Just humour me

Humour, humourlessness, and mutual recognition

Bibliographic Data

ID10691414
AuthorsJordan Mackenzie (0000-0002-8065-5159, University of Virginia, corresponding author)
Year2025
Publication date2025-04-09
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/pq/pqaf016
OpenAlexW4409312264
LanguageEN
References cited32

We care about whether the people around us can take a joke. And this care has a moral tinge to it: we're more likely to trust good-humoured people, and are prone to accusing humourless people of being ‘sanctimonious buzzkills’ who need to ‘get over themselves’. But are these moralized reactions justified? And what, if anything, justifies them? This paper discusses the moral value of humour in terms of its connection to mutual recognition: by engaging humourlessly with one another, we are afforded a quick and dirty way to share perspectives in the way that relationships of mutual recognition often require

Aqueous humour · Art · Humor Studies and Applications · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Media, Gender, and Advertising · Psychology

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