Keywords
jokes
type and token
ethics and morality
amoralism
ethicism
How to Cite
Abstract
Is it possible to joke about everything? Are there topics that we should not joke about? Is it possible to say which jokes are good and which are wrong or are jokes simply beyond good and evil? This issue seems to be more pressing in today’s multicultural world. In this study I reason contrary to amoralism that there are some jokes that can be morally judged. In order to present my argument, I use the type and token distinction as well as the results of debate between Bartel and Cremaldi and Brandon Cooke’s arguments in the favour of amoralism in art in general. I argue that even though amoralism is right in the case of joke types as well as in the case of some joke tokens not all jokes are fictive utterances. Therefore, the study concludes that it is reasonable to morally assess certain joke utterances.References
Austin, J. L., & J.O. Urmson. (1962). How to do things with words: The William James lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955. Harvard University Press.
Bartel, Ch. & Cremaldi, A. (2018). “It’s just a story”: Pornography, desire, and the ethics of fictive imagining. British Journal of Aesthetics, 58, 37–50. https://doi.org/10.1093/aesthj/ayx031.
Carroll, N. (2014). Humour: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.
Carroll, N. (2020). I’m only kidding: On racist and ethnic jokes. Southern Journal of Philosophy, 58(4), 534–546.
Cave, P. (2005). Humour and paradox of laid bare. The Monist, 88(1), 135–153. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27903920
Cohen, T. (1999). Jokes: philosophical thoughts on joking matters. University of Chicago Press.
Conolly, O. & Haydar, B. (2005). The good, the bad and the funny. The Monist, 88(1), 121–134. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27903919
Cooke, B. (2014). Ethics and fictive imagining. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 72(3), 317–327. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43282348
Dadlez, E.M. (2020). Not sitting down for it: How stand-up differs from fiction (and how neither is immune to ethical criticism). The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 78, 513–524. https://doi.org/10.1111/jaac.12758
Freud S., & J. Strachey. (1960). Jokes and their relation to the unconscious. Norton.
Gaut, B.N. (1998). Just joking: The ethics and aesthetics of humor. Philosophy and Literature, 22(1), 51-68.
Morreall, J. (Ed.) (1987). The philosophy of laughter and humor. State University of New York Press.
Nehamas, A. (1981). The postulated author: Critical monism as a regulative ideal. Critical Inquiry, 8(1), 133–149.
Rappaport, J., & J. Quilty‐Dunn. (2020). Stand‐up comedy, authenticity, and assertion. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 78(4), 477–490.
Smuts, A. (2010). The ethics of humor: Can your sense of humor be wrong? Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 13(3), 333–347. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40835334
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2024 The European Journal of Humour Research