Incidental feelings like disgust and fatigue bias moral judgments indirectly by skewing cost evaluation.

Evidence

Of note (see Graham) is that disgust can also bias moral judgment. We suggest that such a bias occurs not because disgust is at the basis of moral judgment but more simply because disgust biases the evaluation of the costs inflicted upon others. When a judge is tired or hungry, for instance, she may be more irritated or exasperated by a criminal behavior and consequently will inflict harsher punishment on the criminal (e.g., Danziger et al. 2011). Non-moral feelings can thus impact on moral judgments. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 666

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s Big God/partner-choice framing: moral cognition rides on ordinary affect, complicating any pure moral-cognition account of religious solidarity. — connects to: Feelings of disgust may signal partner untrustworthiness to moral judgment. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 433; Emotions like anger drive and independently cost norm enforcement — Ernst Fehr, Third-Party Punishment and Social Norms, 135; Duty-based moral cultures suppress cost-sensitivity in prosocial decisions. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 558 (+2 more)
• QUESTION: Does disgust bias specifically inflate the perceived cost to victims, and could that be weaponized in ritual settings (e.g. fumi-e trampling design)?

Related

• Disgust is not moral in itself; causing it unfairly is. (similarity 0.83)
• Feelings of disgust may signal partner untrustworthiness to moral judgment. (similarity 0.82)
• Moral emotions are dominated by punitive anger, not avoidance (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Duty-based moral cultures suppress cost-sensitivity in prosocial decisions. #complicates (0.80) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 558
• Emotions like anger drive and independently cost norm enforcement #expands (0.75) — Ernst Fehr, Third-Party Punishment and Social Norms, 135
• Mutualistic anthropology explains moral anger as an evolved fairness-restoring mechanism #expands (0.70) — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 354