Brandon Yip at Psyche:
Rather than see expressions like these as merely rhetorical, many philosophers and psychologists argue that moral disgust is a distinct and significant kind of moral response. The distinction between moral disgust and regular disgust lies in the way their objects are experienced by the disgusted person. People feel regular disgust in response to the spread of filth, which motivates physical avoidance and cleansing. The stench of urine on a train, for example, provokes this kind of disgust. When people feel moral disgust, it’s as if they are experiencing a sort of moral pollution, which motivates them to socially avoid and exclude the target of the disgust. Betrayal and exploitation, for example, often provoke moral disgust, but not regular disgust.
More here.
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