Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts. Recent studies have shown that there is a specific ‘disgust center’ in our brains. Building on the observation that patients with Huntington’s Disease cannot recognize expressions of disgust on others’ faces and do not react with disgust to items or situations others usually find distasteful, the crucial brain locus has recently been established to be in the insular region of the cortex. Speculation is that this center originally evolved to help us recognize rotting food. ” ‘All animals have a sense of distaste,’ says psychologist Andrew

Calder. However, in humans it has been enhanced to give us a

centre for highlighting both disgusting things, and disgusting

acts. We need to be able to spot such behaviour because it

could threaten society unless rooted out quickly, he says.” Although the article does not make it clear, the crucial step in this inference by researchers has been the observation that patients in whom this brain region is damaged combine three behavioral deficits — not only do they not react to things that are repugnant but they fail to recognize the emotion of disgust in others and fail to react with the emotion of disgust to socially objectionable actions. Is this a biological basis for the sense of morality? Guardian