Do Moral Flaws Enhance Amusement?

American Philosophical Quarterly 46 (2):151-163 (2009)
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Abstract

I argue that genuine moral flaws never enhance amusement, but they sometimes detract.I argue against comic immoralism--the position that moral flaws can make attempts at humor more amusing.Two common errors have made immoralism look attractive.First, immoralists have confused outrageous content with genuine moral flaws.Second, immoralists have failed to see that it is not sufficient to show that a morally flawed joke is amusing; they need to show that a joke can be more amusing because of the fact that it is morally flawed.I argue that the immoralist lacks a plausible account of how this could be the case.I reject immoralism and argue for comic moralism—the position that moral flaws can make attempts at humor less amusing.

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Aaron Smuts
Rhode Island College

Citations of this work

The Ethics of Humor: Can Your Sense of Humor be Wrong?Aaron Smuts - 2010 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 13 (3):333-347.
Racist Humor.Luvell Anderson - 2015 - Philosophy Compass 10 (8):501-509.
Morality and Aesthetics of Food.Shen-yi Liao & Aaron Meskin - 2018 - In Anne Barnhill, Mark Budolfson & Tyler Doggett, The Oxford Handbook of Food Ethics. Oxford University Press. pp. 658-679.

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References found in this work

Prejudice in jest: When racial and gender humor harms.David Benatar - 1999 - Public Affairs Quarterly 13 (2):191-203.
On Jokes.Noël Carroll - 1991 - Midwest Studies in Philosophy 16 (1):280-301.

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