or change behavior (as anger does) but rather aims to either eliminate or destroy its target (Sell et al., 2021), whether this be physically, socially, or symbolically (e.g., humiliation, expulsion, etc.).

Part of the difficulty of considering potential benefits of hatred stems from a long tradition of assuming that hatred can never be justified (Brogaard, 2020). Hatred is often dismissed as an unambiguous evil, a destructive force that fuels division, intolerance, and violence. In Western societies, memories of two World Wars are recalled frequently, and mainstream media often highlight the profoundly destabilizing impact of hate today. Similarly, researchers have argued that hate is “our most dangerous emotion” (Brogaard, 2020), the “most destructive affective phenomenon in the history of human nature (Fischer et al., 2018), and one of the “most powerful forces” underlying massacres and genocides (Sternberg, 2003, p. 304). Hate is widely seen not only as a motivator of violence but as a force that can permanently destroy relations between individuals or groups (Fischer et al., 2018). Hate has also been shown to contribute to “one of the most problematic phenomena in democratic societies” (Fischer et al., 2018, p. 317); political intolerance—the dismissal of the idea that members of out-groups have equal rights. ² This has led to what has been termed a “smug liberal gospel,” namely that “those who do hate necessarily exhibit a vice and are subject to legitimate moral criticism” (Murphy, 2016).

Consistent with this perspective, discussions of hate in the scholarly literature have overwhelmingly focused on its negative consequences. For instance, when outlining the effects of hate, Martínez et al. (2023) restrict their mentions to “intolerance, moral exclusion, hate speech, verbal and physical aggression, and violence” (p. 699). Given this framing, it is unsurprising that the predominant axioma in the study of hate is that it needs to be “prevented on account of its destructiveness” (Landweer, 2020, p. 446). As a result, many Western liberal democracies have sought to eradicate hate through legal mechanisms targeting hate speech ³ and hate crime. ⁴ The scope of such legislation is likely to expand in future, further proscribing expressions of hate. Concerns have been raised about how current and future legislation may stifle both freedom of speech (e.g., Strossen, 2018) and freedom of thought (McCarthy-Jones, 2023) resulting in the restriction of valid debate in society (Knechtle, 2017).

Chesterton (1930) once argued that someone encountering a fence in the road and seeing no immediate reason for its existence should not remove it until they had worked out why it was built in the first place. Chesterton's fence principle emphasizes the importance of understanding the historical or functional rationales behind existing structures before dismantling them. As applied here, it suggests we should hesitate before “dismantling” hate without first understanding its potentially beneficial evolutionary and social functions. Otherwise phrased, to dismiss hate as poisonous to humanity should not be done without considering that perhaps it can also have a beneficial element.

For instance, hatred in the service of social justice may be a necessary force to achieve desirable social change (Marcuse, 1970). More speculatively, it may be worried that comprehensive cultural proscription of hatred may make this affective state so toxic that it becomes hard to utilize when it becomes perceived to be appropriate, necessary, or required, such as in times of war. Sternberg and Sternberg (2008) have argued that when an enemy is about to destroy you, your loved ones or your country, hate can be “an adaptive and rational response that propels you to fight against rather than succumb to the enemy” (p. 16). Likewise, Elnakouri et al. (2022) note that “while hate's motivational power might be seen as a destructive force, it could also be construed as a force for good if directed at the ‘right’ enemy.” Similarly, Brogaard (2020) argues that “it isn’t hatred that's the enemy but its lack of justification” (p. xi). If Europe faces armed conflict in the next decade, as many have suggested (Allen et al., 2021; Cabinet Office, 2025; Giles, 2024; Muzergues, 2022), hate may once again become a necessary tool for survival. ⁵ In short, we should resist fully inveighing against hate until we understand its myriad functions.

Recent scholarship has indeed started to consider the potential benefits of hate. Such work has two main strands, albeit ones which are closely interlinked. The first, more philosophical approach, has considered whether hatred can ever be morally justifiable and, if so, under what circumstances (e.g., Szanto, 2021). For instance, despite claims of the “immoral nature of hatred” (Halperin, 2008, p. 732), Vendrell Ferran (2024) argues that an important direction for hate research is moral in nature. She points out that although hate is often described as irrational and blind, this is not necessarily the case and that some forms of hate “can fulfil an instrumental function for the individual and the society to which she belongs” (p. 457). ⁶ Vendrell Ferran is nevertheless still cautious in her approach, only allowing that “some types of hate seem less reproachable than others” (p. 457).

Others have gone further, arguing there are good (in the sense of morally defensible) forms of hate, which have been variously termed, “critical hatred” (Brogaard, 2020, p. 310), “retributive hatred” (Murphy & Hampton, 1988, p. 108) and “moral hatred” (Murphy & Hampton, 1988, p. 80). For Brogaard, hate can have “commendable ends” (p. xiv) such as when being used to respond to the malevolence of a person who knowingly chose to do something despicable. Similarly, Cox and Levine (2022) have argued that it “sometimes makes emotional sense to hate: it is not always based on an error of judgement; it is not always a foolish or inappropriate attitude” (p. 173). Personal hate is appropriate or fitting, they claim, if it is “based on knowledge of despicable character” and is a “response to real and profound damage” caused by such character (p. 173). Echoing this, Hamilton (2022) has claimed that “there are some very specific circumstances in which hatred is not only morally permissible but virtuous” (p. 235). Hamilton intimates the nature of these circumstances by defining hate as “hard-heartedness: a refusal to forgive or mend bridges as an act of political defiance” and as “identity-preserving” in which “not to hate would place in peril one's identity as a particular kind of moral or political self” (p. 235).

We do not elaborate further on the morality of hate here, as this is not our primary focus. Instead of focusing on when hate may be defensible, we are more concerned with why hate can be an effective tool—although, again, we acknowledge that the two questions are not entirely dissociable. As such, we focus on a second strand of hate research, typically based in evolutionary theorizing and empirical psychological research, which explores what potential individual, group or societal functions hate can have and what properties of hate allow it to achieve these functions.

Hate, like other expressed behaviors stemming from affective states, evolved for a purpose. ⁷ Love evolved to motivate seeking the nearness of others and thus survival and reproduction (Buss, 2018). Fear evolved to motivate us to avoid danger (Buss, 2018). Hate also presumably evolved because it had survival and/or reproductive advantages (Waller, 2003; Sell & Lopez, 2020). As Fischer (2025) puts it, “The fact that hate serves a social function also explains why human history is full of hate and why it is so difficult to banish” (p. 104). Whether the evolved ability to hate retains a useful place in modern society or whether hate's destructive nature renders it too uncontrollable and destructive a force to wield, even in the pursuit of justice, is a pressing psychological, sociological, and legal question.

Considering the potential functions of hate is a step toward a more nuanced approach to studying this phenomenon. Such an approach can overcome existing biases toward the study of hate, rooted in fear of its destructiveness and alleged irrationality (Landweer, 2020). This paper aims to contribute to this literature by firstly taking the problem of Chesterton's fence seriously. Assuming that hate evolved for a specific purpose, what selection pressures created hate, that is, what problem(s) did hate solve for humans? The question then arises as to what features hate possesses that allowed it to solve such problems. We end by offering some reflections on the extent to which hate is still a useful solution to problems in contemporary society. To be clear, our goal is not to morally endorse the deployment of hate but rather to critically explore its functional utility and potential role in social transformation. Naturally, we would caution against any uncritical romanticization of hate's emancipatory potential.

What Problems Did Hate Help Solve in our Evolutionary Past?

Hatred as an Adaptation

The most straightforward way to understand the value of hatred to humans is to consider it as an evolved adaptation that provided fitness benefits in ancestral environments, ultimately enhancing survival and reproduction prospects. Such an approach has been most thoroughly developed by Aaron Sell and colleagues (e.g., Landers et al., 2025; Sell & Lopez, 2020; Sell et al., 2021). Their work starts from the proposition that hatred evolved because it “increased our ancestors’ reproduction by preventing future harms” (Sell & Lopez, 2020). More specifically, Sell and colleagues argue that hatred evolved via natural selection to address a specific selection pressure, namely the human tendency to encounter other people whose existence was, on average, bad for them. These problematic individuals, Tooby and Cosmides (2010) explain, were those who “stably imposes costs substantially greater than the benefits they generate” (p. 194). In this view, hatred evolved because it helped solve the problem of the existence of individuals with a negative association value, that is, someone whose future existence leads to a net decrease in your reproductive success. Sell and colleagues variously refer to such people as “toxic” individuals (Sell et al., 2021, p. 167) or “an enemy” (Sell & Lopez, 2020). ⁸

Hatred, argue Sell and colleagues, is an adaptation that functions to first identify toxic individuals or groups and then motivates people to act in a way that minimizes the fitness costs coming from them. A judgment of toxicity is made based on the other person/group having previously imposed large fitness costs (either through a single incident or an accumulation of smaller ones), which is assumed to be a good predictor of future conduct. Sell et al. (2021) speculate that our meta-cognitive ability to engage in counterfactual thinking, which allows us to imagine what our fitness landscape would look like if a hatred target were not present, may have part evolved for this sort of reason. Sell et al. also emphasize that the ability to learn from other people which individuals in one's environment are toxic is important for the development of hate.

Once a toxic individual has been identified, their potential fitness costs need minimizing. The evolutionary solution to such enemies, Sell and colleagues argue, is to attempt to “neutralize” them (Sell et al., 2021, p. 168). This is what hatred motivates people to do. Importantly, this differs from the aim of anger. Sell and colleagues note that most cases of anger occur within the context of valued relationships, which hence involve interactions with people who are of overall benefit to you (i.e., have a net positive association value). Anger motivates actions that seek to get these valued people to treat you better and to increase the value they place on your welfare. In contrast, Sell and colleagues propose that hatred deals with people who are likely to impose a net cost on you and therefore are to be eliminated rather than negotiated with. As Sell et al. (2021) put it, “anger attempts to recalibrate and bargain with a target, while hatred attempts to neutralize them” (p. 170).

Such neutralization takes the form of the person remaining vigilant for circumstances that enable efficient means of damaging the hated target and then, when possible, to “heap costs upon them” (Sell et al., 2021, p. 164). The effects of the hater imposing such costs are that their enemy becomes less able to inflict costs on the hater. This may be because the hated target has removed themselves from the presence of the hater, become less powerful, or died. In humans, Sell and colleagues note, lethal violence is generally a last resort. Instead, humans use a range of strategies such as information warfare to decrease the hated target's social power (e.g., causing reputational damage, gossiping or lying about inadequacies). The spread of such information also looks to recruit allies for group-based aggression against the target of hate. Other strategies to impose costs are proposed to include “low-level surreptitious cost infliction to diminish the target's health, well-being, power, and to incentivize social distance” (Sell et al., 2021, p. 164), potentially lethal predatory-style aggression to diminish their power, and avoidance of the target to minimize the costs emanating from them (Sell et al., 2021).

Intra- and Intergroup Hatred

Scholars of hate often implicitly assume that hatred evolved as a response to intragroup threats and was only later extended to intergroup relations. ⁹ For example, Fischer et al. (2018) note that “hatred can more easily go through a transformation from individual to group level than other negative emotions” (p. 314). Similarly, Sell and colleagues appear to conceive of hate as having evolved to address intragroup threats before being later co-opted for intergroup conflict. This inference follows from their description of an individual's ability to “vanish” another individual “from his social group” (Sell et al., 2021, p. 165), their definition of hatred as “an orientation toward an enemy, defined as an individual with a negative association value” (Sell & Lopez, 2020, emphasis added), and their depiction of warfare as a scaled-up expression of interpersonal hate (Sell & Lopez, 2020).

However, it is also theoretically possible that the evolutionary trajectory was the reverse, with hatred first emerging as a response to intergroup threats and later being adapted to regulate intragroup relations. It is even conceivable that these two forms of hate evolved independently, reflecting distinct adaptive challenges. Indeed, the functional and motivational underpinnings of intragroup and intergroup hate are likely to differ, given that threats from these domains pose qualitatively different problems. Alternatively, the distinction between intra- and intergroup hate may be of secondary importance if hatred evolved not primarily to confront specific types of enemies, but rather to safeguard specific fundamental psychological needs, such as the need for a moral order that provides shared meaning (Heine et al., 2006; Martela & Steger, 2016; Park, 2010). Such needs can be imperiled by both in-group and out-group actors alike.

Which view of the evolution of hate is correct depends in part on the kinds of conflicts that shaped human evolution. Knowing who the prototypical toxic individuals or groups were in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (Barkow et al., 1992) should help us better appreciate the nature of hate. Humans likely evolved in environments characterized by small foraging bands with hierarchical structures (Hamilton et al., 2007). Such bands could face both intra- and intergroup conflict (Bowles, 2009). However, intragroup conflict is argued to have been more prominent than intergroup conflict (Rutar, 2023), which would fit with Sell and colleagues’ apparent view that hate evolved initially to solve the problem of intragroup enemies.

A common source of intragroup threat appears to have been individuals who sought dominance, particularly through coercive means (Boehm, 2012). In response, many hunter-gatherer societies developed egalitarian norms, designed to suppress the dangers posed by such individuals (Boehm, 2009, 2012). Subordinate individuals would form coalitions against would-be dominants or coercive leaders using ridicule, ostracism, or even murder to curtail their power (Boehm, 2012). Yet even within these egalitarian systems (at least, among men) social hierarchies persisted, with “certain individuals consum[ing] more resources, get[ting] the best pick of mates, and tak[ing] a more central role in group decision making” (Von Rueden et al., 2008, p. 402).

A related question is whether hate conferred benefits symmetrically according to whether it was aimed by an individual with greater social status at an individual with lower status or vice versa. There is reason to suggest that hatred was particularly advantageous for individuals lower in the hierarchy, helping them to manage or resist those above them.

First, it has been suggested that dominant individuals are more likely to feel contempt rather than hatred toward subordinate individuals (Landweer, 2020). In Landweer's framing, contempt is an emotion of the superior person (morally, socially, or in other respects) and involves the withdrawal of recognition of the other person as an equal. Because the contemptuous can simply disregard or exclude those they despise, contempt tends to achieve a form of social death without requiring violence. Hatred, by contrast, is more likely to aim at the physical destruction of the target. For this reason, Landweer concludes that hate “is more an emotion of the socially inferior” (p. 448) directed against those perceived as responsible for causing the hater's suffering or subordination.

Second, if anger functions to recalibrate one's value in another's eyes, then because those lower on the social hierarchy have less power to directly bargain for better treatment, they may be more prone to experience hatred. Third, hate has been linked to the experience of powerlessness (Fitness & Fletcher, 1993), suggesting it may be more common in those of lower social status. Finally, empirical research indicates that employees report feeling more hate against transgressors above them in rank than toward those below (Fitness, 2000).

These observations allow us to hypothesize that intragroup hate evolved under selection pressures for those lower in a social hierarchy to solve the problem of those higher in the hierarchy. Hatred may have been triggered by situations in which dominant individuals monopolized resources or reproductive opportunities, generating intense negative emotions among subordinates. In such cases, dominant members of a group may have faced the threat of hate-induced or hate-enabled coalitional challenges, including attempts to depose or neutralize them. Such claims can be seen in the writings of many revolutionary figures. For instance, the German Marxist Zetkin (1934) invoked the status-transforming power of hatred, declaring, “We… are aware of the humiliation of the woman, the privileges of the man. That we hate, yes, hate everything and will abolish everything which tortures and oppresses [women].”

In addition to fostering resistance toward individuals within one's own group, hate likely played a critical role in intergroup conflict, particularly in ancestral environments characterized by competition over scarce resources. A powerful shared affective state such as hate could have sustained coordinated coalitional aggression, enabling groups to eliminate rivals, neutralize threats, and gain access to territory, mates, and material assets. For instance, Tooby and Cosmides (2010) imply that hate could be an adaptation for coalitional coordination, consistent with their idea that human minds evolved mechanisms designed for detecting coalitions and alliances (Kurzban et al., 2001).

Other theorists, outside of the evolutionary perspective, have also emphasized hate's ability to generate such coalitions by co-constituting and reinforcing group identities, strengthening social cohesion and delineating in-group and out-group boundaries. Hatred may help to reinforce the demarcation between the in- and out-group, through the formula “We hate (them); therefore we are (distinct from them)” (Szanto, 2020, p. 470). Yet hate doesn’t merely reinforce in-group/out-group boundaries, it is also one of the factors that constitutes them. ¹⁰ In this way, Szanto notes that the effect of hatred is that the “world breaks into the association of those evil there and these good here—to whom oneself belongs” (Kolnai, as cited in Szanto, 2020, p. 470). Hence, hate helps establish the identity of group members. Indeed, one's identity is defined both by what one loves and what one hates (Szanto, 2020) but perhaps more so by who one loves and hates. Similarly, Gaylin (2003) argues that “the true purpose of an enemy will be to serve the modus vivendi, the lifestyle, of the hater” (p. 176) suggesting that hate also functions to validate and protect the in-group's moral order.

If hate is understood to contribute to one's group identity or worldview, then this suggests it may play an important role in meaning making. The idea that hate has the potential to provide a sense of meaning to life was first advanced by Elnakouri et al. (2022). According to these authors, hate can support all three features of a meaningful life; purpose, significance, and coherence (King & Hicks, 2021). It can offer purpose by “energizing people to challenge the hated,” significance by “convincing people that eliminating the hated object is of cosmic importance, a righteous cause worthy of virtuous violence,” and coherence by enabling “a simplistic us versus them worldview that inspires coherence and quells uncertainty” (Elnakouri et al., 2022). Although such benefits may appear intangible, meta-analytic evidence shows that a greater sense of purpose in life is associated with lower all-cause mortality (Cohen et al., 2016; Czekierda et al., 2017) and better mental health (He et al., 2023). More broadly, individuals who experience a greater sense of meaning of life tend to experience higher motivation than others, potentially conferring an adaptive advantage (Elnakouri et al., 2022).

With respect to the target of hate, Elnakouri et al. (2022) argue that collective hatreds (i.e., those aimed at entities like other groups, societal phenomena, or institutions) may serve as greater sources of meaning than personal hatreds aimed at individuals. Abstract or distant entities are easier to hate because they lack the redeeming complexity of concrete persons. Empirically, Elnakouri et al. found that hating other groups was associated with a greater sense of meaning in life, increasing feelings of determination, eagerness, and enthusiasm, while suppressing feelings of conflict, uncertainty, and confusion. In contrast, personal hate was linked to negative affect and a diminished sense of life's meaningfulness. The idea that people embrace hate because it imbues life with meaning, heightening motivation and decreasing inhibition-inducing uncertainties is also supported by research on extremist and hate groups. Individuals often join such groups out of a desire for meaning (Cottee & Hayward, 2011; DeMichele et al., 2022; Pauwels et al., 2014).

Another way to view this is that hate may function as a psychological response to a threat or loss of what gives meaning to life and community, particularly the endangerment of one's group's shared moral order. Such an interpretation is consisting with findings by Martínez et al. (2022a). These authors, drawing on integrated threat theory, first distinguished between “realistic threats,” defined as threats to safety, goals or resources (e.g., a given person or group is trying to hurt me or steal from me), and “symbolic threats,” defined as threats to worldviews, morals, values and identity (e.g., this person or group is the opposite of me and has completely different values) (Stephan & Stephan, 2000; Martínez et al., 2022a). They then found that hatred of both interpersonal and intergroup targets was better predicted by symbolic threats than by realistic threats, concluding that hate was especially likely to be triggered by “threats to people's values and identity” (p. 12; see also Pretus et al., 2023). It is hence reasonable to hypothesize that hatred is one way to defend one's moral order.

Martínez et al.'s findings therefore provide an important qualification to evolutionary accounts that treat hate as primarily an adaptation to “realistic” threats. Instead, their findings suggest that hate is more likely to be directed toward those who threaten an in-group's worldview, shared moral order, or collective identity. Such threats may arise from within the group itself, through moral rebels (Monin et al., 2008) or black sheep (Marques et al., 1988), as well as from out-group antagonists (Stephan et al., 2016). From this perspective, hate can be hypothesized to have evolved not simply to target in- or out-group enemies per se but to protect a moral order that provides shared meaning (Park, 2010) from whoever endangers it. This would have conferred fitness benefits as moral systems are practical frameworks for regulating cooperation, deterring exploitation, and maintaining coalition stability (Boyd & Richerson, 2005; Henrich, 2015). Individuals who experienced intense hostility toward those who undermined these frameworks were more likely to protect the integrity of their group and secure their own belonging and reputation within it. Thus, hate may have evolved as an adaptation to safeguard the symbolic order, which led to individual fitness benefits.

What Characteristics of Hate are Essential for its Potency?

Thus far, we have reached the view that hate evolved as an adaptation during the hunter-gatherer period of our species to identify and combat toxic individuals (hypothesizing that such individuals were likely to be coercive dominants or threats to the group's shared moral order) and to promote successful intergroup warfare. We now turn to the specific features of hate that would have made it effective in fulfilling these functions. These include its strong motivational force toward action, its durability and intensity, its capacity to focus attention on the target, and its potential to spread socially, mobilizing coalitional support. To be clear, while such features may have made hate effective in solving some challenges faced in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness, we neither deny that other emotions (e.g., anger) can also play an important role in creating a drive for action and social change nor claim that hate will be instrumental in resolving contemporary conflicts in a peaceful manner. Indeed, in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Halperin et al. (2011) found that anger could promote constructive outcomes, but only among individuals low in hatred.

Motivating Action

The motivational nature of emotions is well established in the psychological literature. Emotions prepare us to undertake specific types of action (Frijda et al., 1989). So too does hate. Whether understood as an emotion, a drive, or an attitude, hate is clearly motivational. From an evolutionary perspective, its defining function is to mobilize action, either to avoid or destroy a threatening target (Sell & Lopez, 2020; Sell et al., 2021; Tooby & Cosmides, 2010).

Much research has emphasized that hate encourages people to destroy its target (Vendrell Ferran, 2021; Rempel & Burris, 2005; Schmid, 2020; Landweer, 2020). Consistent with this, empirical research has found hate is more strongly associated with aggressive acts (e.g., attacking, harming, confronting, criticizing, offending) than are dislike, anger, or contempt, confirming this is a distinctive feature of hate (Martínez et al., 2022b). For example, in a study of Israelis, Halperin (2008) found that group-based hatred had the specific goals “to do evil to, remove, and even eliminate the out-group” (p. 729).

However, the impulse to eliminate the target may characterize intergroup hatred more than intragroup hated. Studies of hate in everyday life suggest that people seek distance rather than destruction. In a study by Aumer-Ryan and Hatfield (2007), one participant described hate as disliking the person “to the point to where you wish they were not here. Not necessarily dead, but not around you” (p. 151). Another participant emphasized a “very strong desire to be away from [the hated person] at all times” (p. 151). Similarly, Martínez et al. (2022b) conclude that hate often involves “the broader goal of actively removing targets from participant's lives (e.g., psychologically, socially, or symbolically) rather than physically harming or eliminating them by aggressive or violent means” (p. 59).

Despite evidence that hate motivates behavior, some researchers propose that it may instead substitute for action when anger cannot be expressed. Roseman (1984) argued that hate emerges when the behavioral impulses of anger are blocked, such as when it is unsafe to express anger toward one's boss. In this view, hatred is a strong feeling that motivates negative beliefs about enemies and maintains thoughts of their destruction, with anger driving subsequent actions. ¹¹ Similarly, Landweer (2020) contends that hate arises when outrage at a threat to one's status lacks a legally or socially recognized outlet, leaving retributive impulses unfulfilled. Indirectly supporting this view, Fitness and Fletcher (1993) found that participants reported feeling less control in situations where they hated a spouse than when they were angry with one.

At first glance, this “hatred-as-substitute” account seems inconsistent with evidence that hate is associated with greater levels of attack-oriented behaviors than anger (Martínez et al., 2022b). Yet this tension can be resolved without proclaiming one of these accounts wrong. We hypothesize that the affective state of hatred is promoted by conditions of powerlessness, helping individuals to overcome the high activation threshold required for aggression in such a milieu. In this view, hate transforms helplessness into readiness for extreme action, enabling people to engage in “nuclear” spiteful behaviors that harm the target even at a personal cost (McCarthy-Jones, 2021). Supporting this interpretation, Wolf (2013) found that participants frequently described hate as emerging from feelings of powerlessness and impotence, with hate becoming the means to reduce or eliminate the perceived threat. One participant in this study, a Palestinian militant, described how hate gave them, a “strength that is greater than fear.”

This hypothesis yields clear, testable predictions. For example, future research could examine whether experimentally increasing feelings of powerlessness toward an antagonist shifts participants’ motivational orientation from a desire to reform the target (characteristic of anger) to a desire to eliminate it (characteristic of hate). If done in an MRI scanner, it could also be examined whether any such increases in hate are accompanied by distinct patterns of neural activation (e.g., Zeki & Romaya, 2008).

Durability and Intensity

For hate to achieve the functions proposed above, it must be both enduring and intense. Sternberg (2005) gestures toward these qualities when he describes hate as “among the most powerful of human emotions” (p. 1). In line with this, many authors characterize hate as a lasting sentiment, that is, a deliberative, enduring and stable attitude toward objects, people, or ideas (Smith-Lovin, 1995; Vendrell Ferran, 2024). Aristotle noted this property more than two millennia ago, observing that hate, unlike anger, was not curable by time (Aristotle, 1926, 2.4, s30). Modern emotion theorists have echoed this view. Ekman and Cordaro (2011), for example, argue that hate is not emotion-like because it represents an “enduring state” that “does not subside” (p. 366). Similarly, Landweer (2020) emphasizes hate's persistence, remarking that “in many cases not even the death of the hated person puts an end to the emotion of the hater.” (p. 447). Nevertheless, other researchers portray hate as an intense, short-lived psychological and physiological response to a situation that helps us react quickly in an evolutionarily adaptive way (Vendrell Ferran, 2024).

Unfortunately, much of what has been written is not based on empirical evidence. Twenty years ago, Rempel and Burris (2005) observed that “empirical research demonstrating hate's relative stability is nearly non-existent” (p. 299). It is not clear that this situation has significantly altered since and more empirical work is needed here.

A productive way to reconcile opposing views of hate's durability was offered by Fischer et al. (2018), who proposed that hate can take both short-term and long-term forms. The first involves an immediate, powerful, burning hate, experienced in relation to a significant event (e.g., Halperin et al., 2012). The second takes the form of a stable “chronic hate” associated with extensive cognitions (Halperin et al., 2012) or “enduring hate” (Ben-Ze’ev, 2018). This dual-form model has been described by other hate researchers as “basically correct” (Ben-Ze’ev, 2018, p. 323). Just as fire can alternately rage and smolder, hate too may take multiple guises.

Focused Attention

Hate appears to involve the ability to sustain attention toward the object of hatred. This is firstly possible because hate is aimed at something; it is an intentional state, that is, a “feeling towards” (Goldie, 2002, p. 241) someone or something (Szanto, 2020). Several authors have proposed that hatred amplifies attentional focus on the target of hate (Aumer et al., 2016; Landweer, 2020). Landweer (2020) describes hate as involving a “contracting fixation” (p. 445) or “concentrated attention” (p. 448) on its target. Although similar fixations occur in other emotions, such as jealousy, Landweer argues that hate's concentration is distinctively powerful with people finding it hard to drag their attention away from the target. As Landweer puts it, hate “binds” (p. 448). When shared among group members, this binding effect can powerfully channel collective energies and focus toward addressing a perceived threat (see “Effective Transmission of Hate” below).

Empirical evidence supports the claim that hate leads to increased attentional focus. Liu et al. (2024), using the Attentional Blink Task, found that the presentation of hated people's names increased subsequent attention to a written number. The authors speculate that this effect may be caused by hatred causing task-related preparedness and alertness that creates a goal-directed state, and/or being an exceptionally strong social feeling that enhances attention.

Hate's attention-focusing abilities may also explain modern phenomena such as “hate following” on social media, where people attend to posts of hated individuals to gather information that can be used against them (Sell et al., 2021). Interestingly, Sell et al. also suggest that such attention is designed to avoid trying to understand the hated person or group. As they put it, “hatred shows an active aversion to understanding the perspective of the target” (p. 175). This raises an important question for future research; whether hatred actively disrupts theory of mind abilities or whether the information is simply not pursued.

Effective Transmission of Hate

For hatred to succeed it must be amenable to coalition building. The mechanisms involved in human challenges to dominance hierarchies may parallel those in alpha male takeovers among nonhuman primates (Teichroeb & Jack, 2017). In both chimpanzee and human societies, violence within dominance hierarchies often involves coalitional aggression, whereby individuals form alliances to challenge, defend, or reshape the social order (Wrangham, 1999; Boehm, 1999). This suggests that hatred would have been more effective if it could be readily shared, allowing one individual to recruit others into a coordinated response. For this reason, hatred appears to have evolved to be easily transmitted.

Of course, it is in the nature of many emotions to resonate with others and be shared. As Rimé (2009) puts it, “an emotional experience elicits the social sharing of this experience” (p. 60). Yet hate may be especially sharable due to its intensity. One explanation for the intensity of hate, suggested by Martínez et al. (2022a), is that it often arises from threats to people's values and moral convictions, which are themselves associated with strong emotions. This intensity may increase both the motivation to express hate and others’ susceptibility to adopt it.

The concept of memetic transmission (Dawkins, 1976) offers a useful analogy: ideas and narratives spread through populations much like viruses. Hatred also proliferates through shared narratives that define and justify enmity. Foster (2003) describes hatred as “a rage given root by stories” (p. 9). Such stories are learnt through socialization or propaganda (Sternberg, 2003; Sternberg & Sternberg, 2008). Fischer et al. (2018) note that hatred of one group by another is promoted by hatred being shared between in-group members, particularly in contexts of collective trauma or intergroup tension. Such sharing reinforces the memory of past victimization, intensifies negative emotions, and strengthens feelings of collective victimhood, thereby creating enduring hatred toward the out-group. Fischer et al. also point out how collective victimhood sustains hatred across generations by framing the out-group as a homogeneous and consistently malicious entity. Even individuals who have not personally suffered from the out-group's actions may adopt these sentiments through inherited group narratives, further entrenching the perception of the out-group as inherently malevolent. Again, this emphasizes how hate can spread through stories. Szanto (2020) attempts to capture this aspect of hate by terming it an “enduring affective-intentional attitude” (p. 457). The idea of hate as a story or enduring attitude accords with its ability to survive both the death of the hater and the hated. It also underscores hate's nature as a response to symbolic threat, a form of danger that can persist long after the individual who once gave it voice is gone.

Hate and the Politics of Egalitarianism

The preceding discussion of hate's properties helps clarify the core mechanisms through which it operates, allowing us to assess what benefits hate may confer, both in our evolutionary past and in recent and contemporary contexts. We now return to this question by examining the idea, introduced earlier, that one of hate's key functions may be its capacity to help those in weaker positions confront or overcome disadvantageous situations imposed by more powerful others.

As discussed above, hate may have evolved in response to selection pressures associated with competition for rank and resources within dominance hierarchies. In this sense, it exemplifies what Fitness (2000) terms a “power-related emotion” (p. 150). At the personal level, hate may redress power dynamics in relationships or create appropriate distance in toxic relationships. At the societal level, hate may mobilize challenges to the status quo, driving necessary social change to end state terror, perceived injustice and unfair distributions of resources and wealth. Indeed, research suggests that causes of hate often involve threats to one's social position, status, or worth. This literature is worth briefly reviewing.

Hate has been described as a reaction to “a belittlement of our feeling of self-worth” (Vendrell Ferran, 2021, p. 409), ¹² humiliation, or other feelings of being neglected or inferior (Landweer, 2022). Empirical evidence supports an important role for self-relevant threats in the etiology of hate (Martínez et al., 2022b). In the context of interpersonal relations, specifically married spouses, hate has been found to be most often caused by the perception that one had been “badly treated, unsupported, or humiliated by the partner” (Fitness & Fletcher, 1993, p. 945). Additional triggers were found to include perceived unfairness, depreciation, and either being ignored or not listened to by a partner. In workplace settings, Fitness (2000) reported that offenses committed against employees were associated with greater feelings of hate if they involved humiliation, although levels of anger did not differ between humiliating and nonhumiliating offenses. This suggests that hate, more so than anger, is sensitive to social status threats.

As discussed earlier, the hate-inducing impact of social threats seems to vary asymmetrically depending on whether the threat is perceived to originate from individuals or groups positioned below or above one in the social hierarchy. Hatred appears to have evolved to mobilize resistance against superiors, enabling individuals to confront situations of subordination and to transform feelings of powerlessness into action (Landweer, 2020). Nuance has been added to this perspective by Szanto (2020) who claims that hatred is “directed towards those whom one feels powerless and is yet dependent upon” (p. 456), as in the case of a partner or an employer. Notably in relation to this claim, depression, which has been argued to be caused by social subordination experiences (Wetherall et al., 2019), has been found to precede experiences of hatred in spouses (Fitness & Fletcher, 1993). Fitness and Fletcher also found that hate toward a spouse was associated with feelings of low self-control and high perceived obstacles, which they took to suggest that the partner with less power in an unhappy relationship may be more likely to feel hate than anger. Together, these findings suggest that hate arises most readily among those who feel constrained or dominated, and that it may serve to restore a sense of agency and control.

If, as Landweer (2020) argues, hate is an emotion of the “socially inferior” (p. 448), and if, as highlighted earlier, hate arises as a response to a threatened moral order that gives life coherence and meaning, we should expect hate to play a prominent role in egalitarian social movements. Yet, to our eyes, the role of hatred in such movements appears to have been largely overlooked. We therefore suggest that future research consider hate not only as a destructive force but also as a potentially mobilizing emotion, which can empower the powerless, galvanize collective resistance, and challenge entrenched hierarchies. As a spur to such work, we offer some initial thoughts on this topic, highlighting how modern revolutions and anti-imperial struggles illustrate this dynamic.

Hate and the French Revolution

The French Revolution evidences a role for hatred within social revolutionary movements. Many of the preconditions for hate were present; people experienced themselves as socially subordinate, there was a need to delineate and unite this group against an oppressor, they faced an “enemy” of seemingly invincible power, and there was a powerful moral argument that change was needed. The lawyers who led this revolution, such as Maximilien Robespierre, deliberately sought to mobilize hatred as a political instrument, not merely targeted against persons but also against an immoral social order.

On May 7, 1794, Robespierre proposed a decree to the National Convention that would create the Cult of the Supreme Being. In this, he emphasized that the French Republic should celebrate the “hatred of tyrants and traitors” (Smyth, 2016). Later that year, at the Festival of the Supreme Being on June 8, Robespierre highlighted exactly the sort of conditions that we would expect to generate hate and did so at the level of the nation. He spoke of “a whole nation… grappling with all the oppressions of the human race” (Halsall, 1997). He then introduced moral beliefs, explaining that it was the Supreme Being (the revolution's secular version of God) that “impels the just man to hate the evil one” (Halsall, 1997). Robespierre concluded his speech by saying:

Hatred of bad faith and tyranny burns in our hearts, with love of justice and the fatherland. Our blood flows for the cause of humanity. Behold our prayer. Behold our sacrifices. Behold the worship we offer Thee (Halsall, 1997).

The importance of hatred was often reiterated by the leadership of the revolution, to both encourage and justify the actions taken against those perceived as enemies of the new republic, particularly during the Reign of Terror. Leaders of the revolution were clear that such hatred should aim at the elimination of the targets of hatred. ¹³ For example, as the 36th President of the French National Convention, Louis Saint-Just stated, “What constitutes a Republic is the complete destruction of what is opposed to it” (Hampson, 2013, p. 222). Similarly, as has been noted, “[i]n speech after speech, Robespierre asserted that the only way to preserve the Revolution was to destroy its enemies in France” leading to the guillotine becoming the solution to socioeconomic problems (Moore Jr, 1998, p. 18).

Hate and Marxism

Robespierre's characterization of the French Revolution as a cult of hate for whom blood would flow acted as a prelude for the bloodshed that would stem from the twentieth century's dominant left-wing social movement, Marxism. This is not to say that Marx himself was inspired by hate, though it is instructive to note Bakunin's description of Marx: “I eagerly sought his [Marx's] conversation, which was always instructive and witty when it was not inspired by petty hate, which alas! was only too often the case” (Bakunin, as cited in Dolgoff, 1971, p. 25).

Marxist leaders have often invoked hate in their struggles, with hate being mobilized as a response to perceived violations of a just moral order. For Lenin and Trotsky, hatred was not merely a pragmatic tool for class struggle but a righteous moral response to exploitation and oppression. Lenin repeatedly invoked hate in his writings, using it to inspire revolutionary fervor and solidarity. He called on his readers to “Hate the imperialist plunderers, hate capitalism” (Lenin, 1974a, p. 163), pointed to the peasants’ hatred of their oppressors, observing that they “hate the landlords” (Lenin, 1977a, p. 407), and predicted that the proletariat “will learn [to] hate the bourgeoisie's treacheries” (Lenin, 1977b, p. 468). Lenin emphasized the importance of historical resentment, declaring that Russians “hate our slavish past” (Lenin, 1974b, p. 104) and that “centuries of feudal oppression… piled up mountains of hate, resentment, and desperate determination” (Lenin, 1977c, p. 206). He also framed hatred as a transformative force, asserting that “the slave can learn to hate his fetters more consciously and more strongly, the quicker to throw them off” (Lenin, 1974c, p. 541). Through these statements, Lenin positioned hate as both a natural response to oppression and a tool for revolutionary change.

Trotsky likewise emphasized the role of hate as a revolutionary force, portraying it as both a moral response to exploitation and a means of energizing the struggle against oppression. He spoke of “hate for the exploiters and their system” (Trotsky, 1932) and argued that workers must be taught to “hate and despise the agents of imperialism” (Trotsky, 1938). Trotsky described the peasants’ “healthy plebian hatred” (Trotsky, 1936) and the “razor-edged hate of the workers” (Trotsky, 1924) as essential tools for revolutionary action. He also endorsed the Russian military's hatred for Britain, calling it “just and sacred” and claiming it would “multiply your energies in the struggle against the enemy tenfold” (Trotsky, 1919a). Furthermore, he praised his comrades for knowing “how to hate the enemies of the proletariat” (Trotsky, 1919b). Both Lenin and Trotsky hence framed hate as a morally righteous and galvanizing force that could transform weakness into strength in the pursuit of justice and liberation.

Consistent with the claim that hatred is “essential for the successful conduct of… war” (Stillman, as cited in Ballard & McDowell, 1991, p. 229), many Marxist revolutionary fighters also emphasized hatred. Guevara (1967) talked of:

Hatred as an element of the struggle; a relentless hatred of the enemy, impelling us over and beyond the natural limitations that man is heir to and transforming him into an effective, violent, selective and cold killing machine. Our soldiers must be thus; a people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy.

Guevara's words capture one of the paradoxes of hate; it can help overcoming brutal oppression but does so by replicating it. As Brudholm (2020) notes, “even appropriately directed hatred and anger damage or brutalize their holder,” creating “an additional problem for the ethics of urging other people to hate” (p. 83).

Hate and the Struggle for Irish Independence

In Ireland, nine months before his execution by the British for his role in the Easter Rising of 1916, Pádraig Pearse stood at the graveside of his fellow Irish revolutionary Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa and delivered a fervent oration. Pearse proclaimed: “we pledge to English rule in Ireland our hate… I hold it a Christian thing… to hate evil, to hate untruth, to hate oppression—and, hating them, to strive to overthrow them” (Pearse, 1917, p. 136). ¹⁴ For Pearse (1916), such hatred was not merely justifiable but was one's duty: “hate may be as pure and good a thing as love,” he argued, “being as necessary to moral sanity and growth as sun and storm are to physical life and growth” (p. 366). Embracing hate as a moral force not only inspired Pearse to take up arms during the Easter Rising but also enabled him to embrace martyrdom through an act of blood sacrifice (Foy & Barton, 2011; Murphy, 2016), a pivotal moment that laid the foundation for Irish independence.

Conclusion and Future Directions

While limited empirical research and diversity in the way hate is defined hamper efforts to draw conclusions, the material reviewed here suggests that hate is not merely “a perversion of the positive possibilities for humankind” (Sternberg, 2003, p. 315) but also a force capable of motivating liberation from oppression. As Elnakouri et al. (2022) note, hate might be productively used today to “animate contemporary politics today by energizing political polarization… worldwide protests against corruption and inequality… and online social outrage.” Perhaps hate is a necessary poison to cure the illness of tyranny. What remains to be done, in addition to further work on the moral appropriateness of hate (as noted above), is research that, as Elnakouri et al. have recently called for, explores “the pros and cons of using hate to pursue a worthy end.”

From the perspective of this paper, the pros of using hate to achieve worthy ends center around its ability to effectively motivate and sustain resistance against those higher in power and social status. These benefits stem from hate's distinctive properties; it's durability and intensity, and its ability to focus attention, motivate action, provide meaning, and create coalitions with others. In this light, it is worth asking whether modern cultural taboos against hate serve not only to prevent harm to the vulnerable but also to suppress hatred aimed at those who wield power.

Yet if hate can help overturn injustice, it can also reproduce it. History shows both how hatred can play a role in overthrowing social structures that are seen as oppressive or unjust and the dangers of such hatred (e.g., Margolin, 2008; Rummel, 2017; Viola et al., 2008). Hate is a much more dangerous tool now than it was in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness in which it evolved. While tribal hate could lead to warfare spanning generations and even the annihilation of whole tribes, modern hate operates in a world where escalation can be global and catastrophic. Escalation in conflicts in in the twentieth century, and most recently the Middle East and Ukraine, come with the danger of the use of weapons of mass destruction.

Moreover, whereas the elimination of an out-group may have been seen as the successful resolution of a conflict in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness, modern liberal societies define success through reconciliation and compromise. Because hate is characterized by a desire to eliminate the target, it may now act as a barrier to peace. In finding that levels of hatred in Israelis predicted their unwillingness to reconcile with Palestinians, Halperin (2011) concluded that hate was “a major emotional barrier to peace” (p. 40). Hate may also lead to increased support for military actions in the wake of failed negotiations (Halperin et al., 2009). Cultural changes in what is deemed a successful resolution to a conflict are hence likely to lead to hate being seen not as a solution but as part of the problem. ¹⁵ For these and other reasons, many would argue against hate as a valid source of motivation within a liberation movement. Dr Luther King Jr (2013), for example, argued that activists should not seek to satisfy their “thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred” (p. 187).

Others, however, have argued that hate can be ethically harnessed for liberation. In the 1960s, Marcuse (1970) acknowledged hatred as a revolutionary force, arguing that “the hatred of exploitation and oppression is itself a humane and humanistic element” (p. 79). He also saw dangerously corrupting elements, warning that “in the course of the revolutionary movement itself this hatred can turn into cruelty, brutality, and terror. The boundary between the two is horribly and extraordinarily in flux” (p. 79). Marcuse warned to guard against this transformation, asserting that part of the revolutionary task was to prevent such a development. For him, the constructive application of hatred did not require dehumanization or excessive violence; he argued that “[o]ne can hit an opponent, one can vanquish an opponent, without cutting off his ears, without severing his limbs, without torturing him” (p. 79). This view of hatred expresses the hope that it is possible to combine its revolutionary potential with the need for ethical vigilance to ensure it remains a force for liberation rather than renewed oppression.

What appears critical to the successful use of hate in such situations is an awareness of hate's termination conditions. Sell and Lopez's (2020) evolutionary model implies that there are certain end conditions that should stop hatred. The first involves turning off the activating conditions for hate. Discovering a shared humanity through dialogue has demonstrated its effectiveness (De Vries & De Paor, 2005). This suggests an important role for education and community engagement in the resolution of conflict and the elimination of hatred. The other end-condition for hate in Sell and Lopez's model involves hatred fulfilling its function after weakening, excluding, or killing the target. The question then becomes how hate can be turned off when an enemy has been weakened, rather than going all the way to exclusion or elimination. Part of the perception of weakening may involve the belief that a more equitable situation has been reached and that the threat has been removed. Sell et al. (2021) similarly note that hate should deactivate when the target's association value becomes zero or positive (i.e., the target's existence either has no impact on the other person's reproductive success or promotes it). They suggest this can occur because of reevaluation of a target's actions (e.g., mistaken identity, mistaken attribution of motive), shifting alliances (an enemy becomes an ally), or if the costs of hatred outweigh their benefits (e.g., spiteful actions). However, the extent to which such reevaluation is undertaken is likely to depend on the cognitive flexibility (Zmigrod et al., 2019) and divergent thinking skills (Groyecka-Bernard et al., 2021) of the hater. If hatred is to be productively used, more needs to be understood about such termination conditions.

Going forward, there is also the need to clarify hate's relationship to other emotions and behaviors. In relation to other behaviors, the role of hatred in motivating spite is an important question to be addressed by future research. To date, research has focused on the role of anger in generating spiteful behavior but has largely overlooked a potential role for hate (McCarthy-Jones, 2021). In relation to other emotions, the impact of humiliation and shame on hate appears in need of further investigation (Scheff, 2004). For instance, potential linkages between shame and hate can be seen in the development of both right- and left-wing populism in response to increasing globalization and economic deregulation in recent decades (Betz, 1994; Betz, 2005; Salmela & von Scheve, 2017). ¹⁶

There is clearly much to be done to support society in confronting the challenge of productively managing the all-too-human experience of hate. Such work will benefit from being interdisciplinary in nature, combining moral philosophical work on hate with empirical data from psychological studies of hatred. Dismissing all hate as undesirable and in need of suppression misses the point that hate is a potentially important signal of and solution to oppression and distress. The challenge is not necessarily to eradicate hate but to work out how what evolved to destroy may, under the right conditions, serve to defend dignity, justice, and freedom. Whether the actions hate leads to will be a poison, rather than a cure, should not be a foregone conclusion.