Disgust, Moral Disgust, and Morality

Journal of Moral Philosophy 11 (4):33-54 (2014)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This paper calls into question the idea that moral disgust is usefully regarded as a form of genuine disgust. This hypothesis is questionable even if, as some have argued, the spread of moral norms through a community makes use of signaling mechanisms that are central to core disgust. The signaling system is just one part of disgust, and may well be completely separable from it. Moreover, there is plausibly a significant difference between the cognitive scientist’s concept of an emotion and the everyday notion of that emotion. Finally, even if, as this paper contests, some form of disgust were directly elicited by the moral wrongness of certain kinds of behavior, research on the socio-moral elicitors of the disgust mechanism would still be unlikely to shed much direct light on the nature or content of morality

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Disgust: The body and soul emotion in the 21st century.P. Rozin, J. Haidt & C. R. McCauley - 2009 - In B. O. Olatunji & D. McKay (eds.), Disgust and its disorders. American Psychological Association. pp. 2008.
The Good and the Gross.Alexandra Plakias - 2013 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 16 (2):261-278.
Disgust and Moral Taboos.John Kekes - 1992 - Philosophy 67 (262):431 - 446.
Being Appropriately Disgusted.Brian Besong - 2014 - Journal of Value Inquiry 48 (1):131-150.

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-01-23

Downloads
66 (#221,685)

6 months
8 (#156,881)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Joshua Gert
College of William and Mary

Citations of this work

You Disgust Me. Or Do You? On the Very Idea of Moral Disgust.Iskra Fileva - 2021 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 99 (1):19-33.
Emotional Reactions to Human Reproductive Cloning.Joshua May - 2016 - Journal of Medical Ethics 42 (1):26-30.
Butchering Benevolence Moral Progress beyond the Expanding Circle.Hanno Sauer - 2019 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 22 (1):153-167.
Is There Such a Thing as Genuinely Moral Disgust?Mara Bollard - 2022 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 13 (2):501-522.
Disgust as Heuristic.Robert William Fischer - 2016 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 19 (3):679-693.

View all 7 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Mapping the moral domain.Jesse Graham, Brian A. Nosek, Jonathan Haidt, Ravi Iyer, Spassena Koleva & Peter H. Ditto - 2011 - Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 101 (2):366-385.
De-moralizing disgustingness.Christopher Knapp - 2003 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 66 (2):253–278.
De‐moralizing Disgustingness.Christopher Knapp - 2003 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 66 (2):253-278.
Neo-sentimentalism and disgust.Joshua Gert - 2005 - Journal of Value Inquiry 39 (3):345-352.

Add more references