Birkbeck Philosophy Society - Summer Talks Series: Kash Sunghuttee
When:
—
Venue:
Birkbeck 30 Russell Square
No booking required
Tuesday 12th May 2015 - Kash Sunghuttee
Jokes, Acts and Games: The Ethics of Joke Telling
In the UK, humour intended to offend has enjoyed a renaissance in the past decade, both in the public and private sphere. Publicly, comedians such as Frankie Boyle and Jimmy Carr make a living with their own brands of 'offensive' comedy, and the public has followed suit, with sites such as 'UniLad' experiencing a great degree of success. Furthermore, the rise of so-called 'lad culture' at universities has seen many students revel in offensive humour privately. All of these people have something in common: When criticised for propagating or enjoying racist humour, they claim that their behaviour is permissible because it is 'just a joke'.
Although this is an argument given by non-philosophers, it is important for us to understand whether the 'just a joke' defense is sound, or even coherent. In this paper, I unpack some of the implications of the 'just a joke' stance. Are jokes ethically special? How should we respond to evidence suggesting that jokes about minorities carry real harms? Should audiences just avoid bigoted comedians? I go on to provide my own analysis of racist humour specifically, appealing to speech act theory developed by Rae Langton to provide a structure for analysing one way in which bigoted jokes are particularly pernicious.