ABSTRACT
Two of the emotions that have recently been targeted as toxic are shame and disgust. In this chapter the author offers an initial, admittedly partial and inconclusive defence of disgust’s normative virtues in both inter- and intra-personal sociomoral dynamics. He focuses on integrating work in social psychology and social neuroscience, comparing the values of cognitive and behavioural responses associated with anger and disgust. The author then emphasises the involvement of regions of the brain that are active both when people mentalise about others and when they mentalise about themselves. He also discusses how to define moral disgust, adopting an inclusive definition that includes a variety of types of normative assessment. The author present the case against moral disgust, which argues that disgust lacks cognitive and behavioural flexibility, and that it dehumanises those onto whom it is directed, unlike emotions such as anger.
