The Notion of Disgust in Comparison to Ugliness: A Kantian Perspective

Kuplen, Mojca

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-19899-6_6

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…All worm lizards and legless lizards together with snakes possessing a worm-like body form were evaluated as the most disgusting ones within the snake group. These animals may remind people of some invertebrates (earthworms, larvae, parasitic worms) that usually elicit great disgust [68,107].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human Attitude toward Reptiles: A Relationship between Fear, Disgust, and Aesthetic Preferences

Janovcová

Rádlová

Polák

et al. 2019

Animals

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Focusing on one group of animals can bring interesting results regarding our attitudes toward them and show the key features that our evaluation of such animals is based on. Thus, we designed a study of human perception of all reptiles focusing on the relationship between perceived fear, disgust, and aesthetic preferences and differences between snakes and other reptiles. Two sets containing 127 standardized photos of reptiles were developed, with one species per each subfamily. Respondents were asked to rate the animals according to fear, disgust, and beauty on a seven-point Likert scale. Evaluation of reptile species shows that people tend to perceive them as two clearly distinct groups based on their similar morphotype. In a subset of lizards, there was a positive correlation between fear and disgust, while disgust and fear were both negatively correlated with beauty. Surprisingly, a positive correlation between fear and beauty of snakes was revealed, i.e., the most feared species also tend to be perceived as beautiful. Snakes represent a distinct group of animals that is also reflected in the theory of attentional prioritization of snakes as an evolutionary relevant threat.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human Attitude toward Reptiles: A Relationship between Fear, Disgust, and Aesthetic Preferences

Janovcová

Rádlová

Polák

et al. 2019

Animals

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“…Another phase in this study involved informed participants and their reported experience(s) of ugliness. It showed that ugliness triggered a myriad of meanings, seeping through psychoanalysis and folk psychology to semiotics and philosophy (Bayley, 2012; Brady, 2020; Eco, 2007; Hagman, 2003; Küplen, 2011; Wenzel, 1999). Their observations nested roughly into the meanings of ugliness posited by Henderson (1966): sensory, moral, visceral and adjudicative.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experiences of Ugliness in Nature and Urban environments

Felisberti

2021

Empirical Studies of the Arts

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In folk psychology experiences of ugliness are associated with the negation of beauty and disorder, but empirical evidence is remarkably rare. Here, participants (called informed) took 102 photographs of ugly landscapes and urban scenes and reflected on their experiences. Later, participants naïve to the intentional ugliness in the photographs rated landscapes higher than informed participants. The ratings for urban scenes were similar in the two cohorts. Reflective notes revealed that emotional experiences with visual ugliness could overlap (e.g. decay), but ugliness was associated more frequently with fear and death in landscapes, and with sadness and disgust in urban scenes. The findings uncovered a complex layer of associations. Experiences triggered by perceived ugliness were contingent on a composite of socio-cultural, emotional, and evolutionary factors. Rather than being the endpoint on an aesthetic scale culminating with beauty, ugliness seems to be experienced as an independent aesthetic experience with its own processing streams.

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“…A second possible objection is: even if all ugly objects were disgusting-and tend to generate contamination aliefs as a result-they would not be appreciated qua ugliness to the extent that they generate such aliefs, in the sense that ugli-28. Brady (2011: 85) may hold to just such a formalistic constraint: "the negative aesthetic value that we call 'ugliness' is anchored in some ways in the object's non-aesthetic perceptual properties, such as colours, textures, forms, arrangements of elements, sounds and smells" (see also Kuplen 2011). In the hands of some philosophers, an argument might be pressed in favour of Ugliness-Disgustingness on the same formalistic conception of ugliness.…”

Section: The Argument From the Law Of Contagionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The reason why sustained perceptual attention is required seems to be because it takes time, and perhaps psychological effort, to set aside our practical interests in an object to appreciate its perceptual qualities for themselves (cf. Kuplen 2011).…”

Section: The Argument From the Law Of Contagionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ugliness Is in the Gut of the Beholder

Doran

2022

Ergo an Open Access Journal of Philosophy

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I offer the first sustained defence of the claim that ugliness is constituted by the disposition to disgust. I advance three main lines of argument in support of this thesis. First, ugliness and disgustingness tend to lie in the same kinds of things and properties (the argument from ostensions). Second, the thesis is better placed than all existing accounts to accommodate the following facts: ugliness is narrowly and systematically distributed in a heterogenous set of things, ugliness is sometimes enjoyed, and ugliness sits opposed to beauty across a neutral midpoint (the argument from proposed intensions). And third, ugliness and disgustingness function in the same way in both giving rise to representations of contamination (the argument from the law of contagion). In making these arguments, I show why prominent objections to the thesis do not succeed, cast light on some of the artistic functions of ugliness, and, in addition, demonstrate why a dispositional account of disgustingness is correct, and present a novel problem for warrant-based accounts of disgustingness (the ‘too many reasons’ problem).

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The Notion of Disgust in Comparison to Ugliness: A Kantian Perspective

Cited by 3 publications

References 11 publications

Human Attitude toward Reptiles: A Relationship between Fear, Disgust, and Aesthetic Preferences

Human Attitude toward Reptiles: A Relationship between Fear, Disgust, and Aesthetic Preferences

Experiences of Ugliness in Nature and Urban environments

Ugliness Is in the Gut of the Beholder

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