What Does Disgust Have to Do With Moral Judgment?

Abstract

This primer summarizes the contemporary debate in moral psychology about whether disgust plays a role in moral judgment, and what that role might be. The importance of the debate is explained, then several approaches to studying the issue are reviewed. First, I review experimental studies that induce incidental disgust. Then, I examine other approaches to studying this question, including correlational studies of disgust sensitivity, studies of whether disgust responds to moral content, and research on whether moral transgressions can evoke disgust. I then cast this debate in the philosophical framework of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, and present several possible ways of synthesizing conflicting findings and resolving the debate.