Based on the empirical findings correlating disgust with conservatism, most disgust scholars have fed arguments for its moral unreliability and concluded with moral condemnation of this emotion. In this paper, I will examine common arguments about whether relying on disgust in the moral domain is to be considered good or bad. I will problematize the suggestion that we are justified in firmly believing that disgust is an ethically «dumb» – or an ethically «smart» – emotion. It rather seems that moral (...) disgust can be rational or irrational, pro-social or anti-social, liberal or conservative depending on the eliciting contexts, and that such case-by-case conclusions rely on additional meta-ethical premises. (shrink)

The politics of disgust weaponizes the bodily recoil of revulsion to legitimate sexist, anti-Semitic, colonial and genocidal violence. Citing the work of neurologists, psychologists, existentialists and phenomenologists, I argue that disgust can be severed from this politics to serve a politics of the body where the repugnance of disgust is reserved for those who repudiate the humanity of our intersubjective vulnerability.

A growing interest for the emotion of disgust has recently arisen in international contexts across several fields of research. A general definition of disgust will be primarily assumed: by disgust I understand a total rejection that generates a motion of repulsion and removal of an object that is in the proximity of the subject, without constituting a real danger. In reference to the notion of taboo, I will first of all assume its ambivalence. The emotion of disgust, essentially natural and (...) cultural at the same time, as a typical trait of the process of human civilization that distinguishes humans from animals. At variance with other theories of disgust, I will argue that it is not possible to theoretically articulate the overcoming of disgust, but that it is possible to educate about this emotion through artistic experience. On this ground, an ethics of disgust will be outlined, which starts from the acknowledgement of one of our most bodily emotions. (shrink)

A growing interest for the emotion of disgust has recently arisen in international contexts acrossseveral fields of research. A general definition of disgust will be primarily assumed: by disgust I understand a total rejection that generates a motion of repulsion and removal of an object that is in the proximity of the subject, without constituting a real danger. In reference to the notion of taboo, I will first of all assume its ambivalence. The emotion of disgust, essentially natural and cultural (...) at the same time, as a typical trait of the process of human civilization that distinguishes humans from animals. At variance with other theories of disgust, I will argue that it is not possible to theoretically articulate the overcoming of disgust, but that it is possible to educate about this emotion through artistic experience. On this ground, an ethics of disgust will be outlined, which starts from the acknowledgement of one of our most bodily emotions. (shrink)

In the present article, I review some evidence that shows how body odor disgust sensitivity plays a central role in the so-called behavioral immune system, a set of processes aimed at detecting, emotionally reacting, and behaviorally avoiding pathogen threats. I also report empirical evidence on how the BODS relates to social attitudes such as authoritarianism, xenophobia, and condemnation of “impure” moral violations. This research is interpreted from an Evolutionary psychology framework.

For the past twenty years, the relationship between politics, morality and disgust has been resolved into a denunciation of the injustices perpetrated in the name of this emotion. However, no compelling reasons have been brought forward to release the suspicion that the condemnation is merely a corollary of the dominant liberal ideology. I will exemplify this weakness by analysing the theory of disgust proposed by Debra Lieberman and Carlton Patrick in 2018. I will offer a different empirical basis for articulating (...) an adequate answer to the question “what is disgust?”. I will use some acquisitions from philology to exemplify the moral and political scope of disgust. I will propose an “ontological” definition of disgust, based on which I will distinguish between disgust and its ethical and political use to justify oppression and discrimination. This use must be replaced by explicating the reasons that justify such oppression and discrimination. The fact of not being able to give reasons for such behaviours every time they occur opens up a breach in the direction of a more free and thus more just society. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyse the disgust of which Sartre's “nausea” is an expression, by identifying its ontological significance and its role within Sartre's thought. Particular attention is devoted to the phenomenological themes of vision and conversion of the gaze, in the strict correlation they have with disgust. My claim is that Sartre, in his early philosophical work, elaborated a response to the Heideggerian problematic of the correlation between Befindlichkeit and Faktizität. To verify such claim, my paper (...) will analyse the differences between Sartrean and Heideggerian thought with regard to these concepts, and show the extent of the influence that Husserl, Emmanuel Levinas and Aurel Kolnai had on Sartre. (shrink)