Luke Tucker

This dissertation offers a limited defense of appeals to moral disgust in criminal law. Disgust already influences law in a number of ways, including serving as the primary justification for prohibitions on certain conduct. Whether it should have this influence, however, is contested. Some authors believe feelings of disgust in normative discourse are distracting, or downright misleading. Consequently, the emotion should not influence law, or any public institution. I disagree. The three main skeptical challenges raised against disgust—that it has troubling evolutionary origins, is an “unreasoned” emotion, and its status as a moral emotion, strictly speaking, is discredited by empirical research—don’t withstand scrutiny. More broadly, I argue that moral disgust’s influence on law is both positive and indispensable. In many cases, no other justificatory resource is available to ground laws most citizens consider common sense. Chapter One sets up discussion by noting that many criminal laws are already based in disgust, and repealing them would run counter to deep moral intuitions. I focus specifically on bans on disgusting, albeit arguably harmless, taboos, such as consensual cannibalism. It’s generally assumed the state needs a good reason to ban something. With harmless taboos, providing a reason is surprisingly hard to do. They don’t cause harm or violate anyone’s rights. It’s even unclear how they threaten “public morals.” This generates a dilemma: either (i) disgust, by itself, can sometimes justify laws, or (ii) bans on harmless taboos are unjustified. Because the latter option is unpalatable, subsequent chapters pursue a case for the former. Chapter Two sketches a descriptive account of disgust. I cover evidence that disgust is a “basic” emotion with universally recognized expressions and several cross-culturally consistent triggers. It originally evolved as a biological defense against unsafe foods and transmissible sicknesses but, later, was recruited by cultures to serve socio-moral functions. I describe how disgust develops in childhood, how individuals acquire specific disgust triggers, and how culture influences these processes. Moral Foundations Theory is used to explain how cross-cultural variations in what is considered “morally disgusting” track broader, cultural differences in moral beliefs and practices. Chapter Three defends the view that “moral disgust” is a genuine emotional state against recent psychological and philosophical challenges. One challenge holds that the common extension of disgust language to immoral behavior is metaphorical and doesn’t literally convey the speaker’s inner state. Another challenge holds that disgust and moral disapproval often co-occur, but this is merely coincidental, not evidence of a distinct, unified emotional response. I argue that neither challenge succeeds. First, I draw on empirical evidence suggesting that, when people report feeling disgusted by immorality, their physiological and neural responses often support a literal interpretation. Second, I argue that the claim “moral disgust is merely a co-occurrence of two unrelated states” relies on controversial metaethical assumptions we should reject on philosophical grounds. Chapter Four defends the so-called “appeal to disgust” in ethical and policy debates. The appeal cites the fact that many people feel deep disgust toward a practice as evidence that it must be seriously wrong. Critics respond by arguing that disgust, rather than offering guidance, is inherently unreliable or problematic. I rebut these types of arguments. I then argue moral disgust can be “wise.” When widespread, it provides defeasible justification for laws, even before any substantive discussion. This is because our moral disgust reactions are often underpinned by reasons that we lack introspective access to—but reasons that we would endorse, if we could access them. For support, I draw on gene-culture co-evolutionary theory, which explains how culturally transmitted norms often become opaque to their inheritors. I also examine the case of polygamy, a practice that Western lawmakers banned—guided partly by disgust—long before modern social science revealed its social harms.

This paper examines the question of whether and under what conditions teaching open-mindedness to students could have negative effects. While there has been much discussion in the literature about the potential downsides of being open-minded, the question of whether teaching this trait to young, untutored minds could result in more negative effects than positive has received little attention. Yet, given a primary focus of the literature is providing models for use in educational contexts, exploring the potential risks of encouraging students to emulate such models is imperative. In this regard, the paper presents three concerns. The first is that students may lack the full intellectual character to avoid the pitfalls of open-mindedness that have already been noted in the literature. The second concern is that students who exercise open-mindedness may incur social costs that cannot be compensated for by epistemic goods. The third concern is that educators, particularly at universities, often face certain non-ideal conditions that may make it difficult for them to effectively cultivate open-mindedness in students. I ultimately conclude that, in light of these concerns, we should approach teaching for open-mindedness with great caution. However, we should not avoid it altogether. Preliminary suggestions are offered on how instructors may attune their approach to teaching for open-mindedness to mitigate the identified concerns.

The claim that skeptical theism induces moral paralysis or aporia (known as the moral paralysis objection) has been extensively discussed. In this context, Stephen Maitzen has introduced the Alien Doctor Analogy, an intriguing case that he employs to advance the moral paralysis objection. Michael Rea, however, has criticized the analogy for portraying the skeptical theist uncharitably. In this essay, I argue that Maitzen and Rea are both incorrect: the Alien Doctor Analogy is flawed indeed, but because it portrays the skeptical theist too charitably. I modify the analogy to remedy this flaw. I then use the analogy to advance an original version of the moral paralysis objection. Specifically, I contend that skeptical theists, whenever they encounter apparently gratuitous evil that they could prevent, should be convinced by what I call the “God-Knows-Best Argument,” which always concludes that they should refrain from intervening. Thus, skeptical theism does induce moral paralysis.