Titel
A Tempered Rationalism for a Tempered Yuck Factor—Using Disgust in Bioethics
Autor*in
Abstract
When it comes to invasive manipulation of animals on the biological level, reactions of disgust are common and often influential on people’s moral judgments. As a case in point, the Belgian Blue, a breed of hyper-enhanced cattle which will serve as a case study for the present article, has historically been met with revulsion. Traditionally, in bio- and animal ethics, this ‘yuck factor,’ has been denied any productive role in proper moral justification, since rationalism is still a dominant paradigm in those disciplines. This is not surprising since rationalism offers the fulfilment of certain expectations we have of morality, like universality, intersubjective communicability, and objectivity. Increasingly, however, the preconceptions of rationalism have been brought into question, both through empirical as well as philosophical insights. In this paper, we will explore a way in which researchers who are, accordingly, critical of rationalism, and who wish to take seriously the role disgust plays in the formation of moral judgments when it comes to biological manipulation of animals, can do so without abandoning those virtues of rationalism which make it such an appealing position. We will do so by offering what we call a ‘tempered’ kind of rationalism, that is, one which conceives of rationality in the terms of Mary Midgley, not as distinct from, but as a possible function of, well-ordered emotion.
Stichwort
RationalismDisgustYuck factorMary MidgleyAnimal ethicsFarm animal breeding
Objekt-Typ
Sprache
Englisch [eng]
Persistent identifier
Erschienen in
Titel
Asian Bioethics Review
ISSN
1793-8759
Erscheinungsdatum
2024
Publication
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Erscheinungsdatum
2024
Zugänglichkeit
Rechte
Rechteangabe
© The Author(s) 2024
Universität Wien | Universitätsring 1 | 1010 Wien | T
+43-1-4277-0