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Modern psychological research has devoted considerable attention to physiological disgust and “moral” disgust, finding both similarities and significant differences between them. Of particular interest is the plausible evolutionary hypothesis that physiological disgust provides the phylogenetic basis for social or moral disgust. To a considerable extent, these distinctions are comparable to the different categories of pollution which have been identified in the Hebrew Bible, specifically the distinction between so-called “ritual” and “moral” impurities. It will be argued that the evolutionary framework employed for the study of disgust can shed light on the role of pollution beliefs in shaping moral discourse in ancient Israel. This evolutionary perspective will serve as the basis for a renewed examination of the social implications of purity, duly stressed in Mary Douglas’ influential treatise Purity and Danger (1966). However, in contrast with Douglas’ symbolic approach to pollution, which presupposed a top-down process rooted in disembodied rationality, this paper outlines a bottom-up account grounded in physiological concerns related to disgust and infectious disease. This embodied framework enables the identification of two distinct mechanisms by which pollution can take on broader socio-moral implications, specifically those embedded in purity practices themselves and those emerging from the rhetorical extensions of purity language. The article concludes with discussion of how this historical evidence can encourage a reconsideration of some prevalent assumptions in modern experimental research of moral disgust. online: http://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/JCH/article/view/30290 Email me for PDF
Published in F. Scott Spencer (ed.), Mixed Feelings and Vexed Passions: Exploring Emotions in Biblical Literature (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2017), 97–115.
Disgust in Body, Mind, and Language: The Case of Impurity in the Hebrew BibleThe present article explores the multileveled function of disgust in biblical purity discourse as an embodied emotion, a conceptual framework, and a rhetorical strategy. The methodological approach is broadly evolutionary (biopsychological) and cognitive-conceptual, including insights from neuroscience and linguistics (metaphor and blending theories). The texts referred to and analyzed represent a variety of genres (legal, narrative, prophetic) and are selected to illustrate different aspects and functions of disgust, ranging from ritual indexing and taboos, to moral indignation and general value judgments, to ostracism and ethnocentrism. The aim is to demonstrate how biological underpinnings and cultural constructions of disgust interact and thereby provide resources for a better understanding of impurity and disgust reflected in biblical texts. The argument builds on my previous studies on impurity and disgust and incorporates some of their analyses and conclusions.
Journal of Law, Religion and State
The Role of Disgust in Priestly Purity Law: Insights from Conceptual Metaphor and Blending Theories2014 •
Common anthropological and structuralist approaches to Israelite purity law are often problematic. Disgust is a more promising explanation for the diverse impurities reflected in priestly texts. But not all impurities fit into a pattern of disgust equally well. Disgust language also characterizes impurities that ought not to evoke revulsion easily. I have previously suggested a transfer of emotional disgust from obvious triggers to objects that are clearly culture-specific by means of a secondary use of disgust language as value judgment. In the present article I explore this further with the help of cognitive linguistics. Conceptual metaphor theories as well as more elaborate blending models help clarify how disgust intrinsic to certain conceptions of impurity can be extended and transferred to others, which at times bear only slight resemblances. As a result, I suggest that disgust is the most comprehensive explanation for the wide variety of conceptions of impurity found in priestly legislation.
This article examines thirteen terms that connote disgust about food, drink, sex, gods, offerings, prayers, peoples, lands, persons, injustice, and life. The terms form two different “codes” for social orientation. An international, sapiental or ethical “code” emphasizes moral disgust, which is nourished by the love of YHWH and lady wisdom. A priestly or ethnic “code” is characterized by a rhetoric of disgust, which functions to deter people from non-Yahwistic laws of the nations. In this rhetoric, fecal language is used in order to express disgust of idols, the symbols of the gods who order and legitimize foreign laws and customs.
Journal of Near Eastern Studies 72 (2013)
Contagion and Cognition: Bodily Experience and the Conceptualization of Pollution (ṭum’ah) in the Hebrew Bible"In this study, I apply embodiment theory as a framework for reconstructing the origins of the Israelite notion of pollution (ṭum’ah). Despite the fact that the Hebrew Bible describes a diverse array of sources of pollution – including bodily conditions, moral offenses and foreign cult practices, most modern studies attempt to find a single organizing principle which is ‘symbolized’ by the notion of pollution, whether it may be death, disorder, or some other abstract referent. In contrast with these attempts to explain away the heterogeneity of the biblical sources of pollution, the present study argues that the category of pollution is based on several distinct schemas that are modeled after bodily experience, including uncleanness and infection. These distinct models can be differentiated by the means of transmission and processes of purification associated with them. This approach is tested through comparison with ancient Near Eastern and ethnographic evidence as well as through modern psychological research into notions of contagion. This comparative examination provides a basis for a more accurate appraisal of the historical context of ancient Israelite notions of pollution. This inquiry also clarifies the relationship between “ritual purity” and hygiene. Despite the obvious similarity between these two types of behavioral motivation, the understanding of the relationship between them is frequently obscured by anachronistic and simplistic assumptions which ignore the less differentiated perception of contagion that existed in the pre-modern world. "
Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel (pre-publication version)
Emotional Ethics in Biblical Texts: Cultural Construction and Biological Bases of Morality2017 •
I. Introduction This article explores a selection of texts from the Hebrew Bible in order to illustrate the role of biologically based emotions for moral discernment. The differing and sometimes conflicting ethics, not only between cultures, but also within one and the same culture, that are attested by these ancient texts, certainly indicate that morality is a social and cultural construct, which develops and changes over time. At the same time, certain emotional underpinnings for human morality, which have evolved as intrinsic traits through evolutionary adaptation for the survival of humanity as a social species, are also clearly visible through biblical texts. This fits with the understanding that moral norms are formed and transformed through a continuous interactive process, governed by biologically based and culturally construed reactions and behaviours, combined in an inseparable blend. This process becomes particularly visible in the study of altruistic and prosocial ideals and norms, and the ways in which these are developed, negotiated, and implemented in various texts and contexts. I will thus focus on examples of empathy and altruism in arguing my case.
2013 •
Background. Disgust is, at its core, an emotion that responds to cues of parasites and infection, likely to be evolved to protect human organism to the risk of disease. Interestingly, a growing body of research implicates disgust as an emotion central to human morality. The fact that disgust is associated with appraisals of moral transgressions and that this emotion influences moral judgments supposes a remarkable puzzle: Why an emotion that originally functions in the domain of infectious entities does become such a good candidate to play the role of a moral arbiter? The aim of the present review is to clarify the nature of the relationship between disgust and morality. Method. First, we examine the relevant features of disgust in order to explore whether disgust’s phenomenology favors its implementation as a defensive mechanism against offensive social entities. Second, we critically review the most striking findings about the effects of disgust on moral judgments. Results. The revisited analysis of the literature strongly suggests a bidirectional causal link between disgust and moral cognition. Conclusions. We propose that the particular phenomenology of disgust (which involves a sense of offensiveness and rejection) favored the co-adaptation of this emotion to the moral domain.
This paper calls into question the idea that moral disgust is usefully regarded as a form of genuine disgust. This hypothesis is questionable even if, as some have argued, the spread of moral norms through a community makes use of signaling mechanisms that are central to core disgust. The signaling system is just one part of disgust, and may well be completely separable from it. Moreover, there is plausibly a significant difference between the cognitive scientist’s concept of an emotion and the everyday notion of that emotion. Finally, even if, as this paper contests, some form of disgust were directly elicited by the moral wrongness of certain kinds of behavior, research on the socio-moral elicitors of the disgust mechanism would still be unlikely to shed much direct light on the nature or content of morality.
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