為殖民統治辯解最常見的說法之一便是聲稱自由、平等、人的尊嚴和權利，以及建基於這些價值且其功能在奉守這些價值的制度──更廣泛而言，許多我們會與人文精神聯想的價值，在鬆散的定義上──都是殖民者給予被殖民者的禮物。印度及其他地區的反殖民運動不變地指出：事實上殖民統治建立在有系統的侵害人文精神之上；在如上的行動中，這些運動含蓄地或明白地接受了人文精神的價值，主張唯有終止殖民統治才可能持續實踐人文精神的價值。本文簡要回顧這些論點，並繼續思考一個，出現在某些說法語的反殖民思想家著作中的，更加「激進」的立場。法農、塞澤爾和其他人提出：不僅歐洲不曾遵循其人文精神，甚或其人文精神已必要且不可避免地與殖民主義妥協，而且排斥「在地人」是歐洲人文精神的組成成分；它並非偶然的和可治療的種族主義者，而是在本質上和組成上即是如此。本文對此論點加以評價，並以提出人文精神，如果有的話，在今日的價值為何的疑問結尾。

One of the most common justifications for colonial rule was the claim that liberty, equality, the dignity and rights of man, and institutions that were premised on these values and functioned to enshrine them- more generally, many of the values we associate with humanism, loosely defined- were to be the gift of the coloniser to the colonised. Anti-colonial movements in India and elsewhere invariably pointed out that in fact colonial rule rested upon the systematic violation of humanism; in doing so, they implicitly or explicitly accepted humanist values, arguing that only with an end to colonial rule would it be possible for these to be consistently applied. Briefly tracing these arguments, this paper goes on to consider a more "radical" position, one to be found in the writings of some Francophone anti-colonial thinkers. Fanon, Cesaire and others suggested, not just that Europe had not lived up to its humanism, or even that its humanism was necessarily and inescapably compromised by colonialism, but rather that exclusion of the "native" was constitutive of European humanism; that it was not accidentally and remediably racist, but inherently and constitutively so. Evaluating this argument, this paper concludes by asking what value, if any, humanism has today.