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<p>People respond to moral criticism of their speech by claiming that they were joking. In this paper, I develop a speech act analysis of the humor excuse consisting of a negative stage, in which the speaker denies he or she was making an assertion, and a positive stage, in which the speaker claims she or he was engaged in non-serious/humorous speech instead. This analysis, however, runs afoul of the group identity objection, according to which there is a moral distinction between jokes targeting members of vulnerable groups made by members of those groups and similar jokes made by non-members. In order to avoid this objection, I offer a revision to the speech act analysis that draws upon Perry’s distinction between beliefs and belief-states.</p>
</abstract>

People respond to moral criticism of their speech by claiming that they were joking. In this paper, I develop a speech act analysis of the humor excuse consisting of a negative stage, in which the speaker denies he or she was making an assertion, and a positive stage, in which the speaker claims she or he was engaged in non-serious/humorous speech instead. This analysis, however, runs afoul of the group identity objection, according to which there is a moral distinction between jokes targeting members of vulnerable groups made by members of those groups and similar jokes made by non-members. In order to avoid this objection, I offer a revision to the speech act analysis that draws upon Perry’s distinction between beliefs and belief-states.

Just Kidding: Stand-Up, Speech Acts and Slurs

Disputatio

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Just Kidding: Stand-Up, Speech Acts and Slurs"}

People respond to moral criticism of their speech by claiming that they were joking. In this paper, I develop a speech act analysis of the humor excuse...

Just Kidding: Stand-Up, Speech Acts and Slurs

Published Online: Jul 17, 2021

Page range: 1 - 25

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/disp-2021-0001

Keywords
Humor, speech acts, excuse, slurs, belief-states

© 2021 Peter Alward, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Just Kidding: Stand-Up, Speech Acts and Slurs

Published Online: Jul 17, 2021

Page range: 1 - 25

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/disp-2021-0001

KeywordsHumor, speech acts, excuse, slurs, belief-states

© 2021 Peter Alward, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
Humor, speech acts, excuse, slurs, belief-states