Disgust

« Du dégoût à l’horreur : une approche de la guillotine dans la France révolutionnaire (1789-1799) », séminaire interdisciplinaire de recherche « Le Dégoût : vécu, perception, représentations et histoire », 06 mars 2019, Université d’Aix-en-Provence

Detecting pathogen threats and avoiding disease is fundamental to human survival. The behavioral immune system (BIS) framework outlines a set of psychological functions that may have evolved for this purpose. Disgust is a core emotion that plays a pivotal role in the BIS, as it activates the behavioral avoidance motives that prevent people from being in contact with pathogens. To date, there has been little agreement on how disgust sensitivity might underlie moral judgments. Here, we investigated moral violations of “purity” (assumed to elicit disgust) and violations of “harm” (assumed to elicit anger). We hypothesized that individual differences in BIS-related traits would be associated with greater disgust (vs. anger) reactivity to, and greater condemnation of Purity (vs. Harm) violations. The study was pre-registered (https://osf.io/57nm8/). Participants (N = 632) rated scenarios concerning moral wrongness or inappropriateness and regarding disgust and anger. To measure individual differences in the activation of the BIS, we used our recently developed Body Odor Disgust Scale (BODS), a BIS-related trait measure that assesses individual differences in feeling disgusted by body odors. In line with our predictions, we found that scores on the BODS relate more strongly to affective reactions to Purity, as compared to Harm, violations. In addition, BODS relates more strongly to Moral condemnation than to perceived Inappropriateness of an action, and to the condemnation of Purity violations as compared to Harm violations. These results suggest that the BIS is involved in moral judgment, although to some extent this role seems to be specific for violations of “moral purity,” a response that might be rooted in disease avoidance. Data and scripts to analyze the data are available on the Open Science Framework (OSF) repository: https://osf.io/tk4x5/. Planned analyses are available at https://osf.io/x6g3u/.

É o juízo moral guiado apenas por fatores morais? É tradição filosófica cercear uma esfera de fenômenos morais e excluir quaisquer fatores externos para a investigação moral, evidente e.g. pela presença ubíqua da falácia naturalista mooreana nos textos de metaética desde sua concepção. Mesmo no emotivismo moral, que procura quebrar com o paradigma racionalista de deliberação ética, elementos externos à expressão e sentimentos morais do agente em relação à seus juízos morais são, quando muito, desprezíveis. Mas até que ponto nossas faculdades de decisão moral estão imunes à fatores não-morais? Uma pessoa sofrendo de forte dor física, ou sob extremo desconforto, faria o mesmo julgamento moral se estivesse intacta e confortável? Segundo uma miríade de evidências empíricas, em suma, não. Irei tratar destes dados para investigar até que grau o juízo moral pode ser influenciado por fatores não-morais, para em seguida analisá-los sob uma perspectiva metaética naturalista pós-humeana em autores como Prinz, Haidt, Greene, Dennett, Churchland e outros. Infiro, então, que uma análise atenta da amálgama de fatores fisiológicos de cunho racional e emocional é crucial para o entendimento do fenômeno moral de forma completa. Todavia, uma vez que fatores emocionais são importantes tanto enquanto fatores morais como não-morais, segue-se a conclusão humeana que, no que tange a moralidade, a razão é “escrava das paixões.”

This paper comprises four studies that aim to offer empirical support to Freudian and Lacanian theories on addictions on samples of female nicotine addicts. The two authors argue (as summarized by Loose in 2002) that the individuals who had relational issues with their main caregiver in their preverbal stages of development did not acquire the ability to obtain satisfaction in social interactions due to their poor relational skills; this increases their propensity toward becoming addicts, because addiction is seen as a manner of circumventing the other in the process of obtaining satisfaction. Our results support these theoretical claims in what regards nicotine addiction in women. The implications of our findings suggest that therapeutic interventions for nicotine addicts should be focused on the individual rather than on the object of the addiction itself, as the individual etiology of nicotine addiction seems to vary from one addict to another according to their previous experiences in attachment relationships.

RESUMEN: En la primera parte de este texto, se exploran los orígenes del topos de la animalidad en nuestra cultura moder-na; para ello se recuperan temas tratados desde la creación de la estética, y se arroja luz sobre el encuentro de la reflexión es-tética con la ciencia (en especial con Darwin y su teoría del ori-gen de las especies). En la segunda, el autor asume la identidad de Rotpeter, el personaje de Kafka, y presenta el tratamiento de los animales en el escritor de Praga. En el epígrafe final se reto-ma el debate en torno a la cuestión animal y a la "naturaleza" en el contexto de una biopolítica de la compasión; aquí el autor apoya la discusión en dos obras de J. M. Coetzee, con el objeti-vo de mostrar hasta qué punto la compasión y la beneficencia pueden hallarse en el origen de una simple tutela autoritaria ejercida hacia el "otro". ABSTRACT: This text has three parts. In the first part, there is a discussion about the origins of the topos of animality in contemporary culture. The author does this by retrieving topics that first emerged at the creation of Aesthetics, and also presents the meeting points of aesthetics and science (specially the theorem of the origin of the species by Darwin). In the second part, the author assumes the identity of the character created by Kafka, Rotpeter, and writes about the question of animality in the works of this writer from Prague. In the conclusion, the text shows how this debate about animal and "nature" themes can be considered in in the context of the biopolitical issue of compassion. At this point, the author bases his discussion on two books by J. M. Coetzee, and shows how compassion and charity can be at the origin of an authoritarian tutelage of the "other".

Seligmann-Silva,  M.  (2018). Literatura,  cuerpo  y  animalidad.  Arbor,  194  (790):  a478.  https:// doi.org/10.3989/arbor.2018.790n4003

Censorship of Disgust: the reimagining of cholera symptoms in 19th-century literature
Cholera kills by severe dehydration caused by massive diarrhoea and vomiting. Victims
can expel up to 30% of their body weight in a matter of hours. The mortality rate is of 50% and
death normally occurs from six to thirty-six hours of the initial symptoms. Thus, perhaps
unsurprisingly, cholera narratives use many strategies to avoid directly mentioning symptoms,
which range from complete silence and euphemistic descriptions (trembling or fainting, for
example), to the ironic (Heine talks of “fraîcheur dans les jambes”) and grotesque (Bourdelais and
Dodin show in Visage du Choléra a caricature of a scientist eating excrement and defecating a
bouquet of blue flowers).
This work argues that cholera symptoms are misrepresented in order to avoid causing
disgust in the public. In order to discuss this phenomenon we will combine tools of comparative
literature with the social, biological and psychological analysis made by cultural historians (Evans
1987, Delaporte 1986, Lewin 1999, Corbin 1982), literary critics (Menninghaus 2003, Delville et
alii 2016) and psychologists (Herz 2012).

This essay examines the question of empathy within the discourses of caste in India and argues that the presence of this deeply hierarchical system, which is premised on the idea of disgust, does not allow for the production of empathy or empathic political
spaces. Locating itself in a particular case of caste violence and its counter discourse in the Una District of the state of Gujarat in western India, this essay examines the affectual politics of the presence of the animal and the animal-like in caste publics and
the consequences that it has for the question of empathy.

Since William I. Miller’s Anatomy of disgust, the emotion of revulsion has drawn increasing at- tention in the humanities. However, theoretical models on disgust have been applied only sporadically to Jewish studies and, specifically, to rabbinic literature. A particularly intriguing and productive case- study is constituted by the tractates Derek Erex Rabbah and Derek Erex Zuta. Two late compilations included among the Minor Tractates of the Babylonian Talmud (8th-10th century), Derek Erex Rabbah and Zuta deal with ethics and etiquette. The phrase derek eres can be translated as good manners, courtesy and indicates the set of behavioral features that most immediately distinguishes the member of the rabbinic elite as an educated man. Instructions in the Derek Erex corpus cover every aspect of everyday life – from table to toilet, from school to market. More or less explicitly, this normative structu- re refers to the concept of disgust in a wide range of semantic nuances, such as physical repulsion, social inappropriateness, and moral reproach. In the light of the extant inquiries on disgust, the rabbinic texts suggest three thematic directions: (1) etiqutte and oral incorporation, based on Derek Erex Rabbah 9,1, where table manners find their raison d’être in a combination of hygienic considerations and personal issues connected with individual sensibility; (2) good and bad taste, on Derek Erex Zuta 6,1, where the usage of the adjective meguneh (revolting or reprehensible) reveals the continuity between corporeal perceptions and moral/social rebuke; (3) body management and ethics of caducity, on Derek Erex Rab- bah 3,3, depicting a grotesque portrait of human condition through the symbolic connection between physiological functions and distance from divinity. As an anthological collection of materials dedicated to quotidian behavior, the Derek Erex corpus represents a productive starting point for the exploration of the idea of disgust in Jewish medieval literature.

Detecting pathogen threats and avoiding disease is fundamental to human survival. The Behavioral Immune System (BIS) framework outlines a set of psychological functions that may have evolved for this purpose. Disgust is a core emotion that plays a pivotal role in the BIS, as it activates the behavioral avoidance motives that prevent people from being in contact with pathogens. To date, there has been little agreement on how disgust sensitivity might underlie moral judgments. Here, we investigated moral violations of “purity” (assumed to elicit disgust) and  violations of “harm” (assumed to elicit anger). We hypothesized that individual differences in BIS-related traits would be associated with greater disgust (vs. anger) reactivity to, and greater condemnation of, purity (vs. harm) violations.
The study was pre-registered (https://osf.io/57nm8/). Participants (N = 632) had to rate scenarios concerning moral wrongness or inappropriateness and regarding disgust and anger. To measure individual differences in the activation of the BIS, we used our recently developed Body Odor Disgust Scale (BODS), a BIS-related trait measure that assesses individual differences in feeling disgusted by body odors.
In accordance with our predictions, we found that scores on the BODS relate more strongly to emotional reactions to Purity, as compared to Harm, violations. In addition, BODS relates more strongly to Moral condemnation than to perceived Inappropriateness of an action, and to the condemnation of Purity violations as compared to Harm violations.
These results suggest that the BIS is involved in moral judgment, although to some extent this role sees to be specific for violations of “moral purity”, a concept that might be rooted in disease avoidance.
Data and scripts to analyze the data are available on the Open Science Framework (OSF) repository: https://osf.io/tk4x5/. Planned analyses are available at https://osf.io/x6g3u/

Ezekiel 16 and 23 are saturated with expressions of emotion and emotionally evocative content, including graphic descriptions of violence and promiscuity. While numerous scholars have acknowledged that emotions are an important component of Ezekiel 16 and 23, such acknowledgments have not been supported by analyses of the role of emotions in these chapters. In this paper I argue that emotions are not only crucial as part of the characterisation of God and Jerusalem, they also serve as an important rhetorical tool. I do this by analysing Ezekiel 16:1-7 in light of research that underscores the function of emotions as tools which enable individuals to " negotiate their respective roles and statuses in a group " (van Kleef: 2016). Drawing on this research, I argue that emotions are fundamental in crafting the social status of God and Jerusalem. In particular, the emotions of compassion, loathing, and disgust work simultaneously to shape the characterisation of Jerusalem as socially inferior and of God as powerful. This characterisation serves as an important rhetorical tool that persuades Ezekiel's intended audience – the exiled Israelites – to feel remorse over their trust of foreign alliances rather than their relationship with God.

Excessive meat consumption is associated with a range of environmental problems. In this investigation, we examined the effectiveness of three types of persuasive messages posited to affect attitudes toward meat consumption. The first two messages contained health and environment-related appeals (e.g., the moral consequences of environmental degradation and animal welfare), which are commonly used in campaigns aimed at meat reduction. A third kind of message – one that is less frequently applied in meat-consumption campaigns – follows from research suggesting that meat aversions are acquired via the emotion disgust. Results across three studies – and a meta-analysis of these studies – suggest that disgust-oriented persuasive messages are more effective than health-oriented messages, and they are at least as effective as moral (i.e., animal welfare) messages in influencing meat attitudes. The practical implications for campaigns to reduce meat consumption are being discussed.