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Disgust, Offensiveness and the Law
Author(s) -
ARCHARD DAVID
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of applied philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.339
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-5930
pISSN - 0264-3758
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5930.2008.00402.x
Subject(s) - disgust , harm , harm principle , law , criminal law , epistemology , psychology , mill , philosophy , law and economics , social psychology , sociology , political science , mechanical engineering , anger , engineering
Martha Nussbaum's concern is to limit the role that emotions can legitimately play in the definition of the criminal law. She would allow nuisance laws to curtail the occasioning of disgust but only disgust of a certain kind. Problems arise for her account when she extends this analysis to the prevention of offensiveness. Unavoidable is an evaluation of those beliefs subscription to which explains the taking of offence. Hence the principal problem for a liberalism of the kind Nussbaum defends is how to combine Mill's harm principle with a Rawlsian understanding of the reasonableness of belief.