Bad humor or bad temper? Two problems in the ethics of humor

Abstract

The “humorous phenomenon” must be understood as the exercise of the “humorous look” wich seeks an aesthetic distance that allows the formulation of incongruities in a given social game where common social and linguistic norms are violated in order to produce the “humorous amusement”. In other words, the “humorous phenomenon” takes place in a certain humorous game that, as such, requires a third party, an interlocutor. The ethical analysis of this article focuses on the two agents of the humorous game through two cases: bad temper, which can be manifested by the interlocutor; and bad humor, which can be manifested by the speaker. It is proposed that an ethical problem ignored in the philosophy of humor concerns the moralist interlocutor who, for not being able to maintain the necessary aesthetic distance to the humorous phenomenon, tries to categorize it in ethical terms and judge the moral attitude of the speaker. On the other hand, we can find a symmetrical problem: the speaker who, because he does not understand the necessary features of the humorous game, is unable to create the necessary environment for it to occur. These must be understood, however, as complex without neglecting the commonly overlooked positive aspects of humor.