Matters arising from Salvo, G., Ottaviani, C., & Mancini, F. (2025). Disgust and moral judgment: Toward a neurocognitive framework for reconciling conflicting findings

The extent to which incidental disgust influences moral judgment remains contested. While some studies report that disgust amplifies moral condemnation, others find weak or inconsistent effects. Salvo, Ottaviani, and Mancini (2025) recently addressed this issue in a comprehensive meta-analysis, confirming that moral transgressions can elicit disgust and that induced disgust may intensify moral judgments. However, their findings also highlight substantial heterogeneity, limiting generalizability and suggesting that boundary conditions remain poorly understood. I argue that this heterogeneity may be meaningfully addressed by considering the neural distinction between emotional and utilitarian moral appraisals. Research by Hutcherson et al. (2015) demonstrates that emotional judgments activate brain regions also involved in disgust processing—such as the insula and anterior cingulate cortex—whereas utilitarian judgments engage separate neural circuits. This neurocognitive dissociation suggests that incidental disgust is more likely to influence emotionally grounded moral decisions than rationally derived ones. By integrating affective neuroscience with moral psychology, this framework helps clarify when and why disgust may shape moral judgments and provides a theoretical basis for interpreting mixed empirical findings.