Colin McGinn
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199829538
- eISBN:
- 9780199919482
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199829538.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General, Aesthetics
Disgust has a strong claim to be a distinctively human emotion. But what is it to be disgusting? What unifies the class of disgusting things? This book sets out to analyze the content of disgust, ...
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Disgust has a strong claim to be a distinctively human emotion. But what is it to be disgusting? What unifies the class of disgusting things? This book sets out to analyze the content of disgust, arguing that life and death are implicit in its meaning. Disgust is a kind of philosophical emotion, reflecting the human attitude to the biological world. Yet it is an emotion we strive to repress. It may have initially arisen as a method of curbing voracious human desire, which itself results from our powerful imagination. Because we feel disgust towards ourselves as a species, we are placed in a fraught emotional predicament: we admire ourselves for our achievements, but we also experience revulsion at our necessary organic nature. We are subject to an affective split. Death involves the disgusting, in the shape of the rotting corpse, and our complex attitudes towards death feed into our feelings of disgust. We are beings with a “disgust consciousness,” unlike animals and gods—and we cannot shake our self-ambivalence. Existentialism and psychoanalysis sought a general theory of human emotion; this book seeks to replace them with a theory in which our primary mode of feeling centers around disgust.Less
Disgust has a strong claim to be a distinctively human emotion. But what is it to be disgusting? What unifies the class of disgusting things? This book sets out to analyze the content of disgust, arguing that life and death are implicit in its meaning. Disgust is a kind of philosophical emotion, reflecting the human attitude to the biological world. Yet it is an emotion we strive to repress. It may have initially arisen as a method of curbing voracious human desire, which itself results from our powerful imagination. Because we feel disgust towards ourselves as a species, we are placed in a fraught emotional predicament: we admire ourselves for our achievements, but we also experience revulsion at our necessary organic nature. We are subject to an affective split. Death involves the disgusting, in the shape of the rotting corpse, and our complex attitudes towards death feed into our feelings of disgust. We are beings with a “disgust consciousness,” unlike animals and gods—and we cannot shake our self-ambivalence. Existentialism and psychoanalysis sought a general theory of human emotion; this book seeks to replace them with a theory in which our primary mode of feeling centers around disgust.
Alvin I. Goldman
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195138924
- eISBN:
- 9780199786480
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195138929.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
People have a primitive and largely automatic ability to recognize emotions in faces, an ability best explained by simulation, more specifically, mirror processes. In lesion studies of fear, disgust, ...
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People have a primitive and largely automatic ability to recognize emotions in faces, an ability best explained by simulation, more specifically, mirror processes. In lesion studies of fear, disgust, and anger, paired selective deficits have been found in experiencing and recognizing these emotions. A patient with insula and basal ganglia damage, for example, scored very low on a questionnaire for experiencing disgust and was also significantly and selectively impaired in recognizing disgust in facial expressions. Such findings are best explained by simulation theory, which predicts that damage to a neural system responsible for undergoing a certain emotion would also yield impairment in recognizing it. Mirror processes involve matching neural activation in both a subject and an observer of a specific mental state, and such processes have been identified (via single cell recordings and neuroimaging studies) for motor intention, touch, pain, and the several emotions listed above.Less
People have a primitive and largely automatic ability to recognize emotions in faces, an ability best explained by simulation, more specifically, mirror processes. In lesion studies of fear, disgust, and anger, paired selective deficits have been found in experiencing and recognizing these emotions. A patient with insula and basal ganglia damage, for example, scored very low on a questionnaire for experiencing disgust and was also significantly and selectively impaired in recognizing disgust in facial expressions. Such findings are best explained by simulation theory, which predicts that damage to a neural system responsible for undergoing a certain emotion would also yield impairment in recognizing it. Mirror processes involve matching neural activation in both a subject and an observer of a specific mental state, and such processes have been identified (via single cell recordings and neuroimaging studies) for motor intention, touch, pain, and the several emotions listed above.
Carolyn Korsmeyer
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199756940
- eISBN:
- 9780199895212
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199756940.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Disgust is among the strongest of aversions, characterized by involuntary physical recoil and even nausea. Yet paradoxically, disgusting objects can sometimes exert a grisly allure, and this emotion ...
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Disgust is among the strongest of aversions, characterized by involuntary physical recoil and even nausea. Yet paradoxically, disgusting objects can sometimes exert a grisly allure, and this emotion can constitute a positive, appreciative aesthetic response when exploited by works of art—a phenomenon we might consider “aesthetic disgust.” While the reactive, visceral power of disgust contributes to its misleading reputation as a relatively “primitive” response mechanism, it is this feature that also gives it a particular aesthetic power when manifest in art. Most treatments of disgust mistakenly interpret it as only an extreme response, thereby neglecting the many subtle ways that it operates aesthetically. This study calls attention to the diversity and depth of its uses, analyzing the emotion in detail and considering the enormous variety of aesthetic forms it can assume in works of art and, unexpectedly, even in foods. In the process of articulating a positive role for disgust, the nature of aesthetic apprehension is scrutinized and an argument developed for the distinctive mode of cognition that disgust affords—an intimate apprehension of physical mortality. However, despite some commonalities attached to the meaning of disgust, this emotion assumes many aesthetic forms: it can be funny, profound, witty, ironic, unsettling, and gross. To demonstrate this diversity, several chapters review examples of disgust as it is aroused by art. The book ends by investigating to what extent disgust can be discovered in art that is also considered beautiful.Less
Disgust is among the strongest of aversions, characterized by involuntary physical recoil and even nausea. Yet paradoxically, disgusting objects can sometimes exert a grisly allure, and this emotion can constitute a positive, appreciative aesthetic response when exploited by works of art—a phenomenon we might consider “aesthetic disgust.” While the reactive, visceral power of disgust contributes to its misleading reputation as a relatively “primitive” response mechanism, it is this feature that also gives it a particular aesthetic power when manifest in art. Most treatments of disgust mistakenly interpret it as only an extreme response, thereby neglecting the many subtle ways that it operates aesthetically. This study calls attention to the diversity and depth of its uses, analyzing the emotion in detail and considering the enormous variety of aesthetic forms it can assume in works of art and, unexpectedly, even in foods. In the process of articulating a positive role for disgust, the nature of aesthetic apprehension is scrutinized and an argument developed for the distinctive mode of cognition that disgust affords—an intimate apprehension of physical mortality. However, despite some commonalities attached to the meaning of disgust, this emotion assumes many aesthetic forms: it can be funny, profound, witty, ironic, unsettling, and gross. To demonstrate this diversity, several chapters review examples of disgust as it is aroused by art. The book ends by investigating to what extent disgust can be discovered in art that is also considered beautiful.
Christopher Janaway
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199279692
- eISBN:
- 9780191707407
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199279692.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter considers Nietzsche's use of broadly artistic methods in pursuit of his psychological aims of revealing the origins of moral attitudes and a revaluation of values: his rhetorical ...
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This chapter considers Nietzsche's use of broadly artistic methods in pursuit of his psychological aims of revealing the origins of moral attitudes and a revaluation of values: his rhetorical devices, concern for linguistic texture, evaluation of his works in terms of mood and tempo, and provocation of the reader's affects. Given his hypothesis that moral attitudes have their origin primarily in inherited affects, his way of writing is argued to be intrinsic to his aims. In the depiction of slaves and nobles in Genealogy I, Nietzsche's text provokes ambivalent emotional responses to both. In section 14 of Genealogy I there is a comic portrayal of ‘Mr. Rash and Curious’ who witnesses an imaginary creation of the Christian values ‘good’ and ‘evil’. It is argued that this passage provokes disgust at the suppressed aggression that motivates these values, harnessing a disgust for aggression prompted earlier by our reaction to the nobles.Less
This chapter considers Nietzsche's use of broadly artistic methods in pursuit of his psychological aims of revealing the origins of moral attitudes and a revaluation of values: his rhetorical devices, concern for linguistic texture, evaluation of his works in terms of mood and tempo, and provocation of the reader's affects. Given his hypothesis that moral attitudes have their origin primarily in inherited affects, his way of writing is argued to be intrinsic to his aims. In the depiction of slaves and nobles in Genealogy I, Nietzsche's text provokes ambivalent emotional responses to both. In section 14 of Genealogy I there is a comic portrayal of ‘Mr. Rash and Curious’ who witnesses an imaginary creation of the Christian values ‘good’ and ‘evil’. It is argued that this passage provokes disgust at the suppressed aggression that motivates these values, harnessing a disgust for aggression prompted earlier by our reaction to the nobles.
Colin McGinn
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199829538
- eISBN:
- 9780199919482
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199829538.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General, Aesthetics
This chapter lists a number of categories of disgusting phenomena, accompanied by a pairing with relevant non-disgusting entities. The list provides the data for any plausible theory of the ...
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This chapter lists a number of categories of disgusting phenomena, accompanied by a pairing with relevant non-disgusting entities. The list provides the data for any plausible theory of the disgusting, and what is striking is how heterogeneous the class is. This heterogeneity poses a problem for the most initially attractive theories, forcing a subtler and more elaborate account of the disgusting, which will finally emerge in this study, hopefully. The goal is to find a theory that unifies the varieties of disgust.Less
This chapter lists a number of categories of disgusting phenomena, accompanied by a pairing with relevant non-disgusting entities. The list provides the data for any plausible theory of the disgusting, and what is striking is how heterogeneous the class is. This heterogeneity poses a problem for the most initially attractive theories, forcing a subtler and more elaborate account of the disgusting, which will finally emerge in this study, hopefully. The goal is to find a theory that unifies the varieties of disgust.
Herman Cappelen and John Hawthorne
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199560554
- eISBN:
- 9780191720963
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199560554.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter presents a case study of so-called predicates of personal taste. The understanding of this category is that it involves predicates that we ascribe to external objects and events that ...
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This chapter presents a case study of so-called predicates of personal taste. The understanding of this category is that it involves predicates that we ascribe to external objects and events that express our sensibilities — examples include ‘spicy’, ‘funny’, ‘disgusting’, ‘fun’, ‘delicious’, and ‘nauseating’. It is shown that even for a domain as relativism-friendly as that of predicates of personal taste, agreement and disagreement data fail to support any kind of anti-simplicity view.Less
This chapter presents a case study of so-called predicates of personal taste. The understanding of this category is that it involves predicates that we ascribe to external objects and events that express our sensibilities — examples include ‘spicy’, ‘funny’, ‘disgusting’, ‘fun’, ‘delicious’, and ‘nauseating’. It is shown that even for a domain as relativism-friendly as that of predicates of personal taste, agreement and disagreement data fail to support any kind of anti-simplicity view.
Fred Feldman
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199571178
- eISBN:
- 9780191722547
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199571178.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
An ancient objection to eudaimonism is based on the idea of “disgusting happiness”. Steven Cahn developed an interesting version of this objection based on a fictional character—Judah Rosenthal, from ...
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An ancient objection to eudaimonism is based on the idea of “disgusting happiness”. Steven Cahn developed an interesting version of this objection based on a fictional character—Judah Rosenthal, from the Woody Allen film Crimes and Misdemeanors. Judah passes all popular tests for happiness but is utterly morally corrupt. His case casts doubt on the naive identification of happiness with welfare. It's not clear that the case is decisive. Nevertheless, a form of eudaimonism that is intended to circumvent this problem can be developed. According to this novel form of the theory, the welfare value of each episode of happiness must be adjusted so as to reflect the extent to which the object of that happiness deserves to be enjoyed. It is left to the interested reader to determine whether the modification is really needed.Less
An ancient objection to eudaimonism is based on the idea of “disgusting happiness”. Steven Cahn developed an interesting version of this objection based on a fictional character—Judah Rosenthal, from the Woody Allen film Crimes and Misdemeanors. Judah passes all popular tests for happiness but is utterly morally corrupt. His case casts doubt on the naive identification of happiness with welfare. It's not clear that the case is decisive. Nevertheless, a form of eudaimonism that is intended to circumvent this problem can be developed. According to this novel form of the theory, the welfare value of each episode of happiness must be adjusted so as to reflect the extent to which the object of that happiness deserves to be enjoyed. It is left to the interested reader to determine whether the modification is really needed.
Lesel Dawson
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199266128
- eISBN:
- 9780191708688
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199266128.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, Women's Literature
This chapter analyses the menstrual cure for lovesickness in early modern medical and literary texts, suggesting how it throws important light on concepts of women, masculinity, and menstruation. In ...
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This chapter analyses the menstrual cure for lovesickness in early modern medical and literary texts, suggesting how it throws important light on concepts of women, masculinity, and menstruation. In this remedy, the lovesick man is shown the bloody cloths of his mistress, so that rather than inciting desire, her body provokes revulsion. Such a strategy mitigates the contradictions of male emotion and renders them justifiable: the lover's conflicting responses are represented as not the product of internal inconsistencies but rather as the inevitable result of being confronted by two seemingly different bodies. Male sexual insecurity is thus projected onto the female body, so that the lover's misogyny functions as a means of compensating for his sense of vulnerability and powerlessness. The menstrual cure also throuws new light on a key scene in Flectcher's The Mad Lover, which depicts how sexual disgust can cure the male lover.Less
This chapter analyses the menstrual cure for lovesickness in early modern medical and literary texts, suggesting how it throws important light on concepts of women, masculinity, and menstruation. In this remedy, the lovesick man is shown the bloody cloths of his mistress, so that rather than inciting desire, her body provokes revulsion. Such a strategy mitigates the contradictions of male emotion and renders them justifiable: the lover's conflicting responses are represented as not the product of internal inconsistencies but rather as the inevitable result of being confronted by two seemingly different bodies. Male sexual insecurity is thus projected onto the female body, so that the lover's misogyny functions as a means of compensating for his sense of vulnerability and powerlessness. The menstrual cure also throuws new light on a key scene in Flectcher's The Mad Lover, which depicts how sexual disgust can cure the male lover.
Aaron Kerner and Jonathan Knapp
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781474402903
- eISBN:
- 9781474422000
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474402903.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Extreme Cinema surveys post-millennial trends in transnational cinema—particularly in its highly stylized treatment of explicit sex and violence. In many cases these cinematic embellishments skirt ...
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Extreme Cinema surveys post-millennial trends in transnational cinema—particularly in its highly stylized treatment of explicit sex and violence. In many cases these cinematic embellishments skirt narrative motivation or even impede narrative progression, favoring instead the possibility to elicit an affective response in the spectator: physical sensation separate from cognition and emotion. As a result, in many instances extreme cinema is not governed according to narrative conventions (narrative arcs driven by character motivation), and instead emphasizes spectacles. If not episodic in structure, then, extreme cinema might host abrupt ruptures in the diegetic narrative—experiments in form and/or composition (editing, extreme close-ups, visual disorientation, sounds that straddle the boundary between non-diegetic and diegetic registers), the exhibition of intense violence and pain, acute intimacy with bodies in the throes of sex. In more episodic films, like the musical, or pornography, extreme cinema frequently showcases set cinematic numbers that flood sensory channels with auditory and/or visual stimulus. Extreme cinema wields the potential to manipulate the viewing body (as demonstrated by “reaction” videos posted on hosting sites such as YouTube). Crucially, the affects and emotions prompted by these films can vary wildly: abjection, disgust, arousal, laughter. Films considered include those of the American torture porn genre, as well as films that other scholars and marketers have classified as “New French Extremity” and “Asia Extreme.” While content is assuredly a concern, what Extreme Cinema explores, above all, is the importance of cinematic form.Less
Extreme Cinema surveys post-millennial trends in transnational cinema—particularly in its highly stylized treatment of explicit sex and violence. In many cases these cinematic embellishments skirt narrative motivation or even impede narrative progression, favoring instead the possibility to elicit an affective response in the spectator: physical sensation separate from cognition and emotion. As a result, in many instances extreme cinema is not governed according to narrative conventions (narrative arcs driven by character motivation), and instead emphasizes spectacles. If not episodic in structure, then, extreme cinema might host abrupt ruptures in the diegetic narrative—experiments in form and/or composition (editing, extreme close-ups, visual disorientation, sounds that straddle the boundary between non-diegetic and diegetic registers), the exhibition of intense violence and pain, acute intimacy with bodies in the throes of sex. In more episodic films, like the musical, or pornography, extreme cinema frequently showcases set cinematic numbers that flood sensory channels with auditory and/or visual stimulus. Extreme cinema wields the potential to manipulate the viewing body (as demonstrated by “reaction” videos posted on hosting sites such as YouTube). Crucially, the affects and emotions prompted by these films can vary wildly: abjection, disgust, arousal, laughter. Films considered include those of the American torture porn genre, as well as films that other scholars and marketers have classified as “New French Extremity” and “Asia Extreme.” While content is assuredly a concern, what Extreme Cinema explores, above all, is the importance of cinematic form.
Colin McGinn
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199829538
- eISBN:
- 9780199919482
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199829538.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General, Aesthetics
This chapter sketches out a map of the territory, assembling the data and enunciating some distinctive features, with the ultimate aim of producing a theory of what unites the class of disgusting ...
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This chapter sketches out a map of the territory, assembling the data and enunciating some distinctive features, with the ultimate aim of producing a theory of what unites the class of disgusting things: what all and only disgusting things have in common. It surveys the class of disgusting things and attempts to work out what brings them together in the emotion they provoke: what properties do disgusting things have that make them produce the emotion of disgust in us? It follows Aurel Kolnai's pioneering phenomenological study, On Disgust, in classifying disgust as an aversive emotion, belonging together with fear and hatred. It is argued that disgust is a sui generis aversive emotion, importantly different from its aversive cousins. And this uniqueness is what makes it peculiarly problematic philosophically.Less
This chapter sketches out a map of the territory, assembling the data and enunciating some distinctive features, with the ultimate aim of producing a theory of what unites the class of disgusting things: what all and only disgusting things have in common. It surveys the class of disgusting things and attempts to work out what brings them together in the emotion they provoke: what properties do disgusting things have that make them produce the emotion of disgust in us? It follows Aurel Kolnai's pioneering phenomenological study, On Disgust, in classifying disgust as an aversive emotion, belonging together with fear and hatred. It is argued that disgust is a sui generis aversive emotion, importantly different from its aversive cousins. And this uniqueness is what makes it peculiarly problematic philosophically.
Colin McGinn
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199829538
- eISBN:
- 9780199919482
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199829538.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General, Aesthetics
This chapter surveys the class of disgusting things to see how well the death-in-life theory can deal with the data. It concludes that the theory makes intelligible sense of the data of disgust. A ...
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This chapter surveys the class of disgusting things to see how well the death-in-life theory can deal with the data. It concludes that the theory makes intelligible sense of the data of disgust. A common thread can be seen running through the domain of disgusting things—their principle of cohesion. The core cases exhibit the principle clearly, while the other cases shade off to a penumbra. The grouping is not arbitrary or wildly disjunctive, but reflects a single conceptual structure, with variations and extensions. To be disgusting is to meet certain well-defined conditions. Thus, we have arrived at an analysis of the concept of disgust; or again, we have discovered the essence of disgusting things. We now know what it is that makes something disgusting.Less
This chapter surveys the class of disgusting things to see how well the death-in-life theory can deal with the data. It concludes that the theory makes intelligible sense of the data of disgust. A common thread can be seen running through the domain of disgusting things—their principle of cohesion. The core cases exhibit the principle clearly, while the other cases shade off to a penumbra. The grouping is not arbitrary or wildly disjunctive, but reflects a single conceptual structure, with variations and extensions. To be disgusting is to meet certain well-defined conditions. Thus, we have arrived at an analysis of the concept of disgust; or again, we have discovered the essence of disgusting things. We now know what it is that makes something disgusting.
Robert C. Solomon
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- November 2004
- ISBN:
- 9780195145502
- eISBN:
- 9780199834969
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019514550X.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Horror is not the same as fear, and while fear contains an essential action tendency horror does not. And while we can enjoy fear (as Aristotle argued in our viewing of tragic theater) there is no ...
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Horror is not the same as fear, and while fear contains an essential action tendency horror does not. And while we can enjoy fear (as Aristotle argued in our viewing of tragic theater) there is no enjoying of horror.Less
Horror is not the same as fear, and while fear contains an essential action tendency horror does not. And while we can enjoy fear (as Aristotle argued in our viewing of tragic theater) there is no enjoying of horror.
Kathryn D. Temple
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781479895274
- eISBN:
- 9781479832637
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479895274.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Legal History
How do people develop loyalty to the legal system they inhabit? This book focuses on legal emotions in William Blackstone's transformative, bestselling Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–69), ...
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How do people develop loyalty to the legal system they inhabit? This book focuses on legal emotions in William Blackstone's transformative, bestselling Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–69), a collection of volumes that deeply impacted English legal culture and became an icon for English common law values across the British Empire. Blackstone, not only a lawyer and judge, but a poet who believed that “the only true and natural foundations of society are the wants and fears of individuals,” was ideally situated to condense English law into a form that evoked emotions. Using a history of emotions and Law and Humanities approach, the book argues that in enlisting an affective aesthetics to invoke emotions such as desire, disgust, melancholia, embarrassment, terror, tenderness, and happiness, Blackstone encouraged readers to feel as much as reason their way to justice in ways that have continued to influence the Western world. This book treats the Commentaries—reinterpreted here in affective, aesthetic, and real-world contexts—as offering a complex map of our affective relationship to juridical culture, one that illuminates both individual and communal understandings of our search for justice and is crucial for understanding both justice and injustice today.Less
How do people develop loyalty to the legal system they inhabit? This book focuses on legal emotions in William Blackstone's transformative, bestselling Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–69), a collection of volumes that deeply impacted English legal culture and became an icon for English common law values across the British Empire. Blackstone, not only a lawyer and judge, but a poet who believed that “the only true and natural foundations of society are the wants and fears of individuals,” was ideally situated to condense English law into a form that evoked emotions. Using a history of emotions and Law and Humanities approach, the book argues that in enlisting an affective aesthetics to invoke emotions such as desire, disgust, melancholia, embarrassment, terror, tenderness, and happiness, Blackstone encouraged readers to feel as much as reason their way to justice in ways that have continued to influence the Western world. This book treats the Commentaries—reinterpreted here in affective, aesthetic, and real-world contexts—as offering a complex map of our affective relationship to juridical culture, one that illuminates both individual and communal understandings of our search for justice and is crucial for understanding both justice and injustice today.
Danielle Sands
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474439039
- eISBN:
- 9781474476881
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474439039.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
The Conclusion situates the findings of the book in relation to the current environmental crisis, arguing that effective responses to this crisis demand a plurality of approaches to nonhuman life, ...
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The Conclusion situates the findings of the book in relation to the current environmental crisis, arguing that effective responses to this crisis demand a plurality of approaches to nonhuman life, rather than an empathy which is restricted to certain living beings. It argues that literature is not a protected, apolitical space, but a world-making space, whose tools – metaphor, trope, allegory – should be evaluated as better or worse tools of being-with other forms of life, rather than merely in terms of their representational value. The Conclusion appeals to a mode of ‘noninnocent thinking’ which links the critical and imaginative, and advances ways of cultivating less violence, rather than eradicating it completely.Less
The Conclusion situates the findings of the book in relation to the current environmental crisis, arguing that effective responses to this crisis demand a plurality of approaches to nonhuman life, rather than an empathy which is restricted to certain living beings. It argues that literature is not a protected, apolitical space, but a world-making space, whose tools – metaphor, trope, allegory – should be evaluated as better or worse tools of being-with other forms of life, rather than merely in terms of their representational value. The Conclusion appeals to a mode of ‘noninnocent thinking’ which links the critical and imaginative, and advances ways of cultivating less violence, rather than eradicating it completely.
Shaun Nichols
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195169348
- eISBN:
- 9780199835041
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195169344.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
A large tradition of work in moral psychology explores the capacity for moral judgment by focusing on the basic capacity to distinguish moral violations (e.g., hitting another person) from ...
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A large tradition of work in moral psychology explores the capacity for moral judgment by focusing on the basic capacity to distinguish moral violations (e.g., hitting another person) from conventional violations (e.g., playing with your food). This method plausibly reveals a capacity for a kind of coremoral judgment. Recent evidence indicates that affect plays a crucial role in mediating the capacity to draw the moral/conventional distinguish. However, the prevailing account of the role of affect in moral judgment is problematic. This chapter argues that the capacity to draw the moral/conventional distinction depends on both a body of information about which actions are prohibited (“a normative theory”) and an affective mechanism that confers a special status on the norms.Less
A large tradition of work in moral psychology explores the capacity for moral judgment by focusing on the basic capacity to distinguish moral violations (e.g., hitting another person) from conventional violations (e.g., playing with your food). This method plausibly reveals a capacity for a kind of coremoral judgment. Recent evidence indicates that affect plays a crucial role in mediating the capacity to draw the moral/conventional distinguish. However, the prevailing account of the role of affect in moral judgment is problematic. This chapter argues that the capacity to draw the moral/conventional distinction depends on both a body of information about which actions are prohibited (“a normative theory”) and an affective mechanism that confers a special status on the norms.
Shaun Nichols
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195169348
- eISBN:
- 9780199835041
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195169344.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
One explanation for why the norms we have are closely connected to our emotions is that our norms are intrinsically connected to our emotions. This chapter develops the alternative idea that our ...
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One explanation for why the norms we have are closely connected to our emotions is that our norms are intrinsically connected to our emotions. This chapter develops the alternative idea that our emotions played a historical role in shaping which norms prevailed. The central thesis is that emotional responses constitute one important set of mechanisms that affects the cultural viability of norms. Norms that “resonate” with our emotional repertoire will be more likely to survive than other norms. This is corroborated by historical evidence indicating that 16th-century etiquette norms prohibiting disgusting actions were much more likely to survive than other 16th-century etiquette norms.Less
One explanation for why the norms we have are closely connected to our emotions is that our norms are intrinsically connected to our emotions. This chapter develops the alternative idea that our emotions played a historical role in shaping which norms prevailed. The central thesis is that emotional responses constitute one important set of mechanisms that affects the cultural viability of norms. Norms that “resonate” with our emotional repertoire will be more likely to survive than other norms. This is corroborated by historical evidence indicating that 16th-century etiquette norms prohibiting disgusting actions were much more likely to survive than other 16th-century etiquette norms.
Lisa D. Brush
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195398502
- eISBN:
- 9780199897483
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195398502.003.0011
- Subject:
- Social Work, Crime and Justice
This chapter provides the intellectual scaffolding for the book. The chapter reviews the explanatory frameworks that together constitute the conventional wisdom about poverty, battering, and the ...
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This chapter provides the intellectual scaffolding for the book. The chapter reviews the explanatory frameworks that together constitute the conventional wisdom about poverty, battering, and the central role of women’s work in addressing them. The hegemonic explanations for poverty and abuse include victim empowerment folklore, criminological expertise and law-and-order logic, the politics of disgust, and work-first common sense. The chapter then presents an alternative approach (drawn from feminist structural challenges to conventional wisdom) that focuses on how women are trapped by poverty and abuse. The chapter concludes the chapter with a critical description of the contradictory dynamics of the institutionalization of conventional wisdom in two key U.S. policies on poverty and battering: the Personal Responsibility Act and the Violence Against Women Act.Less
This chapter provides the intellectual scaffolding for the book. The chapter reviews the explanatory frameworks that together constitute the conventional wisdom about poverty, battering, and the central role of women’s work in addressing them. The hegemonic explanations for poverty and abuse include victim empowerment folklore, criminological expertise and law-and-order logic, the politics of disgust, and work-first common sense. The chapter then presents an alternative approach (drawn from feminist structural challenges to conventional wisdom) that focuses on how women are trapped by poverty and abuse. The chapter concludes the chapter with a critical description of the contradictory dynamics of the institutionalization of conventional wisdom in two key U.S. policies on poverty and battering: the Personal Responsibility Act and the Violence Against Women Act.
Joanne Begiato
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781526128577
- eISBN:
- 9781526152046
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7765/9781526128584.00008
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gender Studies
This chapter demonstrates that unmanliness was written onto ill-formed, unappealing bodies and faces, which prompted disgust, fear, and shame. It shows that adult men were instructed on how to avoid ...
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This chapter demonstrates that unmanliness was written onto ill-formed, unappealing bodies and faces, which prompted disgust, fear, and shame. It shows that adult men were instructed on how to avoid unmanliness through emotionalised bodies: failing, uncontrolled, unattractive bodies created by unchecked appetites and bad habits such as drunkenness, and sexual vices. Men were thus taught that the inability to master one’s self caused literal physical, mental, and moral disintegration. Lack of self-control became more dangerous in the nineteenth century as excessive passions, bodily appetites, and feelings were increasingly pathologised as causes of disease and insanity. Responsibility was placed upon the male individual for failing to exert enough moral control to avoid his illness. The discussion of the relationship between unmanliness, bodies, and emotions that follows reveals the inherent paradox of masculine identity, since many unmanly behaviours were also those which, in a managed form, were central to the performance of normative masculinity. Thus, men had to navigate considerable ambiguities in performing their gender. The chapter shows how unmanliness was especially complicated for those men whose bodies were lacking, due to disability, age, or infirmity. (184 words)Less
This chapter demonstrates that unmanliness was written onto ill-formed, unappealing bodies and faces, which prompted disgust, fear, and shame. It shows that adult men were instructed on how to avoid unmanliness through emotionalised bodies: failing, uncontrolled, unattractive bodies created by unchecked appetites and bad habits such as drunkenness, and sexual vices. Men were thus taught that the inability to master one’s self caused literal physical, mental, and moral disintegration. Lack of self-control became more dangerous in the nineteenth century as excessive passions, bodily appetites, and feelings were increasingly pathologised as causes of disease and insanity. Responsibility was placed upon the male individual for failing to exert enough moral control to avoid his illness. The discussion of the relationship between unmanliness, bodies, and emotions that follows reveals the inherent paradox of masculine identity, since many unmanly behaviours were also those which, in a managed form, were central to the performance of normative masculinity. Thus, men had to navigate considerable ambiguities in performing their gender. The chapter shows how unmanliness was especially complicated for those men whose bodies were lacking, due to disability, age, or infirmity. (184 words)
Edwin Muir
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781496803382
- eISBN:
- 9781496806789
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496803382.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
This chapter is an essay which reviews William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying, the story of the corpse of a woman in late middle age. As I Lay Dying is concerned not with death, but merely with the ...
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This chapter is an essay which reviews William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying, the story of the corpse of a woman in late middle age. As I Lay Dying is concerned not with death, but merely with the chemical changes which happen in a dead body. The history Faulkner relates is the history of this body before it is finally buried. It may be said that the novel's most interesting character, or at least the character in which Faulkner shows most interest, is the corpse in its dead, or rather gruesomely alive, state. The effect that this story produces is one of self-indulgence, disgust rather than horror. The essay argues that there is nothing much to be said for As I Lay Dying except for a few isolated accounts of violent action.Less
This chapter is an essay which reviews William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying, the story of the corpse of a woman in late middle age. As I Lay Dying is concerned not with death, but merely with the chemical changes which happen in a dead body. The history Faulkner relates is the history of this body before it is finally buried. It may be said that the novel's most interesting character, or at least the character in which Faulkner shows most interest, is the corpse in its dead, or rather gruesomely alive, state. The effect that this story produces is one of self-indulgence, disgust rather than horror. The essay argues that there is nothing much to be said for As I Lay Dying except for a few isolated accounts of violent action.
Michael Newall
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199609581
- eISBN:
- 9780191746260
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199609581.003.0011
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics, Moral Philosophy
This chapter targets works of literary pornography that achieve their primary effect, sexual arousal, in part by representing a particular kind of norm-breaking, namely the violation of social or ...
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This chapter targets works of literary pornography that achieve their primary effect, sexual arousal, in part by representing a particular kind of norm-breaking, namely the violation of social or moral norms about sexual behaviour. Key examples include the Marquis de Sade's The One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom and Raymond Queneau's We Always Treat Women Too Well. While some of these norm-breaking scenarios, especially the milder ones, sometimes function as little more than an ‘interesting’ way of framing otherwise standard sex scenes, they can also add to sexual arousal, as well as provide a basis for other affective states, such as disgust, humour, and awe. Such affects, which are typically adventitious and unsolicited in popular pornography, are exploited for artistic purposes in literary pornography. This chapter not only shows how each of these affects has a basis in the norm-breaking of transgressive pornography, but also investigates the artistic value that can accrue to these affects by examining Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye and the roles that disgust, humour, and awe play in it.Less
This chapter targets works of literary pornography that achieve their primary effect, sexual arousal, in part by representing a particular kind of norm-breaking, namely the violation of social or moral norms about sexual behaviour. Key examples include the Marquis de Sade's The One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom and Raymond Queneau's We Always Treat Women Too Well. While some of these norm-breaking scenarios, especially the milder ones, sometimes function as little more than an ‘interesting’ way of framing otherwise standard sex scenes, they can also add to sexual arousal, as well as provide a basis for other affective states, such as disgust, humour, and awe. Such affects, which are typically adventitious and unsolicited in popular pornography, are exploited for artistic purposes in literary pornography. This chapter not only shows how each of these affects has a basis in the norm-breaking of transgressive pornography, but also investigates the artistic value that can accrue to these affects by examining Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye and the roles that disgust, humour, and awe play in it.
