Episode 95: The Repugnance of Repugnance

We all remember the famous iTunes review calling David and Tamler "repugnant." (And the T-shirt/mugs are coming soon, we promise!) But what did the reviewer mean by that? Was he calling us "immoral"? Did he actually feel disgust when he listened to the podcast? And if so, was there wisdom in his repugnance--did the feeling offer any moral insight about the podcast's value? How did an emotion that originally evolved for pathogen avoidance get into moralizing business anyway? And why do white people kiss their dogs? Plus, an illuminating two week old discussion about the election, and Tamler finally comes around to defending a Kantian position—"the cart-egorical imperative"

• Kass, L. R. (1997). The Wisdom of Repugnance: Why we should ban the cloning of humans, the. Val. UL Rev., 32, 679. [stanford.edu]
• Very Bad Wizards Episode 7: Psychopaths and Utilitarians Pt. 2 [verybadwizards.com]
• "Freedom" internet blocking app [freedom.to]
• Dolly the cloned sheep [wikipedia.org]
• Kelly, D. (2011). Yuck!: the nature and moral significance of disgust. MIT Press. [amazon.com affiliate link]
• Sommers, T. (2013). Review of "Yuck: The Nature and Moral Significance of Disgust." The Philosophical Quarterly, 63(250), 172-174. [verybadwizards.com]
• Pizarro, D., Inbar, Y., & Helion, C. (2011). On disgust and moral judgment. Emotion Review, 3(3), 267-268. [peezer.net]
• Exaptation [wikipedia.org]
• Pinker on Kass--"The Stupidity of Dignity" in New Republic May 28 2008. [newrepublic.com]
• Do I Need an Umbrella? [doineedanumbrella.com]
• Cthulhu For President [cthulhuforamerica.com]

Support Very Bad Wizards