The wisdom of repugnance or appeal to disgust, [1] also known informally as the yuck factor, [2] is the belief that an intuitive (or "deep-seated") negative response to some thing, idea, or practice should be interpreted as evidence for the intrinsically harmful or evil character of that thing. Furthermore, it refers to the notion that wisdom may manifest itself in feelings of disgust towards anything which lacks goodness or wisdom, though the feelings or the reasoning of such 'wisdom' may not be immediately explicable through reason.
"Revulsion is not an argument; and some of yesterday’s abhorrences are today calmly accepted—not always for the better. In some crucial cases, however, repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason’s power completely to articulate it. [...] [W]e intuit and we feel, immediately and without argument, the violation of things that we rightfully hold dear. [...] [R]evulsion may be the only voice left that speaks up to defend the central core of our humanity. Shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudder."
Leon Kass [3]
The term "wisdom of repugnance" was coined in 1997 by Leon Kass, chairman (2001–2005) of the President's Council on Bioethics, in an article in The New Republic , [4] which was later expanded into a further (2001) article in the same magazine, [5] and also incorporated into his 2002 book Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity.
The term originated in discussions of bioethics. It is often used by those who accept its underlying premise; i.e., that repugnance does, in fact, indicate wisdom. It is thus often viewed as loaded language, and is primarily used by certain bioconservatives to justify their position.
The concept is also used in the study of controversies such as same-sex marriage, [6] [7] [8] pornography, [9] marijuana legalization, [10] alternative sexualities [11] and legalization of abortion. [12] In all cases, it expresses the view that one's "gut reaction" might justify objecting to some practice even in the absence of a persuasive rational (e.g., utilitarian) case against that practice.
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The wisdom of repugnance has been criticized, both as an example of a fallacious appeal to emotion and for an underlying premise which seems to reject rationalism. Although mainstream science concedes that a sense of disgust most likely evolved as a useful defense mechanism (e.g. in that it tends to prevent or prohibit potentially harmful behaviour such as inbreeding, cannibalism, and coprophagia), social psychologists question whether the instinct can serve any moral or logical value when removed from the context in which it was originally acquired.
Martha Nussbaum explicitly opposes the concept of a disgust-based morality as an appropriate guide for law and policy, instead siding with John Stuart Mill's harm principle as the proper basis for limiting individual liberties, which supports the legal ideas of consent, the age of majority, privacy, and bestows equal rights unto citizens. Nussbaum argues that the "politics of disgust" is merely an unreliable emotional reaction which has been used throughout history as a justification for persecution—racism, antisemitism, sexism, and homophobia have all been driven by popular repulsion. [13] In an interview with Reason magazine, she elaborated:
Disgust and shame are inherently hierarchical; they set up ranks and orders of human beings. They are also inherently connected with restrictions on liberty in areas of non-harmful conduct. For both of these reasons, I believe, anyone who cherishes the key democratic values of equality and liberty should be deeply suspicious of the appeal to those emotions in the context of law and public policy. [14]
Stephen Jay Gould has remarked that "our prejudices often overwhelm our limited information. [They] are so venerable, so reflexive, so much a part of our second nature, that we never stop to recognize their status as social decisions with radical alternatives—and we view them instead as given and obvious truths." [15]
British bioethicist John Harris replied to Kass's view by arguing that, "there is no necessary connection between phenomena, attitudes, or actions that make us uneasy, or even those that disgust us, and those phenomena, attitudes, and actions that there are good reasons for judging unethical. Nor does it follow that those things we are confident are unethical must be prohibited by legislation or regulation." [16]
The word squick was created within BDSM subculture in reaction to this sort of reasoning, and denotes a "gut reaction" of disgust without the implication of any sort of actual moral judgment. [17]
In The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion , psychologist Jonathan Haidt cites Kass' argument as typifying concerns of moral degradation, which he contrasts with "moral elevation." Haidt, drawing from Emile Durkheim, argues that humans' ability to unite around sacred beliefs and objects and experience moral elevation—even in the absence of immediate utilitarian benefits—is an essential component of human civilizations which facilitates in-group cooperation and social belongingness. Without "binding" moral and sacred values, individuals tend to draw inward and exhibit fewer prosocial behaviours. Consequently, citing research by Robert Putnam, Haidt argues that moral disgust and taboos may be justified in certain, culturally-specific cases wherein they can promote Social capital without significantly negatively impacting the rights of many individuals, citing incest (even with no risk of procreation), bestiality and the Armin Meiwes cannibalism case as examples: [18]
[In] Lawrence v. Texas, [Justice Antonin Scalia's] dissent was that: 'If we allow homosexuality, what's next? Incest, bestiality...' To which I would say: since 5% of people are gay, that's a lot of people, and we really should try to [overcome the disgust]. The number of people who can't live a full and decent life unless they have sex with a sheep? Now, that's not very many people... If [repugnance] does some good to have a sense that there are still some morals we share, and there are few people out there who can't be happy, I'm willing to let them be unhappy. [19]
Transhumanism is a philosophical and intellectual movement that advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available new and future technologies that can greatly enhance longevity, cognition, and well-being.
Moral universalism is the meta-ethical position that some system of ethics, or a universal ethic, applies universally, that is, for "all similarly situated individuals", regardless of culture, race, sex, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other distinguishing feature. Moral universalism is opposed to moral nihilism and moral relativism. However, not all forms of moral universalism are absolutist, nor are they necessarily value monist; many forms of universalism, such as utilitarianism, are non-absolutist, and some forms, such as that of Isaiah Berlin, may be value pluralist.
Dignity in some of its modern usages has come to mean the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. In this context, it is of significance in morality, ethics, law and politics as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable rights. The term may also be used to describe personal conduct, as in "behaving with dignity".
This index of ethics articles puts articles relevant to well-known ethical debates and decisions in one place - including practical problems long known in philosophy, and the more abstract subjects in law, politics, and some professions and sciences. It lists also those core concepts essential to understanding ethics as applied in various religions, some movements derived from religions, and religions discussed as if they were a theory of ethics making no special claim to divine status.
Martha Craven Nussbaum is an American philosopher and the current Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she is jointly appointed in the law school and the philosophy department.
Moral reasoning is the study of how people think about right and wrong and how they acquire and apply moral rules. It is a subdiscipline of moral psychology that overlaps with moral philosophy, and is the foundation of descriptive ethics.
Leon Richard Kass is an American physician, scientist, educator, and public intellectual. Kass is best known as a proponent of liberal arts education via the "Great Books," as a critic of human cloning, life extension, euthanasia and embryo research, and for his tenure as chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics from 2001 to 2005. Although Kass is often referred to as a bioethicist, he eschews the term and refers to himself as "an old-fashioned humanist. A humanist is concerned broadly with all aspects of human life, not just the ethical."
New eugenics, also known as liberal eugenics, advocates enhancing human characteristics and capacities through the use of reproductive technology and human genetic engineering. Those who advocate new eugenics generally think selecting or altering embryos should be left to the preferences of parents, rather than forbidden. "New" eugenics purports to distinguish itself from the forms of eugenics practiced and advocated in the 20th century, which fell into disrepute after World War II.
James J. Hughes is an American sociologist and bioethicist. He is the Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and is the associate provost for institutional research, assessment, and planning at UMass Boston. He is the author of Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future and is currently writing a book about moral bioenhancement tentatively titled Cyborg Buddha: Using Neurotechnology to Become Better People.
In moral psychology, social intuitionism is a model that proposes that moral positions are often non-verbal and behavioral. Often such social intuitionism is based on "moral dumbfounding" where people have strong moral reactions but fail to establish any kind of rational principle to explain their reaction.
Kantian ethics refers to a deontological ethical theory developed by German philosopher Immanuel Kant that is based on the notion that "I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law.” It is also associated with the idea that “[i]t is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that could be considered good without limitation except a good will." The theory was developed in the context of Enlightenment rationalism. It states that an action can only be moral if it is motivated by a sense of duty, and its maxim may be rationally willed a universal, objective law.
Jonathan David Haidt is an American social psychologist and author. He is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at the New York University Stern School of Business. His main areas of study are the psychology of morality and moral emotions.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to ethics.
Disgust is an emotional response of rejection or revulsion to something potentially contagious or something considered offensive, distasteful or unpleasant. In The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Charles Darwin wrote that disgust is a sensation that refers to something revolting. Disgust is experienced primarily in relation to the sense of taste, and secondarily to anything which causes a similar feeling by sense of smell, touch, or vision. Musically sensitive people may even be disgusted by the cacophony of inharmonious sounds. Research has continually proven a relationship between disgust and anxiety disorders such as arachnophobia, blood-injection-injury type phobias, and contamination fear related obsessive–compulsive disorder.
The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom is a 2006 book written by American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. In it, Haidt poses several "Great Ideas" on happiness espoused by thinkers of the past—such as Plato, Buddha and Jesus—and examines them in the light of contemporary psychological research, extracting from them any lessons that still apply to our modern lives. Central to the book are the concepts of virtue, happiness, fulfillment, and meaning.
Moral foundations theory is a social psychological theory intended to explain the origins of and variation in human moral reasoning on the basis of innate, modular foundations. It was first proposed by the psychologists Jonathan Haidt, Craig Joseph, and Jesse Graham, building on the work of cultural anthropologist Richard Shweder. More recently, Mohammad Atari, Jesse Graham, and Jonathan Haidt have revised some aspects of the theory and developed new measurement tools. The theory has been developed by a diverse group of collaborators and popularized in Haidt's book The Righteous Mind. The theory proposes that morality is "more than one thing", first arguing for five foundations, and later expanding for six foundations :
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion is a 2012 social psychology book by Jonathan Haidt, in which the author describes human morality as it relates to politics and religion.
Transhumanist politics constitutes a group of political ideologies that generally express the belief in improving human individuals through science and technology. Specific topics include space migration, and cryogenic suspension. It is considered the opposing ideal to the concept of bioconservatism, as Transhumanist politics argue for the use of all technology to enhance human individuals.
Bioconservatism is a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes caution and restraint in the use of biotechnologies, particularly those involving genetic manipulation and human enhancement. The term "bioconservatism" is a portmanteau of the words biology and conservatism.
Moral enhancement, also called moral bioenhancement, is the use of biomedical technology to morally improve individuals. MBE is a growing topic in neuroethics, a field developing the ethics of neuroscience as well as the neuroscience of ethics. After Thomas Douglas introduced the concept of MBE in 2008, its merits have been widely debated in academic bioethics literature. Since then, Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu have been among the most vocal MBE supporters. Much of the debate over MBE has focused on Persson and Savulescu's 2012 book in support of it, Unfit for the Future? The Need for Moral Enhancement.
...there is likewise no rational reason why society should reject taboos and superstition in favor of a transhuman future; value judgments in favor of tradition, faith, and taboo, or in favor of progress, reason, and liberty both stem from pre-rational premises...We need to learn the courage to acknowledge that...Reason is a good tool but that our values and moral codes are not grounded in Reason.