Disgust

Disgust, a universal emotion of aversion, belongs to the category of other-condemning moral emotions, alongside anger and contempt. Unlike anger, which often targets specific actions, disgust responds to both physical and moral contamination. In its earliest form, it helped humans avoid threats such as spoiled food or infectious substances. As Paul Rozin and others argue, it began as a protective reflex against animal-related contaminants but evolved into a regulator of social norms.

Disgust arises in response to behaviour seen as deeply offensive or morally transgressive. When communities react to violations—such as hypocrisy, betrayal, or dishonesty—with moral disgust, they preserve unity and a shared responsibility to uphold trust, honesty, and loyalty. It can also galvanise support for victims of antisocial acts, like sexual assault, strengthening solidarity within the group.

But like other moral emotions, disgust has a double edge. Shared revulsion towards particular behaviours—or people—can entrench a group’s moral set of agreements while deepening social divisions. For example, practices around purity, such as dietary laws or caste systems, rely on disgust to maintain social order, signalling which behaviours are unclean or unacceptable. In this way, disgust can sustain both cohesion and exclusion, reinforcing biases and outgroup stigma.

Disgust also plays a role in politics. Conservative attitudes often connect moral purity with opposition to abortion or technological advancements (think vaccines or stem cell research), which are viewed as crossing moral boundaries. At the same time, liberal causes, such as vegetarianism or environmentalism, may be driven by disgust toward harm and pollution. In both cases, disgust acts as a moral signal.

Psychologically, the emotion’s action tendency is avoidance. People distance themselves, or cut ties altogether, with those seen as tainted, whether physically or morally. In doing so, disgust shapes moral judgement by marking certain acts, behaviours, or individuals as unacceptable.

FURTHER READING:

Ellemers, N., Pagliaro, S., & Nunspeet, F. V. (2023). The Routledge International Handbook of the Psychology of Morality (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003125969

Giner-Sorolla, R., Kupfer, T., & Sabo, J. (2018). What Makes Moral Disgust Special? An Integrative Functional Review. In Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 57, pp. 223–289). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.aesp.2017.10.001

Gray, K., & Wegner, D. M. (2011). Dimensions of Moral Emotions. Emotion Review, 3(3), 258–260. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073911402388

Haidt, J. (2003). The moral emotions. In R. J. Davidson, K. R. Scherer, & H. H. Goldsmith (Eds.), Handbook of affective sciences. (pp. 852–870). Oxford University Press.

Haidt, J. (2006). The happiness hypothesis: Finding modern truth in ancient wisdom. Basic Books.

Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion (1st ed). Pantheon Books.

Kupfer, T. R., & Giner-Sorolla, R. (2017). Communicating Moral Motives: The Social Signaling Function of Disgust. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 8(6), 632–640. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550616679236

Rozin, P., Haidt, J., & McCauley, C. R. (2008). Disgust. In Handbook of emotions, 3rd ed (pp. 757–776). The Guilford Press.

Rozin, P., Lowery, L., Imada, S., & Haidt, J. (1999). The CAD triad hypothesis: A mapping between three moral emotions (contempt, anger, disgust) and three moral codes (community, autonomy, divinity). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(4), 574–586. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.4.574

Strohminger, N., & Kumar, V. (2018). The Moral Psychology of Disgust. Rowman & Littlefield.

Sirgiovanni, E. (2022). Is moral disgust good or bad? Lebenswelt Aesthetics and Philosophy of Experience, 17. https://doi.org/10.54103/2240-9599/17057