Against the Yuck Factor: On the Ideal Role of Disgust in Society

Utilitas ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANIEL KELLY ◽  
NICOLAE MORAR

The view we defend is that in virtue of its nature, disgust is not fit to do any moral or social work whatsoever, and that there are no defensible uses for disgust in legal or political institutions. We first describe our favoured empirical theory of the nature of disgust. Turning from descriptive to normative issues, we address the best arguments in favour of granting disgust the power to justify certain judgements, and to serve as a social tool, respectively. Daniel Kahan advances a pair of theses that suggest disgust is indispensable (Moral Indispensability Thesis), and so has an important part to play in the functioning of a just, well-ordered society (Conservation Thesis). We develop responses and show how they rebut the arguments given in support of each thesis. We conclude that any society free of social disgust would be more just, reasonable and compassionate.

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa H Schwartzman

Lisa Tessman’s Moral Failure: On the Impossible Demands of Morality raises important questions about ideal theory, oppression, and the role of action guidance in normative philosophy. After a brief overview of feminist and anti-racist philosophers’ critiques of ideal theory, I examine Tessman’s claim that nonideal oppression theorists focus too narrowly on action guidance and thereby obscure other important normative issues, such as the problem of moral failure. Although I agree with Tessman’s advocacy of a wider focus—and with her suggestion that situations of inevitable moral failure are particularly important to examine in contexts of oppression—I question whether nonideal oppression theorists actually emphasize action guidance to the exclusion of other concerns. I conclude with a brief examination of the way that ideal and nonideal theory have been defined and understood in debates about normative methodology, and I suggest that a move away from Rawls’s account of the ideal/nonideal distinction would benefit feminists and other oppression theorists.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Brunet

This article proposes a model of individual violent radicalisation leading to acts of terrorism. After reviewing the role of group regression and the creation of group psychic apparatus, the article will examine how violent radicalisation, by the reversal of the importance of the superego and the ideal ego, serves to compensate the narcissistic identity suffering by “lone wolf” terrorists.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 121
Author(s):  
Mochammad Arief Wicaksono

The ideology of state-ibuism has always been interwoven with how the New Order regime until nowadays government constructing the “ideal” role of women in the family and community through the PKK (Pembinaan Kesejahteraan Keluarga) organization. However, in Cangkring Village, Indramayu, the ideology of ibuism works not because of the massive government regulating the role of women through the PKK organization, but it is possible because of the structure of the kampung community itself. Through involved observations and in-depth interviews about a kindergarten in the village, a group of housewives who dedicated themselves to teaching in kindergarten were met without getting paid high. From these socio-cultural phenomenons, this paper will describe descriptively and analytically that housewives in the Cangkring village are willing to become kindergarten teachers because of their moral burden as part of the warga kampung and also from community pressure from people who want their children to be able to read and write.


Author(s):  
Francis L. F Lee ◽  
Joseph M Chan

Chapter 1 introduces the background of the Umbrella Movement, a protest movement that took hold in Hong Kong in 2014, and outlines the theoretical principles underlying the analysis of the role of media and communication in the occupation campaign. It explicates how the Umbrella Movement is similar to but also different from the ideal-typical networked social movement and crowd-enabled connective action. It explains why the Umbrella Movement should be seen as a case in which the logic of connective action intervenes into a planned collective action. It also introduces the notion of conditioned contingencies and the conceptualization of an integrated media system.


Author(s):  
Georg Menz

This new and comprehensive volume invites the reader on a tour of the exciting subfield of comparative political economy. The book provides an in-depth account of the theoretical debates surrounding different models of capitalism. Tracing the origins of the field back to Adam Smith and the French Physiocrats, the development of the study of models of political-economic governance is laid out and reviewed. Comparative Political Economy (CPE) sets itself apart from International Political Economy (IPE), focusing on domestic economic and political institutions that compose in combination diverse models of political economy. Drawing on evidence from the US, the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, and Japan, the volume affords detailed coverage of the systems of industrial relations, finance, welfare states, and the economic role of the state. There is also a chapter that charts the politics of public and private debt. Much of the focus in CPE has rested on ideas, interests, and institutions, but the subfield ought to take the role of culture more seriously. This book offers suggestions for doing so. It is intended as an introduction to the field for postgraduate students, yet it also offers new insights and fresh inspiration for established scholars. The Varieties of Capitalism approach seems to have reached an impasse, but it could be rejuvenated by exploring the composite elements of different models and what makes them hang together. Rapidly changing technological parameters, new and more recent environmental challenges, demographic change, and immigration will all affect the governance of the various political economy models throughout the OECD. The final section of the book analyses how these impending challenges will reconfigure and threaten to destabilize established national systems of capitalism.


2021 ◽  
pp. 001041402199716
Author(s):  
Nam Kyu Kim ◽  
Jun Koga Sudduth

Does the creation of nominally democratic institutions help dictators stay in power by diminishing the risk of coups? We posit that the effectiveness of political institutions in deterring coups crucially depends on the types of plotters and their political goals. By providing a means to address the ruling coalition’s primary concerns about a dictator’s opportunism or incompetence, institutions reduce the necessity of reshuffling coups, in which the ruling coalition replaces an incumbent leader but keeps the regime intact. However, such institutions do not diminish the risk of regime-changing coups, because the plotters’ goals of overthrowing the entire regime and changing the group of ruling coalition are not achievable via activities within the institutions. Our empirical analysis provides strong empirical support for our expectations. Our findings highlight that the role of “democratic” institutions in deterring coups is rather limited as it only applies to less than 38% of coup attempts.


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