Morreal Notes 4, Negative Ethics
When joking we are disengaged, idle, distanced.
Deonotological ethics
Morreall’s 8 moral objections:
1.
humor is insincere
2.
humor is idle
3.
humor is irresponsible
4.
humor is hedonistic
5.
humor diminishes self-control
6.
humor is hostile
7.
humor fosters anarchy
8.
humor is foolish
Humor is insincere—
Humor is non-bona-fide communication, people ho joke do not
mean what they say, “I was only joking.”
Proverbs 26:18-19: “A man who deceives another and then
says, ‘It was only a joke,’ is like a madman shooting at random his deadly
darts and arrows.”
Humor is idle—
Humor does not accomplish anything (disengaged play)
4th century Bishop John Chrysotom condemned
laughter as “a moment of indifference.”
His contemporary Gregory of Nyssa said that, “Laughter is our enemy
because it is neither a word not an action ordered to any possible goal.”
7th century John Climacus said that the mother of
laughter is insensibility
20th century Anthony Ludovici, “the humorous mind
shirks the heavy task of solving thorny problems and prefers to make people
laugh about them,” humor is cowardly and indolent
humor is
irresponsible—
a form of play, humor keeps us from attending to our duties
in humor we suspend our moral concern (laughing at a friend
too drunk to stand up)
17th century William Prynne, comedy evokes
laughter at some “obscene, lascivious, sinful passage, gesture, speech or jest
the common object of men’s hellish mirth) [which provokes people to] wanton
smiles and carnal solace
humor displaces or blocks our concern and action—But
Morreall argues not all of the time
Satire corrects society by ridiculing vice and folly
Humor is hedonistic—
Humor is a form of play pursued for pleasure
Often, morality requires a curbing of desires, humor can
lead to sexual license ????
The Church Fathers Jerome, Ambrose, and John Chrysotom
warned that laughter could lead to illicit sexual activity. John Climacus lumped the following together,
“Impurity, touching the body, laughing, talking without restraint.” Shameless wanton people “laugh immoderately”
Humor diminishes
self-control—
Humor provokes a loss of self-control, the ideal of both
religious and secular moral codes, a loss of self-control is a slippery slope
leading to all manner of more degradation
Humor is hostile—
Laughter and a loss of self-control lead to the release of
violent urges
Humor fosters
anarchy—
Laughter and humor lead to the breakdown of social order,
comedians mock political, intellectual, and religious leaders and institutions,
mockery is a threat to religion and social order
Humor is foolish—
Laughing people are fools who are morally, intellectually,
and emotionally defective
Ecclesiastes 7:3-4, “Sorrow is better than laughter, for by
sadness of countenance the heart is made glad . . . the heart of fools is in
the house of mirth”
Shortcomings in the
Ethics of Humor--
Ronald de Sousa calls the phthonic element of humor the
malicious beliefs and attitudes in racist and sexist jokes
Ethnic jokes depict an ethnic group as being stupid, lazy,
and/or immoral
Ethnic jokes are expressions of hostility toward a “target”
group
People tell ethnic jokes not about a group they despise, but
about a familiar group, much like themselves, who live at the margin of their
culture. Joke tellers do not believe the
characterizations in the jokes to be true. ?????????
What the joke tellers are laughing at is a different version
of themselves. . . When one group hates
another, they express their feelings in more direct and damaging ways than by
telling jokes. ??????????
Joke about a Polish astronaut flying in a rocket towards the
sun: “Don’t worry, I’ll fly at night.”
“This joke did not express Americans’ contempt for Poles as stupid, but
their fears about their own scientific and technological ignorance . . .???????
Joke about an Englishman murdering a Pakistani—the joke is
not an expression of prejudice and hostility toward Pakistanis . . . ??????????
The correct
interpretation of a joke may not be possible to decide. What is a racist joke to one person may be
interpreted differently by another.
???????????
Margaret Trudeau joke, bad on all levels!
The Ethics of
Disengagement
Racist and sexist jokes: The central feature here is the
playful disengagement of non-bona-fide language and actions. . . ????????
When joking we are disengaged, idle, distanced.
Henri Bergson, “Laughter is incompatible with emotion. Depict a fault in such a way as to arouse
sympathy, fear, or pity—it is impossible to laugh.” ?????????
Satire is not a weapon of revolutionaries. ???????????
As in play and in aesthetic experience, the practical and
cognitive disengagement in humor can have harmful effects.
First Harmful Effect:
Irresponsibility
When disengaged, we neglect actions that are called for and
do things that should not be done.
Sometimes we laugh off a problem, laughing can suppress
legitimate concerns, and in doing so we treat serious issues as being trivial.
Joking suppresses acceptance of responsibility.
The disengagement fostered by humor is often deliberately
used to deflect criticism.
Second Harmful
Effect: Blocking Compassion
Humor can harm by displacing action and insulting those who
are suffering, and thereby increasing their suffering.
Joking can be callous, insensitive, and cruel—laughing at
little people, humiliating prisoners (Abu Ghraib)—it was a joke, “just for
fun.”
Humor can promote insensitivity and lessen compassion—people
become objects of humor, less human.
Humor can be cruel. Humor can
promote callousness or indifference to those being laughed at.
Desensitization—Grand Theft Auto
Violence on TV, “it does not seem clear that watching
thousands of violent acts on tv each year makes viewers less upset by real
violence and less compassionate” ??????
Perhaps the most widely accepted moral rule is to not cause
unnecessary suffering . . . we should not laugh at someone’s problem when
compassion is called for.
Third Harmful Effect:
Promoting Prejudice
Humor disengages us cognitively from the object of amusement,
and thus humor blocks action and compassion
Sexist and racist jokes are based on sexist and racist
beliefs, to appreciate the humor listeners/viewers must share the beliefs
Tellers of sexist and racist jokes promote prejudice
Yet ethicists “overlook the fact that sexist and racist
jokes, like jokes in general, are known to be fictional by tellers and
audiences alike.” ?????????? Fiction less harmful?????????
The fantastic exaggeration found in so much humor is ignored
by virtually all ethicists writing about ethnic jokes ?????????
Polish astronaut joke:
“The stupidity of the character in this joke is not a piece of
information being communicated, but a fantastic idea being presented for
playful enjoyment. What most people
enjoy in hearing this joke is not a belief that they are superior to Polish
people, but the mental gymnastics they go through in making sense of the line,
’I’ll go at night.’” ?????????
“Those who circulate sexist and racist jokes do it, I
suggest, not by making truth-claims but by being indifferent to the truth. They are disengaged cognitively and
practically from the stereotypes in what they are saying, and they don’t care
about the harm that circulating those stereotypes may cause.”
The fun in these jokes is based on stretching negative
stereotypes.
Putting a “play frame” around stereotypes in a joke
supposedly removes those joking from moral scrutiny
Humor’s “play frame” allows prejudicial ideas ro be slipped
into people’s heads without being evaluated.
2006 film Borat, a fake Kazakh
coming from the real Kazakhstan. Why not
create a fictitious name for the country?
Antique dealers collect racist memorabilia
What is objectionable about sexist and racist stereotypes is
that they categorize all members of a group as being interchangeable
Stereotypes write off entire groups as being inferior,
demeaning and dismissing them. The
individual is erased.
Such joking can cause malicious distrust, and when carried
to extremes hatred and oppression.
“The objectionableness of jokes based on stereotypes, I suggest,
is not all-or-nothing, but is proportional to the harm those stereotypes are
like to cause. Where a stereotype leads
to little or no harm, a joke based on it may even be acceptable” ??????
rednecks like redneck
jokes, lawyers like lawyer jokes
but for others, blacks people, women, gays, mentally
challenged, jokes that stereotype can cause real harm in reducing income,
respect, status, and power.
The stereotypes perpetuated by jokes are more objectionable
when they are about people who lack social status and power and when those
stereotypes are p[art of a social system that marginalizes them—keeping them in
their place
A general ethical principle—do not promote a lack of concern
for something about which people should be concerned.
Intellectual Virtues
Fostered by Humor
1.
open-mindedness
2.
creative thinking
3.
critical thinking
The humorous person may be irreverent and even disrespectful
toward those in authority, but that can be beneficial
Humor provokes people to challenge, question, and think for
themselves
Democracy requires critical thinking and discussion
Moral Virtues Fostered by Humor
Self-transcendence, rising above personal concerns,
egocentric concerns, humor, as self-transcendence, liberates us from narrow
perspectives and helps us to see ourselves as other people do
The ability to laugh at oneself not only fosters several
virtues but also is essential to moral development
Seeing oneself objectively (??????) is important in being
honest with oneself, thus humor can contribute to self-knowledge, integrity,
and mental health
Humor contributes to patience, acceptance, and open-mindedness
A sense of humor makes us not only more tolerant of but also
more gracious
Graciousness is kindness that allows the other person to
relax and not feel threatened.
Humor not only reduces defensiveness but also defuses
conflict
Lincoln challenged to a duel, “Cow s*** at five paces.”
Holocaust Humor: Three main benefits, 1. Critical
function—focuses attention on what is wrong, sparking resistance, 2. Cohesive
function, creating solidarity, people laughing together at an oppressor, and 3.
Coping function, helping the oppressed go endure difficult situations
Laughter interferes with propaganda and brainwashing
