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)

Join the discussion

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Further reading

Blessing Box (episode #1613)

Is there such a thing as a “neutral” accent, and if so what does it sound like? And that quirk in the way southern Californians talk about freeways. They’ll say things like take the 405 and get on the 8. Why the definite article...