The Ambivalent Wisdom of Moral Disgust

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.