Law Without Disgust: A Fetid Freedom

Matthew Jordan Cochran

Abstract

Martha Nussbaum has attacked disgust as an emotion incompatible with political liberal values; a primitive shrinking from animality that is used to subjugate vulnerable groups. Dr. Leon Kass has described disgust as a profound wisdom that teaches us the boundaries beyond which our given human nature becomes compromised. Kass's view of human dignity recognizes the hierarchical nature of being human, while Nussbaum's rather scatological account reduces mankind to a mere species of animal—an animal which is somehow an oppressor for shunning the accouterments of its own mortality. This article compares these two competing views on the interplay between disgust and human dignity, and contends that Nussbaum's respect for equal dignity is not well-served by her arguments, which are subject to a number of significant criticisms. Among these are that she fails to distinguish her argument from Mill's "harm principle," and takes inconsistent and untenable positions regarding the rational value of emotions.