CS Knowledge Base

The wisdom of repugnance or appeal to disgust,^[1] also known informally as the yuck factor,^[2] is the belief that an intuitive (or "deep-seated") negative response to some thing, idea, or practice should be interpreted as evidence for the intrinsically harmful or evil character of that thing. Furthermore, it refers to the notion that wisdom may manifest itself in feelings of disgust towards anything which lacks goodness or wisdom, though the feelings or the reasoning of such 'wisdom' may not be immediately explicable through reason.

The term "wisdom of repugnance" was coined in 1997 by Leon Kass, chairman (2001–2005) of the President's Council on Bioethics, in an article in The New Republic,^[4] which was later expanded into a further (2001) article in the same magazine,^[5] and also incorporated into his 2002 book Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity.

The term originated in discussions of bioethics. It is often used by those who accept its underlying premise; i.e., that repugnance does, in fact, indicate wisdom. It is thus often viewed as loaded language, and is primarily used by certain bioconservatives to justify their position.

The concept is also used in the study of controversies such as same-sex marriage,^[6][7][8] pornography,^[9] marijuana legalization,^[10] alternative sexualities^[11] and legalization of abortion.^[12] In all cases, it expresses the view that one's "gut reaction" might justify objecting to some practice even in the absence of a persuasive rational (e.g., utilitarian) case against that practice.

The wisdom of repugnance has been criticized, both as an example of a fallacious appeal to emotion and for an underlying premise which seems to reject rationalism. Although mainstream science concedes that a sense of disgust most likely evolved as a useful defense mechanism (e.g. in that it tends to prevent or prohibit potentially harmful behaviour such as inbreeding, cuckoldry, cannibalism, and coprophagia), social psychologists question whether the instinct can serve any moral or logical value when removed from the context in which it was originally acquired.

Martha Nussbaum explicitly opposes the concept of a disgust-based morality as an appropriate guide for law and policy, instead siding with John Stuart Mill's harm principle as the proper basis for limiting individual liberties, which supports the legal ideas of consent, the age of majority, privacy, and bestows equal rights unto citizens. Nussbaum argues that the "politics of disgust" is misguided because we cannot escape the inherent animality and disgustingness of our bodies (nor the material world), and that disgust has, throughout history, led to persecution—racism, antisemitism, sexism, and homophobia have all been driven by popular repulsion.^[13] In an interview with Reason magazine, she elaborated:

• Appeal to emotion
• Ethical intuitionism
• Emotivism, which claims that all statements like "X is morally wrong" only express repugnance, not moral facts
• Moral panic
• Moralistic fallacy
• Repugnancy costs
• Repugnant market
• Uncanny valley
• Victimless crime