Kant on Educating for Disgust

This paper explores the role of disgust education in Kant, considering its aesthetic and moral implications. Kant distinguishes between physical education, shared with animals, and moral education, which is essential for living according to freedom. Disgust, according to Kant, functions as a defense mechanism against one’s animality and impulses that hinder human elevation, representing resistance to bodily drives and moral vices. I propose a taxonomy of disgust, differentiating between physical disgust related to the senses and cultural, as well as moral disgust associated with repulsion towards vice and evil. In anthropological context, disgust is connected to notions of boredom, monotony, and sensory saturation – elements that impede moral vitality. Kant views aesthetic education as a means to perfect humanity, fostering a civilization that moves away from natural brutality. In conclusion, I argue that disgust, far from being an antisocial emotion, serves as a valuable pedagogical and cultural tool in the process of human civilization and refinement, by linking empirical feelings, aesthetics, and morality.