The Ethics of Humor
If you have scrolled through Tiktok, Instagram Reels, or Youtube Shorts (yes, even YouTube Shorts) in the past year or two you may have encountered a video or meme building on the following structure: “When you make a joke around Group A friends when you are with Group B friends…” Your face starts to squish in, mimicking the reaction one has to unexpectedly biting into a particularly potent Sour Patch Kid. It is a social suicide of sorts; making a problematic joke or remark in front of the “wrong” people. I certainly know that I myself have been in this situation countless times. To be clear, I am not saying that I frequently offer up grotesque and distasteful quips, but, I certainly have dropped my filter and blurted a line that would have landed much better with my two brothers than it did with my family friend's 80-year-old mother. All I mean to say is that joking certainly has a time and place. Perhaps even more importantly, humor has an audience. We are fueled by laughter and the social capital it rewards us with. On the other hand, it becomes clear, especially when with Group B, that shared values are a required prerequisite to engaging with a joke in a successful way (whatever that may mean).
One philosopher, Aaron Smuts, discusses his take on humor in a paper published in 2009 titled “The Ethics of Humor: Can Your Sense of Humor be Wrong?” In the paper, Smuts engages with a number of arguments surrounding humor and what makes a joke “land,” as the title suggests. For the bulk of the piece, the discussion aims to work through a framework put forward by Ronald de Sousa, an emeritus professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. Smuts calls de Sousa’s structure “attitudinal endorsement argument,” providing the following premises:
1. Understanding a joke requires being aware of what propositions it relies on
2. Understanding (or “getting”) a joke does not mean that you find it funny
3. If you have negative attitudes toward the propositions that are required by a joke, it will fail– you won’t find it funny
4. You cannot hypothetically endorse propositions in such a way that will revivify a joke that is dead for you
5. Hence, what makes the difference between merely getting a joke and finding it funny must be some positive attitude that you genuinely hold towards the propositions required to understand it.
6. Therefore, if you find a sexist joke funny, and sexist propositions are required for getting the joke, then by virtue of your additional endorsement of these propositions you are a sexist.
For the purposes of this blog post, I will concentrate on premises 1-3. The first is relatively straightforward (hopefully) and this is required for the rest of the joke to function. If a joke is going to land, the parties involved must understand what is even being said in the first place. A proposition that is nonsensical has no possibility of amounting to a joke because in order for humor to function in practice, the parties involved need to understand the angle.
The next premise, which relies on the previous one being true, claims that just because the previous premise (line 1) is true does not necessarily mean the joke will “work” or be funny. Picture a horribly crude joke that you have heard (or don’t). Can you identify how, in a perfect scenario for the joke-teller, it could be perceived as humorous? For me, I imagine my brothers making a joke about me being the forgotten middle child. Often, I will find it funny and engage in self-deprecation. Other times, the same joke could be made, same proposition, same context…same everything. But, I do not find it funny. That is a long-winded way of saying that an assertion can be reasonably valid and you understand it but it still doesn’t mean you find it funny.
Now, the third line is nearly the same as the second. Using the same middle child example, imagine that from the joke's onset, I find it extremely hurtful and it tugs on some trauma that I have associated with being in the middle (I love my brothers, I swear). If this joke is proposed in any context then I will not be able to find it funny because, as the premise states, I have negative attitudes that trump any potential for humor. Through the examination of these specific premises, we can see that some mutual set of values is critical in landing a successful joke.
Work Cited
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