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wisdom of repugnance

wisdom of repugnance
 n.— «Professor Nussbaum is certainly right that feelings of disgust, like feelings of shame, are extra- if not irrational: we don’t argue ourselves into disgust or shame: we feel it immediately. Professor Nussbaum is deeply suspicious of those feelings. She sharply criticizes the physician-philosopher Leon Kass for advocating the “wisdom of repugnance”—the wisdom of disgust and revulsion—because our disgust might be misplaced.» —“Does shame have a future?” by Roger Kimball New Criterion Sept. 1, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)

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