Ethics, Comedy, and Free Speech

Abstract I introduce some philosophical considerations concerned with free speech, drawing on the work of J. S. Mill and rejecting some commonly heard arguments for thinking that threats to free speech, whether in general or in comedy, have been exaggerated. I then move to moral objections to certain sorts of comedy, noting the distinction between objecting to the intrinsic badness of jokes and objecting to offending people's sensibilities. I argue that it is hard to resolve arguments about the supposed intrinsic badness of comic material, since the parties to these disputes often have profoundly different worldviews. I then turn to reasons given for thinking comedy can be morally bad, for example that it is racist. I argue that while there are certainly some things comedians should not say, there are contextual factors that can confer ‘comic licence’ in certain cases. I also suggest that morally bad features of comedy can be offset by compensating comedic features. Moreover, there is an important distinction between genuinely punching down at vulnerable groups, and punching up at ideological frameworks that seem to support these groups, but do not. I consider this last point with reference to some work of the satirist Andrew Doyle.