Are Some Objects of Disgust Derivative of Others?: Accounting for Instances of Racialized Disgust

Season 7 continues with another presentation from our 2022 annual conference, Engaged Phenomenology II: Explorations of Embodiment, Emotions, and Spatiality.   This episode features a presentation from Kenneth Bruce of Fordham University, United States   Abstract: In philosophical considerations of disgust, one consistent problem has been how to define physical disgust and moral disgust in a way that does justice to their differences while also allowing them to occupy the same category of emotional reaction. Aurel Kolnai (2004) and Sara Heinämaa (2020) each give a phenomenological account of what this connection might be, and in doing so suggest that there is a way that we can pick out some formal object of disgust that we intentionally aim/are aimed at when feeling disgusted, either physically or morally. In this paper, I evaluate these decidedly non-derivative models of physical and moral disgust, specifically with respect to instances of disgust that are based in racial and/or ethnic prejudices. I first raise what I take to be problems with Heinämaa’s adverbial model of moral disgust. I’ll then take up Sara Ahmed’s (2015) writing on disgust as something that “spreads” via acts of reiteration to develop a derivative account of moral disgust that retains Kolnai and Heinämaa’s phenomenological insights even as it demonstrates that objects of disgust need not always share some formal object. I argue that there are good reasons for thinking that some objects of disgust are derived from previous ones, but that we need to be careful in mapping out this derivative relationship. Finally, I use this derivative model of disgust to analyze examples of both physical and moral disgust from the writings of Audre Lord (2007) and Alia Al-Saji (2008), respectively. This will allow us to understand such instances of disgust as 1) real instances of disgust that, nonetheless, do not not entail that the objects of disgust are inherently or essentially disgusting and 2) morally reprehensible and dangerous precisely because they do not involve a “mistake,” but accurately reflect the disgusted subjects' prejudices.   Biography: Ken Bruce is a PhD student at Fordham University in his second year. His main areas of interest are in Husserl, Merleau-Ponty and critical phenomenology, especially as it overlaps with critical philosophy of race and feminist philosophy. His current research involves looking at phenomenological accounts of racialization as they occur at the aural register, both in addition to and in distinction from the visual register, and investigating what insights might be gained from centering such a perspective.   Further Information: This recording is taken from our Annual UK Conference 2022: Engaged Phenomenology II: Explorations of Embodiment, Emotions, and Sociality (Exeter, UK / Hybrid) with the University of Exeter. Sponsored by the Wellcome Centre, Egenis, and the Shame and Medicine project. For the conference our speakers either presented in person at Exeter or remotely to people online and in-room, and the podcast episodes are recorded from the live broadcast feeds.   The British Society for Phenomenology is a not-for-profit organisation set up with the intention of promoting research and awareness in the field of Phenomenology and other cognate arms of philosophical thought. Currently, the society accomplishes these aims through its journal, events, and podcast.   About our events: https://www.thebsp.org.uk/events/   About the BSP: https://www.thebsp.org.uk/about/