Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:06:37.341Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Humor as an Optics: Bergson and the Ethics of Humor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Martin Shuster
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although the ethics of humor is a relatively new field, it already seems to have achieved a consensus about ethics in general. In this paper, I implicitly (1) question the view of ethics that stands behind many discussions in the ethics of humor; I do this by explicitly (2) focusing on what has been a chief preoccupation in the ethics of humor: the evaluation of humor. Does the immoral content of a joke make it more or less humorous? Specifically, I analyze whether a sexist joke is more humorous because of its sexism. Contra recent trends in the ethics of humor, I answer this question affirmatively. To this end, the paper presents a detailed and novel reading of Bergson's philosophy of humor, which I argue connects most easily and significantly to the alternate view of ethics I have in mind.

Type
Open Issue Content
Information
Hypatia , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , Summer 2013 , pp. 618 - 632
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bergmann, Merrie. 1986. How many feminists does it take to make a joke? Hypatia 1 (1): 63–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bergson, Henri. 1889/1997. Time and free will. Whitefish, Mt.: Kessinger Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Bergson, Henri. 1896/1991. Matter and memory. Trans. W. S. Palmer and N. M. Paul. Cambridge, Mass.: Zone Books.Google Scholar
Bergson, Henri. 1907/1998. Creative evolution. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications.Google Scholar
Bergson, Henri. 1940. Le rire: essai sur la signification du comique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Bergson, Henri. 1977. Two sources of morality and religion. Notre Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame University Press.Google Scholar
Bergson, Henri. 2001. Time and free will: An essay on the immediate data of consciousness. Trans. F. L. Pogson. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications.Google Scholar
Bergson, Henri. 2005. Laughter: An essay on the comic. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications.Google Scholar
Cavell, Stanley. 1979. The claim of reason: Wittgenstein, skepticism, morality, and tragedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Ted. 1999. Jokes: Philosophical thoughts on joking matters. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crary, Alice. 2007. Beyond moral judgment. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dancy, Jonathan. 1993. Moral reasons. London: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Davidson, Donald. 1973. On the very idea of a conceptual scheme. Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 47: 5–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Sousa, Ronald. 1987. When is it wrong to laugh? In The Rationality of Emotion, ed. de Sousa, R.Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diamond, Cora. 1991. The realistic spirit: Wittgenstein, philosophy, and the mind. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaut, Berys. 2007. Art, emotion and ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1980. Totality and infinity: An essay on exteriority. Trans. A. Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.Google Scholar
Lovibond, Sabina. 1983. Realism and imagination in ethics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Marrati, Paola. 2006a. Mysticism and the open society: Foundations of Bersgonian politics. In Political theologies: Public religions in a post‐secular world, ed. de Vries, H. and Sullivan, L.New York: Fordham University Press.Google Scholar
Marrati, Paola. 2006b. Time, life, concepts: The newness of Bergson. MLN 120 (5): 1099–1111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDowell, John. 1998. Mind, value, and reality. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Morreall, John. 1987. The philosophy of laughter and humor. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Murdoch, Iris. 1997. Vision and choice in morality. In Existentialists and mystics. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Pinkard, Terry. 2004. Innen, aussen und lebensformen: Hegel und Wittgenstein. In Hegels Erbe. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Ryan, Kathryn M., and Kanjorski, Jeanne. 1998. The enjoyment of sexist humor, rape attitudes, and relationship aggression in college students. Sex Roles 38 (9): 743–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shuster, Martin. 2010. Internal relations and the possibility of evil: On Cavell and monstrosity. European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 2 (2): 74–84.Google Scholar
Smuts, Aaron. 2009. Do moral flaws enhance amusement? American Philosophical Quarterly 46 (2): 151–62.Google Scholar
Smuts, Aaron. 2010. The ethics of humor: Can your sense of humor be wrong? Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 13 (3): 333–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stöcker, Michael, and Hegeman, Elizabeth. 1996. Valuing emotions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wiggins, David. 2007. A sensible subjectivism? In Foundations of ethics: An anthology, ed. Shafer‐Landau, R. and Cuneo, T.Oxford: Wiley‐Blackwell.Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard. 1993. Ethics and the limits of philosophy. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1958. Philosophical investigations. Trans. G. E. M. Anscombe. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar