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Key points
- From time to time, most people’s humor will get them in trouble—sometimes for good reason and sometimes not.
- This interview with philosophers Drs. Thomas Wilk and Steven Gimbel delves into the ethics of joking.
- Here we discuss an earlier approach to this topic—the notions of “punching up” and “punching down.”
In April of this year, while at the International Society of Humor Studies’ 2024 online conference, I attended several presentations discussing recent work by Drs. Thomas Wilk and Steve Gimbel, professors of philosophy at Widener University (PA) and Gettysburg College (PA), respectively.
The topics of ethics, morality, and the relationship of each to humor have been increasingly in the news these days. We hear of people who say something objectionable but then attempt to excuse it by claiming they were “just joking” or, as with many professional comedians, jest sarcastically about something objectionable only to have others assert it somehow reflects their true feelings.
Matters such as these are being discussed at some length by philosophers and others who study laughter and humor. I’ve touched on it briefly in my posts on humor as it’s understood by the Mutual Vulnerability Theory (Simon, 2008), but I’m pleased to present a much more considered perspective in the following interview with both Wilk and Gimbel.
Few scholars have dedicated more than a few paragraphs, or maybe a chapter, to the ethics of humor. What initially inspired you to research and write an entire book on this important subject?
We’ve both long been fascinated by the philosophy of humor. Steve’s previous book, Isn’t That Clever, defended his cleverness theory of humor, while Tom has been intrigued by how jokes communicate subtle messages to an audience (Gimbel, 2017; Wilk, 2023). Given our backgrounds in teaching ethics, combining these interests felt like a natural progression.
After all, some of the most passionate discussions of morality in the public square over the last decade have involved comedians, whether it was Dave Chapelle’s trans material in his stand-up specials, Natasha Leggero’s joke about World War II veterans’ affinity for Spaghetti-O’s, Gilbert Gottfried tweeting “too-soon” tsunami jokes, Daniel Tosh’s rape remarks, or Michael Richards’ use of a slur in trying to shut down hecklers, the ongoing debates about cancel culture, what’s off-limits in humor, and who can tell which jokes is something that we as a society keep discussing.
When we turned to philosophical literature to make sense of it all, we realized there wasn’t a comprehensive guide to the ethics of joking and that the philosophical positions that were out there struck us as missing important elements of the question, so we decided we had to fill that gap with In on the Joke: The Ethics of Humor and Comedy (Wilk and Gimbel, 2024).
What are the standard approaches, and what do they get right and wrong?
When it comes to standard approaches to humor ethics, they generally fall into three categories. First, there are the highly restrictive views. These folks recognize the potential harm jokes can cause and argue that any joke risking harm should be avoided. Because jokes can hurt, this line demands that we play it safe and rule out all potentially harmful jokes.
On the opposite end, you have many stand-up comics and a few philosophers who believe jokes are just jokes and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. They argue that comedians should have the freedom to explore any topic for a laugh, and if someone gets offended, they should toughen up.
Then there’s the middle ground, which focuses on the context of jokes, particularly the power dynamics. This approach holds that some jokes aimed at others are morally allowable. Maybe you are only allowed to joke about groups to which you belong, or it’s OK to make jokes about those with more social power than you (punching up) but not about those with less (punching down).
Each of these perspectives brings something valuable to the table. The restrictive camp rightly highlights the potential harms of joking. The permissive camp is correct that jokes are a unique form of speech, not to be taken as seriously as other statements. And the middle ground recognizes the importance of social context and power dynamics in humor. However, we believe that understanding a joke’s impact requires considering various factors about the people involved, their relationships, and the context in which the joke is made.
No other view was taking all of these elements into consideration, and all of them, therefore, provide too simplistic an approach to actually work in the complicated real world. Our book aims to provide a more nuanced approach to these complexities by showing how all of the morally relevant factors combine and sometimes counteract to allow us to see when a given telling of a joke is allowable.
This is Part 1 of 3.
© John Charles Simon
References
Gimbel, Steven. (2017). Isn’t That Clever: A Philosophical Account of Humor and Comedy, 1st edition. Routledge.
Simon, J. C. (2008). Why We Laugh: An New Understanding. Starbrook.
Wilk, Thomas. (2023). A Kernel of Truth: Outlining an Epistemology of Jokes. The Philosophy of Humor Yearbook, 4(1), 227-246.
Wilk, Thomas and Gimbel, Steven. (2024). In on the Joke: The Ethics of Humor and Comedy (Vol. 4). Berlin Boston: De Gruyter.
