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Thread: Disgust: The Unreliable Emotion

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    Default Disgust: The Unreliable Emotion

    Disgust is a very strong aversion to a person, thing, action, event or other phenomenon – usually based on its lack morality, aesthetics, or popularity. It is rarely thought of as a form of pain, but rather a discomfort, even if an intense one. Nevertheless, it can be a form of pain, if we consider that feelings of disgust can generate strong queasiness or other aversive reactions.

    We express disgust toward a number of things and situations: body fluids, bad sights, bad smells, plus certain behaviors and attitudes. Specific examples of the latter include lack of empathy, hurtfulness toward others (whether directly or indirectly), selfishness, dishonesty, eccentricity, nonconformity, and a whole range of other human traits. This impulse may not be rational, but it likely does contribute greatly to the survival of neurological life for as long as the sentiment existed, although it does not come without its own problems. Nevertheless these impulses did contribute greatly to neurological life’s survival for hundreds of millions of years. Waste products of organisms are not mere byproducts of its body but contain many poisons and even dangerous microbes.

    We also feel disgust when we see unfair treatment of others who did not deserve such treatment, or partiality toward people we do not feel deserve such good treatment. Dishonesty, theft, and so forth threaten others well-being – and potentially the organism’s own. So does favoritism based on things other than merit. As such it also exists to warn us that this person is potential exploitative or spreading misinformation harmful to others. Concerning the latter, the misinformation can be deliberate or not. In the former case, it is either a substantive lie or a lie by omission. In the latter case, it is failing to account for all relevant facts or simply spreading unfounded rumors.

    Therefore, it’s reasonable to suppose that disgust is ultimately the emotion that drives many people away from unpopular ideas.

    The problem is that disgust is not always a reliable indicator of how bad things really are, or even if a thing is truly bad at all. Regarding the latter, it is fairly common for us to react with disgust toward outright healthful foods. Spinach, broccoli, and other green vegetables are a common object of distaste despite that we intellectually know that these are among the most healthy foods a person can eat. Yet nobody would claim that our disgust toward such foods makes any sense from a survival perspective. So while our aversion to certain substances did evolve as a way to prevent harms from befalling us us (poisons, infections, etc), disgust turns out to be a fairly unreliable indicator of what is objectively hazardous for our life, health, self-esteem, or overall well-being; for it is too easily provoked by superficial appearances to allow a more sophisticated, objective analysis of the substance (or situation) facing us.

    By contrast, many people find it pleasant to consumer what is essentially a mildly poisonous substance – alcoholic beverages. It does not matter that they are only mildly poisonous – the fact remains that ethanol (the type of alcohol in beer, wine, etc) can easily cause adverse reactions in a person, no matter how pleasant the alcoholic beverage may taste. The same thing goes for consuming highly delicious yet highly unhealthy foods (e.g. junk food). If our sense of disgust were a truly reliable guide for discerning what is bad for us, then our “untrained” instinct-based tastes should render high-fat sugar cookies as disgusting as many children find spinach, broccoli, and other healthy but bad tasting foods. If our feelings of disgust are so misplaced with regard to foods, then how can we trust our sense of disgust with regard to ideas?

    Regarding ideas, many ideas that seemed good and natural in earlier centuries or even earlier decades are now regarded with disgust today by a considerable segment of the population, and in some cases universally. Most famously of all, slavery was once considered “natural” but is condemned everywhere these days. The same thing goes for discrimination and prejudices of many sorts (religious, racial, gender, sexual orientation, social class, and many other categories) and as of recent decades, bullying. More so-called natural behaviors are part of that list as well, namely abortion and physician-assisted suicide. Just as with our reactions toward foods, our sense of disgust seems hardly more reliable an indicator of whether ideas are right and wrong.

    While there are many ideas that are rightfully disgusting, there are also ideas that are objectively right even if they do generate disgust in us. Regardless of how our primeval emotions respond to unpopular ideas, they do deserve serious merit regardless of how counterintuitive the may be at first glance. There are limits, of course; namely if those ideas cause pointless and unreasonable levels of pain (whether physical or mental). We can debate which pains are pointless and unreasonable, but the basic principle seems beyond any dispute among all people.

    In the end, disgust does have its place when it comes to protecting ourselves and our society from many kinds of harm and injustice, it proves to be far too inaccurate to be a reliable basis on which to build our societal values and attitudes - or even individual ones. Disciplining and resisting this primitive impulse with logic and reason will go a long way toward making this world a truly worthwhile place in which to live.
    Last edited by Phil75231; 02-24-2012 at 04:42 AM.

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    It is disgusting to see people licking their fingers after eating.

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    Typically in the US things like abortion or racial discrimination have been justified on the basis that they were necessary evils. Abortion, say its defenders, should be safe, legal, and rare but should nonetheless be allowed as it prevents unwanted children or allows the individual to have autonomy over her own person. Racial discrimination, it was argued, was necessary to prevent miscegenation and the eventual destruction of white America. In both cases there was and is a recognition that pain, such as it is, should only occur to the extent it is necessary. Wanton hurt or destruction is understood to be unacceptable.

    On this last point is where the Third Reich is seen to be so despicable. Their acts of carnage were all the more horrible because there was no real reason for most of it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by rashka View Post
    It is disgusting to see people licking their fingers after eating.
    Does licking their fingers after eating in any realistic and probably way:

    Threaten your life
    Threaten your health of physical wholeness or otherwise well-being
    Your mental health or peace of mind
    Your political liberties
    Your money, property, or bank account

    If not, so what? Let them lick their fingers. I know I'm a hypocrite here too, as it disgusts me as well. Which is ultimately the point. Disgust is NOT a really reliable basis on which to judge matters.

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    I don't know, man. If it wasn't for disgust, we'd put ourselves in situations that could harm us.

    I mean disgust in the concrete sense. Disgust is what tells us not to eat or touch something that can make us sick, for example. It's a completely natural thing that has evolved in us for protection, much like fear.

    I once read a science article a long time ago talking about how humans developed a disgust towards insects early in our evolution, so that we'd avoid them as much as possible since many insects carry diseases.

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    Quote Originally Posted by AcadianDriftwood View Post
    I don't know, man. If it wasn't for disgust, we'd put ourselves in situations that could harm us.

    I mean disgust in the concrete sense. Disgust is what tells us not to eat or touch something that can make us sick, for example. It's a completely natural thing that has evolved in us for protection, much like fear.

    I once read a science article a long time ago talking about how humans developed a disgust towards insects early in our evolution, so that we'd avoid them as much as possible since many insects carry diseases.
    I don't doubt you at all, Acadian; and certainly not the scientific explanation for it. The problems come from what I wrote in the second half of the post - we feel disgust for things that are objectively beneficial. My spinach example serves to highlight how we need to overrule disgust in order to obtain objectively better health. Same thing with racism, sexism, homophobia,and a broad range of other unpopular but non-harmful traits. In fact, those latter traits were not even seen as a problem until recently in human history (the latter not until very recently).

    So not only does our sense of disgust sound too many "false alarms", it also fails to "go off" when there are objective threats to our well-being (or society's too, for that matter).

    Intuition certainly has its place, but like disgust it also tends to be unreliable to the point that we ought not trust the first intuitive thought to pop into our mind. This ultimately gets into decision theory, risk theory, and so forth. Suffice to say that intuition needs coupling with critical thinking in order to make proper assessments of a situation.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Phil75231 View Post
    I don't doubt you at all, Acadian; and certainly not the scientific explanation for it. The problems come from what I wrote in the second half of the post - we feel disgust for things that are objectively beneficial. My spinach example serves to highlight how we need to overrule disgust in order to obtain objectively better health. Same thing with racism, sexism, homophobia,and a broad range of other unpopular but non-harmful traits. In fact, those latter traits were not even seen as a problem until recently in human history (the latter not until very recently).
    I think this is because culture shapes disgust, also media. And what is disgusting can change.

    For example, only two generations ago, it was considered disgusting where I am from to eat lobster, now it is a delacacy enjoyed on special occasions. It evolved from being revolting, to a food associated with poverty (where people who ate it would bury the shells instead of throw them in the garbage because they didn't want their neighbours to know they resorted to eating lobster), to a delacacy that rich people pay good money for.

    Ideally, we should find lobster disgusting, and probably naturally evolved to do so. It is harmful. Doctors tell you this. If you eat lobster, you put yourself at risk for hepatitis and other nasty diseases (my father contracted hepatitis from lobster). You cannot donate blood for a week or so after eating it. But do I eat it? Hell yeah! I love it too!

    Spinach, although healthy when prepared properly, can be harmful. Bacteria that can make us very sick love spinach. BTW, I love spinach too.

    What you're exposed to can change what you find disgusting. When I was swimming competativly, my team had a nutritionist and trained us in nutrition label reading. This trained my brain to find any food that was high in fat and low in fibre disgusting, when I found them tasty before. Even when I look at the box, I will think it's tasty, then I look at the nutrition label and say 'gross!' and put it back.

    But all animals feel disgust. Cats, for example, shake their paws when they're disgusted. They actually have a larger and more developed Jacobson's organ (the organ that triggers the disgust response, called the Flehmen response) than humans. Maybe our almost non-existant Jacobson's organ is the reason what humans find disgusting varies by culture and environment, whereas with cats what grosses them out is universal. Not to mention humans have mental capacity to think things through, cats rely on the organ.
    Last edited by Grumpy Cat; 02-24-2012 at 05:57 AM.

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    Intuition certainly has its place, but like disgust it also tends to be unreliable to the point that we ought not trust the first intuitive thought to pop into our mind. This ultimately gets into decision theory, risk theory, and so forth. Suffice to say that intuition needs coupling with critical thinking in order to make proper assessments of a situation.
    Well, I think you're arguing in the wrong direction if this is about painting PC attitudes as emotionalist, because while there are those sympathetic weenies the underlying criticism of 'racism', 'sexism' is that they're irrational because they're intuitive and 'primitive' - verbatim, this:
    Disciplining and resisting this primitive impulse with logic and reason will go a long way toward making this world a truly worthwhile place in which to live.
    At the end of the day preservation comes from internal impulse. I feel less honest and less consistent, logical, rational trying to come up with pan-academic arguments for why I simply utterly disgusted (aesthetically, morally, populistically) with the endless 'improvement' of everything.

    There is this insane requirement to having to prove the whole history of the universe just to explain you don't want something, which will never be accepted anyway, because it doesn't prove it.

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    Acadian,

    Your on the money regarding how culture strikingly alters our attitudes about what's disgusting and what's not. Ditto with regard to how "humans have the mental capacity to think things through". Our food examples are ones I like. Without taking proper precautions (cooking, boiling thoroughly, etc), these (and any food for that matter) can indeed be harmful. As you implied, humans can overrule our instincts to a much greater degree than other animals (AFAIK), and hence we transcend the other animals mentally even if we remain animals physically.


    Rasolnikov,

    Yes, preservation is ultimately an emotional impulse because survival itself is likewise ultimately an emotional impulse. As for your being "dishonest" relying on "pan-academic" arguments - that implies that cognitive rational side is a less reliable means for figuring out the truth than are our emotional impulses. This is something one has to either take or leave. Me, I find emotions themselves too unreliable to put great faith and trust in them. Again, this somebody has to either take or leave.

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