Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

6-2025

Abstract

This paper has two aims. First, to provide a positive account of moral disgust. I suggest that moral disgust is a response to acts that are socially corrosive, namely, acts that undermine the normative structure to which an agent is attuned. I support this analysis with two lines of evidence: (1) moral disgust serves the important function of guarding normative structures from socially corrosive actions and (2) the analysis provides an illuminating explanation of moral disgust in a wide variety of cases. The secondary aim of this paper is to probe the normative implications of my positive account. I suggest that disgust provides us with an ambivalent wisdom. Moral disgust has the potential to latch on to both reprehensible and valuable normative structures. Nonetheless, there are three important reasons to pay attention to moral disgust. First, as a fitting response to socially corrosive actions. Second, as a cartographical aid to articulating normative structures. Third, as a qualified source of evidence for what properly merits moral disgust.

Keywords

disgust, moral disgust, emotion, moral emotion, moral psychology

Discipline

Ethics and Political Philosophy | Theory and Philosophy

Research Areas

Psychology; Humanities

Publication

Philosophical Psychology

First Page

1

Last Page

26

ISSN

0951-5089

Identifier

10.1080/09515089.2025.2521437

Publisher

Taylor & Francis (Routledge): SSH Titles

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2025.2521437

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