Is disgust morally valuable? The answer to that question turns, in large part, on what we can do to shape disgust for the better. But this cultivation question has received surprisingly little attention in philosophical debates. To address this deficiency, this article examines empirical work on disgust and emotion regulation. This research reveals that while we can exert some control over how we experience disgust, there’s little we can do to substantively change it at a more (...) fundamental level. These empirical insights have revisionary implications both for debates about disgust’s moral value and for our understanding of agency and moral development more generally. (shrink)

Suppose that disgust can provide evidence of moral wrongdoing. What account of disgust might make sense of this? A recent and promising theory is the social contagion view, proposed by Alexandra Plakias. After criticizing both its descriptive and normative claims, I draw two conclusions. First, we should question the wisdom of drawing so straight a line from biological poisons and pathogens to social counterparts. Second, we don’t need to explain the evidential value of disgust by appealing to (...) what the response tracks. These lessons point toward an alternative: namely, that disgust is a moral heuristic. On the heuristic view, disgust is a trigger for the subconscious use of a particular rule: I show how this view fits with a plausible hypothesis about the social function of disgust, and then apply it to Leon Kass’s famous use of repugnance to criticize cloning. (shrink)

"What is the significance of our gut feelings? Can they disclose our deep selves or point to a shared human nature? The phenomenon of perpetrator disgust provides a uniquely insightful perspective by which to consider such questions. Across time and cultures, some individuals exhibit signs of distress while committing atrocities. They experience nausea, convulse, and vomit. Do such bodily responses reflect a moral judgment, a deep-seated injunction against atrocity? What conclusions can we draw about the relationship of our gut (...) feelings to human nature and moral frameworks? Drawing on a broad range of historical examples as well as the latest scholarship from the philosophical and scientific study of emotions, this book explores the relationship of cognition and emotion through the lens of perpetrator disgust. Considering a range of interpretations of this phenomenon, it becomes evident that gut feelings do not carry a straightforward and transparent intentionality in themselves, nor do they motivate any core, specific response; they are templates that can embody a broad range of values and morals. Using this core insight, the book proposes a contextual understanding of emotions, by which an agent's environment shapes their available hermeneutic equipment-concepts, categories, names-that individuals rely on to make sense of their emotions and navigate the world"--. (shrink)

The transparency thesis for disgust claims that what is disgusting in nature is always also disgusting in art. Versions of the thesis have been endorsed by, among others, Kant, Lessing, Mendelssohn, and, more recently, Arthur Danto, Carolyn Korsmeyer, and Jenefer Robinson. The present paper articulates and discusses different readings of the thesis. It concludes that the transparency thesis is false.

I sketch and defend an imperativist treatment of the phenomenology associated with disgusting smells. This treatment, I argue, allows us to make better sense than other intentionalist alter-natives both of the neuroanatomy of olfaction, and of a natural pre-theoretical stance regarding the sense of smell.

Disgust is universal to humans across the globe in its broader aspects and localised and individualistic in its specific locus and formations. In general, the emotion of disgust is that it works as an anchor against existential dread, the anxiety of death (angst), and the fear of loss of meaning (abject). It is disgusting to look at rotting bodies or slimy, sticky, throbbing, odorous things because it reminds us of the insignificance of life itself. Objects of disgust (...) are rude organic and cosmic reminders of our very anthropocentric and vainglorious conceptions of the self as Being-in-the-World (In-der-Welt-sein). However, disgust is also deeply embedded with networks of social and political power and is used as a tool in encounters with the other. The other target of this disgust could be from the categories of other gender, race, caste, class, and sexualities. This paper tries to engage with a few of those categories in order to understand how disgust as an emotion has both an existential and socio-political charge in-itself. It then tries to analyse Subimal Mishra’s works through the lens and posits the possibility of using disgust as a literary device. (shrink)

Recent empirical research seems to show that emotions play a substantial role in moral judgment. Perhaps the most important line of support for this claim focuses on disgust. A number of philosophers and scientists argue that there is adequate evidence showing that disgust significantly influences various moral judgments. And this has been used to support or undermine a range of philosophical theories, such as sentimentalism and deontology. I argue that the existing evidence does not support such arguments. At (...) best it suggests something rather different: that moral judgment can have a minor emotive function, in addition to a substantially descriptive one. (shrink)

It has been recently argued, contrary to the received eighteenth-century view, that disgust is compatible with aesthetic pleasure. According to such arguments, what allows this compatibility is the interest that art appreciators sometimes bestow on the cognitive content of disgust. On this view, the most interesting aspect of this cognitive content is identified in meanings connected with human mortality. The aim of this paper is to show that these arguments are unsuccessful.

Two studies demonstrate that a dispositional proneness to disgust (“disgust sensitivity”) is associated with intuitive disapproval of gay people. Study 1 was based on previous research showing that people are more likely to describe a behavior as intentional when they see it as morally wrong (see Knobe, 2006, for a review). As predicted, the more disgust sensitive participants were, the more likely they were to describe an agent whose behavior had the side effect of causing gay men (...) to kiss in public as having intentionally encouraged gay men to kiss publicly— even though most participants did not explicitly think it wrong to encourage gay men to kiss in public. No such effect occurred when subjects were asked about heterosexual kissing. Study 2 used the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Nosek, Banaji, & Greenwald, 2006) as a dependent measure. The more disgust sensitive participants were, the more they showed.. (shrink)

In Savoring Disgust, Carolyn Korsmeyer argues that disgust is peculiar amongst emotions, for it does not need any of the standard solutions to the so-called paradox of fiction. I argue that Korsmeyer’s arguments in support of the peculiarity of disgust with respect to the paradox of fiction are not successful.

In 1929 when Aurel Kolnai published his essay “On Disgust” in Husserl's ]ahrbuch he could truly assert that disgust was a "sorely neglected" topic. Now, however, this situation is changing as philosophers, psychologists, and historians of culture are turning their attention not only to emotions in general but more specifically to the large and disturbing set of aversive emotions, including disgust. We here provide an account of Kolnai’s contribution to the study of the phenomenon of disgust, (...) of his general theory of emotions and of the phenomenological methodology he employed in his work. (shrink)

Carolyn Korsmeyer’s Savoring Disgust is a book that, in spite of its seemingly unsavoury subject matter, deserves to be widely read. Written in an accessible yet richly suggestive prose, it is the first systematic investigation in English-speaking contemporary philosophy of the aesthetic and artistic significance of the emotion of disgust. Korsmeyer’s book discusses a wealth of issues that is difficult to match and presents a comprehensive and organic approach to a previously underexplored topic. The intelligence of its analysis (...) and the elegance of its prose prove that one can indeed be pleasurably absorbed in matters disgusting. (shrink)

Disgust has been a perennial feature of art from medieval visions of hell to postmodern travesties. The purpose of this chapter is to chart various ways in which disgust functions in artworks both in terms of content and style, canvassing cases in which the content and/or style is literally disgusting in contrast to cases where the disgust serves to characterize the content, often for moral or political or broader cultural purposes.

Emergency situations require individuals to make important changes in their behavior. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, official recommendations to avoid the spread of the virus include costly behaviors such as self-quarantining or drastically diminishing social contacts. Compliance (or lack thereof) with these recommendations is a controversial and divisive topic, and lay hypotheses abound regarding what underlies this divide. This paper investigates which cognitive, moral, and emotional traits separate people who comply with official recommendations from those who don't. In (...) four studies (three pre-registered) on both U.S. and French samples, we found that individuals' self-reported compliance with official recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic was partly driven by individual differences in moral values, disgust sensitivity, and psychological reactance. We discuss the limitations of our studies and suggest possible applications in the context of health communication. (shrink)

In spite of the many important findings made within the theory of emotions, scholars still struggle to coherently account for the unique structure of disgust or determine its essence. In contrast to much of the contemporary literature on disgust, I aim to show that, through employing the phenomenological method in his 1929 essay “Disgust” (Der Ekel), Aurel Kolnai was able to grasp the real significance of the phenomenon of disgust. The current study aims to clarify and (...) present Kolnai’s insight into the nature of disgust wherein the latter is first and foremost conceived as an ambivalent, multifaceted, but coherent phenomenon. Namely, as a defense mechanism that reacts against the proximity of a disturbing object charged with an ambiguous value of confusion that fluctuates between surplus of life and intention towards death. In order to achieve this goal, I present Kolnai’s notion of disgust by first focusing on the foreground of the phenomena of disgust: the essential features of the intentional content of disgust, the object of disgust in particular. I then present and analyze the life-death complex as the underlying structures of the visceral sense of disgust. Lastly, I show how the life-death complex relates to the visceral sense of disgust, thereby affirming the coherence of disgust. (shrink)

In recent years, philosophers have begun to uncover the role played by verbal conduct in generating oppressive social structures. I examine the oppressive illocutionary uses, and perlocutionary effects, of expressives: speech acts that are not truth-apt, merely expressing attitudes, such as desires, preferences, and emotions. Focusing on expressions of disgust in conversation, I argue for two claims: that expressions of disgust can activate in the local, conversational context the oppressive power of the underlying structures of oppression; that conversational (...) expressions of disgust can, via the pragmatic process of presupposition accommodation, contribute to morally problematic cases of disgust contagion. (shrink)

Empirical research indicates that feelings of disgust actually affect our moral beliefs and moral motivations. The question is, should they? Daniel Kelly argues that they should not. More particularly, he argues for what we may call the irrelevancy thesis and the anti-moralization thesis. According to the irrelevancy thesis, feelings of disgust should be given no weight when judging the moral character of an action (or norm, practice, outcome, or ideal). According to the anti-moralization thesis, feelings of disgust (...) should not be allowed a role in, or harnessed in the service of, moral motivation. In this paper, I will argue against both theses, staking out a moderate position according to which feelings of disgust can (but needn’t always) play a proper role in aid of moral belief formation and moral motivation. (shrink)

According to the so-called transparency thesis, what is disgusting in nature cannot but be disgusting in art. This paper critically discusses the arguments that have been put forward in favour of the transparency thesis, starting with Korsmeyer's (2011) sensory view of disgust. As an alternative, it offers an account of the relationship between disgust and representation that explains, at least in part, whatever truth there is in the transparency thesis. Such an account appeals to a distinction between object-centric (...) and situation-centric emotions. (shrink)

In his The Meaning of Disgust, Colin McGinn employs elements of the phenomenological theory of disgust advanced by Aurel Kolnai in 1929. Kolnai’s treatment of what he calls “material” disgust and of its primary elicitors—putrefying organic matter, bodily wastes and secretions, sticky contaminants, vermin—anticipates more recent scientific treatments of this emotion as a mode of protective recoil. While Nina Strohminger charges McGinn with neglecting such scientific studies, we here attempt to show how Kolnai goes beyond experimental findings (...) in his careful description of the phenomenological differences between disgust and other emotions of forceful disapproval. (shrink)

The rhetoric of disgust is common in moral discourse and political propaganda. Some believe it's pernicious, for it convinces without evidence. But scientific research now suggests that disgust is typically an effect, not a cause, of moral judgment. At best the emotion on its own only sometimes slightly amplifies a moral belief one already has. Appeals to disgust are thus dialectically unhelpful in discourse that seeks to convince. When opponents of abortion use repulsive images to make their (...) case, they convince few, even if they rally their base. When champions of animal rights show graphic depictions of the torturous conditions of animals in factory farms, they convince only those previously ignorant of the severity of such conditions. Ultimately, disgust may be less pernicious than it is useless. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend a novel skeptical view about moral disgust. I argue that much recent discussion of moral disgust neglects an important ontological question: is there a distinctive psychological state of moral disgust that is differentiable from generic disgust, and from other psychological states? I investigate the ontological question and propose two conditions that any aspiring account of moral disgust must satisfy: it must be a genuine form of disgust, and it must (...) be genuinely moral. Next, I examine two prominent accounts of moral disgust by John Kekes and Victor Kumar and argue that neither successfully establishes the existence of genuinely moral disgust: Kekes’ account does not satisfy the second condition, and Kumar’s view does not meet the first. I claim that an important general lesson can be drawn from my critiques of Kekes’ and Kumar’s accounts: to establish the existence of moral disgust, one must provide unequivocal evidence that genuinely moral disgust, not generic disgust or anger, is being elicited in response to relevant moral violations. I conclude by considering why we ought to be skeptical about the general prospect of giving a positive answer to the ontological question, given the available evidence. (shrink)

An influential argument in bioethics involves appeal to disgust, calling on us to take it seriously as a moral guide (e.g. Kass, Miller, Kahan). Some argue, for example, that genetic enhancement, especially via human reproductive cloning, is repellant or grotesque. While objectors have argued that repugnance is morally irrelevant (e.g. Nussbaum, Kelly), I argue that the problem is more fundamental: it is psychologically irrelevant. Examining recent empirical data suggests that disgust’s influence on moral judgment may be like fatigue: (...) an exogenous influence, yielding a “performance error” that does not reflect our understanding of moral matters. This conclusion also challenges appeals to repugnance on other topics (such as homosexuality) and generally downplays the importance of disgust in moral discourse. (shrink)

Mindreading is the ability to attribute mental states to other individuals. According to the Theory-Theory (TT), mindreading is based on one's possession of a Theory of Mind. On the other hand, the Simulation Theory (ST) maintains that one arrives at the attribution of a mental state by simulating it in one's own mind. In this paper, I propose a ST-TT hybrid model of the ability to attribute disgust on the basis of visual stimuli such as facial expressions, body postures, (...) etc. More precisely, while I defend Goldman's (2006) thesis that the ability to attribute disgust based on observing disgusted facial expressions stems from a mirror-based simulation process, I argue that ST is unable to account for the ability to attribute disgust based on non-facial visual stimuli; I propose, rather, that this latter ability is theory-based. My model is grounded in evidence from individuals suffering from Huntington's Disease. (shrink)

Citation: Christodoulou, Marina. “Philosophical An(n)ales: Ugliness Abject Disgust ... as an allergy to the (Feminine) Other”, in Wassard Elea Rivista III, no 3 (giugno12,2016), 119-141. -/- -------- -/- Ugliness Abject Disgust ... as an allergy to the (Feminine) Other -/- Appendix: Towards a Philosophy of Poop The Anti-Aesthetics of Scat, the Philosophy of Disgust and the Scato- Libidinal Economy.

The aesthetics of body and dress are in a continuous flux. The body, being the locus where fashion challenges the traditional norms, escapes from the narrow boundaries of the conventionally beautiful; the disgusting soma, in the realm of Negative Aesthetics, takes its place. In this paper, I attempt to define what is disgusting fashion and how can contribute to the deliberation of the body from the restricting margins of the aesthetically beautiful. The distorted imagery of the feminine soma is the (...) center of the analysis of the non-beautiful as an aesthetically pleasing phenomenon. Different examples of repulsive clothing are analyzed from a philosophical point of view, in order to understand the relation between the negative emotional responses towards disgusting fashion and its aesthetic value. -/- . (shrink)

I discuss two interrelated ways in which disgust functions in motherhood. First, relaxation of the mother’s sense of disgust allows her to nurture her child more effectively. Second, others’ responses of disgust are used to enforce social norms regarding the “good” mother. If the mother acquiesces, she must continually monitor and tidy her child, which may interfere with the child’s exploration of the world. If she does not, she is subject to ongoing signs that she is flawed (...) or failing as a mother. (shrink)

In two very influential papers from 2008, Tamar Gendler introduced the concept of “alief” to describe the mental state one is in when acting in ways contrary to their consciously professed beliefs. For example, if asked to eat what they know is fudge, but shaped into the form of dog feces, they will hesitate, and behave in a manner that would be consistent with the belief that the fudge is really poop. They alieve that it is disgusting, while they believe (...) it is not. This paper investigates laughter from self-proclaimed egalitarian, tolerant folk, in response to oppressive jokes that might fit the alief-model. If I merely alieve the content of a joke at which I laugh, will that constitute morally exculpating reasons for such laughter? And what else might it imply? This paper will provide insights at the intersections of humor studies, ethics, epistemology, phenomenology, and the philosophy of mind, all while being moderately and appropriately amusing. (shrink)

Starting from the notion of the Ideal Feminine, this paper discusses the representation of trauma and the portrayal of women as open wounds in the designs of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano. Particularly, I explore how the McQueen’s Deadly Woman and Galliano’s Doll question the boundaries between mortality, sexuality and decay. By examining the relationship between fear, desire and disgust in the aesthetic representation of the wounded fashioned body, I argue that in their works disgust functions as an (...) empowering emotion, contributing to the perception of the aversive fashioned body as a feministic act. (shrink)

Drawing on the well-established understanding of the zombie as metaphor for the deadening effects of consumer capitalism, this chapter seeks to account for three distinct changes that contextualise 21st century zombie fiction. The first is situational: the global economic crisis has amplified the anxieties that inspired Romero's critique of consumer capitalism in Dawn of the Dead (1978). The second is intellectual: as Chapman and Anderson (2011) note, there has been an “explosion of research on all aspects of disgust” in (...) recent years. The third concerns the subgenre itself: zombies have become increasingly sexualised since the late 1990s. These issues intersect in a numerous recent zombie films - including Zombie Strippers! (2008), Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! (2008), Big Tits Zombie (2010), and Zombies Vs Strippers (2012) - that are centred around or within strip clubs. Stripping epitomises the logic of consumer capitalism, offering tantalising promises but little physical satisfaction. Stripping translates sexual desire into a voyeuristic transaction, evacuated of corporeal messiness. The zombie’s decomposing body epitomises disgust, and its presence in the strip-club disturbs the fantasy typically provided within that context. In the zombie infected strip-club, intimate contact is damaging rather than desirous. In these respects, zombies hypostatize numerous tensions that are usually masked by fantasy and financial exchange. In doing so, these zombies reify the horrors of late capitalism. Their disgusting bodies disrupt the foundational logic of consumerism qua desire. (shrink)

In this article, an account of the architecture of the cognitive contamination system is offered, according to which the contamination system can generate contamination represen- tations in circumstances that do not satisfy the norms of contamination, including in cases of mere visual contact with disgusting objects. It is argued that this architecture is important for explaining the content, logic, distribution, and persistence of maternal impression beliefs – according to which fetal defects are caused by the pregnant mother’s experiences and actions (...) – which in turn provide important evidence of the architecture of the cognitive contamination system. (shrink)

I offer the first sustained defence of the claim that ugliness is constituted by the disposition to disgust. I advance three main lines of argument in support of this thesis. First, ugliness and disgustingness tend to lie in the same kinds of things and properties (the argument from ostensions). Second, the thesis is better placed than all existing accounts to accommodate the following facts: ugliness is narrowly and systematically distributed in a heterogenous set of things, ugliness is sometimes enjoyed, (...) and ugliness sits opposed to beauty across a neutral midpoint (the argument from proposed intensions). And third, ugliness and disgustingness function in the same way in both giving rise to representations of contamination (the argument from the law of contagion). In making these arguments, I show why prominent objections to the thesis do not succeed, cast light on some of the artistic functions of ugliness, and, in addition, demonstrate why a dispositional account of disgustingness is correct, and present a novel problem for warrant-based accounts of disgustingness (the ‘too many reasons’ problem). (shrink)

Nietzsche scholars have developed an interest in his use of “thick” moral psychological concepts such as virtues and emotions. This development coincides with a renewed interest among both philosophers and social scientists in virtues, the emotions, and moral psychology more generally. Contemporary work in empirical moral psychology posits contempt and disgust as both basic emotions and moral foundations of normative codes. While virtues can be individuated in various ways, one attractive principle of individuation is to index them to characteristic (...) emotions and the patterns of behavior those emotions motivate. Despite the surge in attention to Nietzsche’s use of emotions, the literature has tended to lump all emotional states together. In this paper, I argue that what Nietzsche calls the pathos of distance is best understood as the virtue associated with both contempt and disgust. I conclude with a discussion of the bleak prospects for a Nietzschean democratic ethos. (shrink)

The ability of a group of adults with high functioning autism (HFA) or Asperger Syndrome (AS) to distinguish moral, conventional and disgust transgressions was investigated using a set of six transgression scenarios, each of which was followed by questions about permissibility, seriousness, authority contingency and justification. The results showed that although individuals with HFA or AS (HFA/AS) were able to distinguish affect-backed norms from conventional affect-neutral norms along the dimensions of permissibility, seriousness and authority-dependence, they failed to distinguish moral (...) and disgust transgressions along the seriousness dimension and were unable to provide appropriate welfare-based moral justifications. Moreover, they judged conventional and disgust transgressions to be more serious than did the comparison group, and the correlation analysis revealed that the seriousness rating was related to their ToM impairment. We concluded that difficulties providing appropriate moral justifications and evaluating the seriousness of transgressions in individuals with HFA/AS may be explained by an impaired cognitive appraisal system that, while responsive to rule violations, fails to use relevant information about the agent’s intentions and the affective impact of the action outcome in conscious moral reasoning. (shrink)

Rather than set out an overarching view or take a stand on the debunking of morality tout court, in what follows I’ll explore a divide and conquer strategy. First, I will briefly sketch a debunking argument that, instead of targeting all of morality or human moral nature, has a more narrow focus—namely, the intuitive moral authority of disgust. The argument concludes that as vivid and compelling as they can be while one is in their grip, feelings of disgust (...) should be granted no power to justify moral judgments. Importantly, the argument is grounded in empirical advances concerning the character of the emotion itself. Next, I will step back and consider the argument’s general form. I then point to arguments that others have made that seem to share this form and selective focus, and comment on what such arguments do and do not presuppose. Finally, I locate the selective strategy with respect to other approaches moral debunking. (shrink)

Are people with flawed faces regarded as having flawed moral characters? An “anomalous-is-bad” stereotype is hypothesized to facilitate negative biases against people with facial anomalies (e.g., scars), but whether and how these biases affect behavior and brain functioning remain open questions. We examined responses to anomalous faces in the brain (using a visual oddball paradigm), behavior (in economic games), and attitudes. At the level of the brain, the amygdala demonstrated a specific neural response to anomalous faces—sensitive to disgust and (...) a lack of beauty but independent of responses to salience or arousal. At the level of behavior, people with anomalous faces were subjected to less prosociality from participants highest in socioeconomic status. At the level of attitudes, we replicated previously reported negative character evaluations made about individuals with facial anomalies, and further identified explicit biases directed against them as a group. Across these levels of organization, the specific amygdala response to facial anomalies correlated with stronger just-world beliefs (i.e., people get what they deserve), less dispositional empathic concern, and less prosociality toward people with facial anomalies. Characterizing the “anomalous-is-bad” stereotype at multiple levels of organization can reveal underappreciated psychological burdens shouldered by people who look different. (shrink)

Aurel Kolnai (1900–1973) is best known for his political and moral writings, but he also chiefly contributed to the phenomenology of the emotions. In a series of papers devoted to hostile and aversive emotions and, in particular, to disgust, haughty pride, fear, and hatred (Kolnai 1929, 1931, 1935 and 1998) Kolnai presents his most comprehensive views on the affective life and its ethical significance. Scattered discussions on the emotions can also be found in an early paper written on Scheler (...) and under the influence of psychoanalysis (1925), in his dissertation Der ethische Wert und die Wirklichkeit (Ethical Value and Reality) (1927), which is his first phenomenological writing, and in later papers “On the Concept of the Interesting” (1964) and “The Concept of Hierarchy” (1971). This chapter is divided into four sections. The first reconstructs Kolnai’s general approach to the emotions as embedded within the larger context of early phenomenology. Sections 2–4 present Kolnai’s analyses of hostile emotions by focusing on disgust, haughty pride, and hatred. (shrink)

Most people tend to be suspicious of the role of emotions in the management of change, given those historical precedents or experiences in political communities, such as in fascist states. In these historical and experiential contexts, emotions are seen as political vectors that encourage an unthinking and uncritical political community. Martha Nussbaum, dubbed as the philosopher of emotions or feelings, has suggested that good political principles or policies are also realizable, if intently worked out to persist and to remain stable (...) or institutionalized, over time. For example, a policy such as the redistribution of wealth requires thinking on how a community could be driven to care for people to whom they were ordinarily indifferent, by a thoughtful and constructive analysis and subsequent re-programming of the inherent emotions which forge citizens together. In this study, the focus is the imperative cultivation of positive emotions as a potential tool for human survival, as communities battle against the Covid-19 pandemic. It is posited that material conditions are waning, and humanity requires compassion; the poor needs help for their survival. Researches, however, have shown that extending alms is not easy. Not too different from other animals, human beings are narrow and shallow in their area of existential concern: caring for those nearer them, and largely indifferent to those farther away. This assumption considered, the policy challenge is to zero in on civic emotions that might cultivate the element of compassion and concern to a larger community radius. This paper also highlights preliminary proposals on how to overcome negative emotions, i.e. fear, disgust, and shame, which the study posits as hindrances antithetical to the formation of constructive civic emotions needed for human survival. (shrink)

Hume maintains that the boundaries of morality are widely drawn in everyday life. We routinely blame characters for traits that we find disgusting, on this account, as well as those which we perceive as being harmful. Contemporary moral psychology provides further evidence that human beings have a natural tendency to moralize traits that produce feelings of repugnance. But recent work also demonstrates a significant amount of individual variation in our sensitivities to disgust. We have sufficient reason to bracket this (...) emotion, therefore, when adopting the general point of view: if we allow idiosyncratic affective responses to shape our fully considered moral judgments, we could no longer reasonably expect spectators with different sensitivities to agree with us. (shrink)

On the ten year anniversary of 2Girls1Cup, this article examines the complex balance of shock, pleasure and disgust elicited by this viral video.

Many wrongly believe that emotion plays little or no role in legal reasoning. Unfortunately, Langdell and his “scientific” case method encourage this error. A careful review of analysis in the real world, however, belies this common belief. Emotion can be cognitive, and cognition can be emotional. Additionally, modern neuroscience underscores the “co-dependence” of reason and emotion. Thus, even if law were a certain science of appellate cases (which it is not), emotion could not be torn from such “science.” -/- As (...) we reform legal education, we must recognize the role of cognitive emotion in law and legal analysis. If we fail to do this, we shortchange law schools, students, and the bar in grievous ways. We shortchange the very basics of true and best legal analysis. We shortchange at least half the universe of expression (the affective half). We shortchange the importance of watching and guarding the true interests of our clients, which interests are inextricably intertwined with affective experience. We shortchange the importance of motivation in law, life, and legal education. How can lawyers understand the motives of clients and other relevant parties without understanding the emotions that motivate them? How can lawyers hope to persuade judges, other advocates, or parties across the table in a transaction without grasping affective experience that motivates them? How can law professors fully engage students while ignoring affective experience that motivates students? Finally, we shortchange matters of life and death: emotions affect health and thus the very vigor of the bar. -/- Using insights from practice, modern neuroscience, and philosophy, I therefore explore emotion and other affective experience through a lawyer’s lens. In doing this, I reject claims that emotion and other affective experience are mere feeling (though I do not discount the importance of feeling). I also reject claims that emotion and other affective experience are necessarily irrational or beyond our control. Instead, such experience is often intentional and quite rational and controllable. After exploring law and affective experience at more “macro” levels, I consider three more specific examples of the interaction of law and emotion: (i) emotion, expression, and the first amendment, (ii) emotion in legal elements and exceptions, and (iii) emotion and lawyer mental health. To provide lawyers and legal scholars with a “one-source” overview of emotion and the law, I have also included an Appendix addressing a number of particular emotions. -/- Keywords: Emotion, Cognitive Emotion, Reason, Logos, Pathos, Legal Analysis, Legal Reasoning, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Persuasion, Rhetoric, Expression, First Amendment, Free Speech, Common Law Murder, Mental Health, NAACP v. McCrory, Anger, Contempt, Disgust, Hate, Malice. (shrink)

In 1906, Henry Stephens Salt published a short collection of essays that presented several rhetorically powerful, if formally deficient arguments for the vegetarian position. By interpreting Salt as a moral sentimentalist with ties to Aristotelian virtue ethics, I propose that his aesthetic argument deserves contemporary consideration. First, I connect ethics and aesthetics with the Greek concepts of kalon and kalokagathia that depend equally on beauty and morality before presenting Salt’s assertion: slaughterhouses are disgusting, therefore they should not be promoted. I (...) suggest three areas of development since Salt’s death that could be fruitfully plumbed to rebuild this assertion into a contemporary argument: an updated analysis of factory farm conditions, insights from moral psychologists on the adaptive socio-biological benefits of disgust as a source of cognitive information, and hermeneutical considerations about the role of the audience that allow blameworthiness for slaughterhouse atrocities to be laid upon the meat-eater. (shrink)

Some of our largely unchosen first-order reactions, such as disgust, can underwrite morally-laden character traits. This observation is in tension with the plausible idea that virtues and vices are based on reasons. I propose a way to resolve the tension.

This paper first demonstrates that recognition of the diversity of ways that emotional responses modulate ongoing attention generates what I call the puzzle of emotional attention, which turns on recognising that distinct emotions (e.g., fear, happiness, disgust, admiration etc.) have different attentional profiles. The puzzle concerns why this is the case, such that a solution consists in explaining why distinct emotions have the distinct attentional profiles they do. It then provides an account of the functional roles of different emotions, (...) as tied to their evaluative themes, which explains and further elucidates the distinctive attentional profiles of different emotions, so solving the puzzle of emotional attention. Following that, it outlines how such attentional profiles are reflected in the character of emotional experience and its attentional phenomenology. The resulting picture is a more detailed account of the connections between emotion and attention than is currently on offer in the philosophical literature. (shrink)

The problem of variability concerns the fact that empirical data does not support the existence of a coordinated set of biological markers, either in the body or the brain, which correspond to our folk emotion categories; categories like anger, happiness, sadness, disgust and fear. Barrett (2006a, b, 2013, 2016, 2017a, b) employs this fact to argue (i) against the faculty psychology approach to emotion, e.g. emotions are the products of emotion-specific mechanisms, or “modules”, and (ii) for the view that (...) emotions are constructed from domain-general “core systems” with the aid of our folk concepts. The conjunction of (i) and (ii), she argues, heralds a paradigm shift in our understanding of emotion: emotions aren’t triggered but made. In this paper, I argue such a shift is premature for a faculty psychology framework can accommodate the neurobiological variability of emotion. This can be done by treating emotions as developmental modules: non-innate systems which behave like modules, but form as a product of ontogenetic development. (shrink)

Citation: Christodoulou, Marina. “Philosophical An(n)ales: Laideur Abject Dégoût...comme une allergie à l’Autre (féminin),” (trans. Bertrand Naivin) in Sur la laideur. [Actes du symposium On Ugliness, organizé par Lars Aagaard- Mogensen au Wassard Elea (Ascea, Italie) en juin 2016], edited by d Bertrand Naivin and Lars Aagaard-Mogensen (Paris: Editions Complicités, 20178, 97-109. ISSN: 9782351201435 -/- -------------------- -/- Laideur Abject Dégoût ... comme une allergie à l’Autre (féminin) Sur l’art et l’esthétique sexués. -/- Pourquoi le dégoût est-il (ou peut-il être considéré) comme (...) sexiste (phallocratique et misogyne): Une allergie à l’Autre. (shrink)

More than four years ago, Anders Breivik launched his apocalyptic raid in Norway. His killing raid was not an action standing on its own but a statement to invite people to read his manifesto called 2083. A European Declaration of Independence. The highly despicable and disgusting mission of Anders Breivik addresses us whether we like it or not. Maybe there are good reasons to read and analyze Breivik’s ‘oration?’ He confronts us with many questions we cannot simply run away from: (...) What about the Islamization? How could this happen in secular Norway? What about the role of religion in European societies? In this article, I will argue that Breivik’s plea can only happen from within a secular society in which the homogeneity already has been lost, which allows him to deal with religion and politics on a very specific basis. In no way whatsoever, the context of our secular society forced Breivik to do what he did. However Breivik could only construct his actions and ideas within the (Christian) democratic context he lives in. I will analyze this with the writings of Hannah Arendt on political theology and the complex relationship between politics and religion and a late secular society. (shrink)

We often have affective responses to fictional events. We feel afraid for Desdemona when Othello approaches her in a murderous rage. We feel disgust toward Iago for orchestrating this tragic event. What mental architecture could explain these affective responses? In this paper I consider the claim that the best explanation of our affective responses to fiction involves imaginative desires. Some theorists argue that accounts that do not invoke imaginative desires imply that consumers of fiction have irrational desires. I argue (...) that there are serious worries about imaginative desires that warrant skepticism about the adequacy of the account. Moreover, it is quite difficult to articulate general principles of rationality for desires, and even according to the most plausible of these possible principles, desires about fiction are not irrational. (shrink)

We live at a time when many aspects of our educational culture are declared to be in crisis. Increasingly, the STEM movement dominates initiatives at the same time that there is less agreement about what constitutes a Humanities or liberal arts education. Relatively broad consensus indicates that it should make students somehow “better”. Within the field of pre-college normative ethics surveys, a survey of textbooks shows that most agree on what a course like this should look like. In evaluating the (...) effects of an ethics curriculum, however, most show diffidence to claim moral transformation in their students. At least part of this problem seems to stem from mainstream philosophy’s longtime bias against and misunderstanding of emotions. A closer look at emotions and how they might be educated offers a very different picture how a successful ethics curriculum could look. A typical ethics curriculum of any level presumes that a course neutral in regards to which, if any, of the normative ethical theories covered is true. However, any such course begins with a host of implied values that might not necessarily be shared with the students. If it’s the case, as contemporary moral psychology suggests that at the very least, our rational minds inform our behavior and moral judgments far less than we might have thought, then a course in normative ethics needs to engage emotions far more effectively. Martha Nussbaum’s recent work Political Emotions suggests some important ways that desirable emotions like civic love and undesirable emotions like disgust might relate to a curriculum. With the right approach, perhaps we can begin to claim that a moral philosophy course might make someone more moral. (shrink)

This essay meditates on the short film American Reflexxx and the violent laughter directed at a non-trans woman in public space when she was assumed to be trans. Drawing from work on the ideological and institutional dimensions of transphobia by Talia Bettcher and Viviane Namaste, alongside Sara Ahmed's writing on the cultural politics of disgust, I reverse engineer this specific instance of laughter into a meditation on the social meaning of transphobic laughter in public space. I then look at (...) racialized transphobic laughter directed against Tyra Hunter and Miriam Rivera to emphasize transmisogynist laughter as a denial of contact, intimacy, and care. Building on Kate Manne's work on misogyny, I conclude that a key aspect of transmisogyny is the use of transfeminine people as a source of dehumanized, disavowed, and disposable care and intimacy. Laughter and accompanying violence against trans women serves to reinforce this dynamic. (shrink)