Home
Rudy Garns's Library tagged → View Popular, Search in Google
"New research finds moral disgust can elicit a physical reaction, changing our evaluation of a beverage."
in list: Neuroethics
-
self-described Christians were more likely to describe a beverage as disgusting following exposure to an incompatible belief system.
Much is at stake regarding the role disgust should play in moral decision-making. Should we allow disgust a full place at the table when we render moral judgment? There are grave risks to doing this. Here's one example. Assume that we are attacked by a country that has customs we deem repugnant. Assume further that we allow our disgust (regarding those foreign cultural traditions) to run rampant in our moral/political thinking. Assume that we decide to exact our revenge by attacking a country that reminds us of the country that attacked us, because that they have similar traditions-we are disgusted by the traditions of both. Again, our minds are clever lawyers, and we love to put them to work to spin rationalizations.
in list: Neuroethics
I’ve written before about the work of Jonathan Haidt (pronounced “height”). He is a psychologist who has taken an experimental approach to investigating morality. I was highly impressed by Haidt’s analysis of conservative versus liberal versus of morality, for instance. In his previous work, Haidt determined that disgust played a significant role in the moral judgments of conservatives, but not so much for liberals. This result, based upon numerous surveys, sheds light on moral disputes regarding many things, including homosexuality.
Haidt's theory of the five measures of morality allows the two sides of the culture wars to communicate with each other in a fine-grained way, rather than shouting "You are immoral" at each other. His theory allows the discussion to move up at least one level to considering the validity and application of each of the five measures. With Haidt's approach, people can consider the merits of each of the five measures, based upon the function that those measures have traditionally served. Haidt's five measures approach assists the two sides in the culture war to identify what it is that they're not understanding about each other. It invites a real-life research agenda, one that is already bearing fruit, for studying and, perhaps, cooling down the culture wars.
in list: Neuroethics
This is the eleventh in a new series of weekend posts taken from the presentations at the Salk Institute's "Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0.". I have placed an index of essays in this series in an introductory post, Enlightenment 2.0: Introduction.
in list: Neuroethics
But what if neither is correct? What if our moral judgments are driven instead by more visceral human considerations? And what if one of those is not divine commandment or inductive reasoning, but simply whether a situation, in some small way, makes us feel like throwing up?
in list: Neuroethics
Some evolutionary psychologists believe that disgust emerged as a protective mechanism against health risks, like feces, spoiled food or corpses. Later, many societies came to apply the same emotion to social “threats.” Humans appear to be the only species that registers disgust, which is why a dog will wag its tail in puzzlement when its horrified owner yanks it back from eating excrement.
Whatever role one believes emotions should play in moral judgment, new research demonstrates that the influence of these low-level passions is profound. In fact, a study published in Science earlier this month suggests that many moral judgments are mediated by the same emotional mechanism that is activated by rotten leftovers and dirty socks. (Olivia Scheck)
-
many moral judgments are mediated by the same emotional mechanism that is activated by rotten leftovers and dirty socks
-
the authors used electromyography to compare the activation of facial muscles in response to bitter tastes, pictures of physically disgusting stimuli and, finally, moral transgressions. Not only was the disgust expression elicited in all three conditions, it was also shown to predict future moral decisions – suggesting not only that moral disgust exists, but that it is – to a surprising degree – driving our behavior.
Should we base our morality on our emotional reactions of disgust? We all have a sense of 'yuk' at some activities or situations. Julian Savulescu of Oxford University discusses the relevance of revulsion to our moral judgements in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. (Philosophy Bites Podcast)
Disgust might have been exapted for communication. The old facial display of rejection (selected to signal contaminated substances) could have been reused to communicate rejection of some behaviour or some immoral individuals. To sum up, it may be the case that moral judgment have nothing to with disgust. Disgust is just a way to convey moral evaluations.
Is there wisdom to be found in repugnance? Or is disgust ‘the nastiest of all emotions’, offering nothing but support to prejudice? Dan Jones looks at the repellant side of human nature.
Dan Jones writes an interesting essay in a recent issue of Science (PDF here) on how work in evolutionary theory, moral philosophy, and neuroscience casts doubt on the idea that disgust embodies a deep-seated wisdom. Instead it provides an emerging portrait of an evolutionarily constrained emotion that is a poor guide to ethical action. (Deric Bownds' MindBlog)
How, and for whom, does disgust influence moral judgment? In 4 experiments participants made moral judgments while experiencing extraneous feelings of disgust. Disgust was induced in Experiment 1 by exposure to a bad smell, in Experiment 2 by working in a disgusting room, in Experiment 3 by recalling a physically disgusting experience, and in Experiment 4 through a video induction. In each case, the results showed that disgust can increase the severity of moral judgments relative to controls. Experiment 4 found that disgust had a different effect on moral judgment than did sadness. In addition, Experiments 2-4 showed that the role of disgust in severity of moral judgments depends on participants’ sensitivity to their own bodily sensations. Taken together, these data indicate the importance - and specificity - of gut feelings in moral judgments.
Our understanding of disgust and morality is in its infancy, yet technological advances in neurobiology, an increasing willingness to engage in interdisciplinary dialogue, to take religion seriously as a dimension of human nature and experience, and growing knowledge of cultural differences, have created a climate within which a breakthrough in our understanding of morality could soon occur. (Heather Looy :: Global Spiral)
The Disgust Scale is a self-report personality scale that was developed by Jonathan Haidt, Clark McCauley, and Paul Rozin as a general tool for the study of disgust. It is used to measure individual differences in sensitivity to disgust, and to examine the relationships among different kinds of disgust. This page contains information on the emotion of disgust and on the Disgust Scale. Please feel free to print any of the papers on this page, and to use the Disgust Scale for research, education, or other non-commercial purposes. If you obtain any interesting findings with the Disgust Scale, we would appreciate hearing about them, and we would be happy to post a link to you or your work on this page.
Although the emotion of disgust has evolved to protect us from the consumption of harmful toxins, it is also intimately involved in our moral decision-making. (Evolutionary Psychology)
Men display stronger brain activation than women to facial expressions of contempt in the medial frontal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, and superior temporal gyrus. Conversely, women showed stronger neural responses than men to facial expressions of disgust. The effect of stimulus sex differed for men versus women. Specifically, women showed stronger responses to male contemptuous faces (as compared to female expressions) in the insula and middle frontal gyrus. Contempt has been conceptualized as signaling perceived moral violations of social hierarchy, whereas disgust would signal violations of physical purity. (Deric Bownds' MindBlog)
in list: Neuroethics
"In their first experiment, participants read the vignettes while being exposed either to a lot of fart spray ("strong stink" condition), a little fart spray ("mild stink" condition), or no fart spray (control)." (Mixing Memory)
Selected Tags
Related Tags
Top Contributors
Groups interested in disgust
Diigo is about better ways to research, share and collaborate on information. Learn more »
Join Diigo