Mala and Solomon Kamm Lecture in Ethics with Kieran Setiya | Laughter in the Dark: Stand-Up Comedy as Consolation
Date and Time
The Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics invites you to join us for our annual Mala & Solomon Kamm Lecture in Ethics on Wednesday, October 22. This year's lecture will be held by Professor Kieran Setiya, who will speak on the topic "Laughter in the Dark: Stand-Up Comedy as Consolation."
The lecture is open to all. Registration is required for both in-person and virtual attendance.
About the Lecture
Can comedy help us cope with hardship without distancing or denial? Does laughter at misfortune manifest what Bergson called “a momentary anesthesia of the heart”—or worse? This talk takes up a puzzle about confessional stand-up comedy: why isn’t it unethical to draw pleasure from another’s suffering, as we do when stand-ups joke about trauma? The answer turns on the fine structure of empathy; and the upshot is a theory of confessional stand-up as bespoke theodicy: a temporary, interpersonal solution to the emotional problem of evil. This solution is one we can administer to ourselves, using humor to confront adversity. Content note: violence and sexual assault.
About Kieran Setiya
Kieran Setiya is the Peter de Florez Professor of Philosophy at MIT, where he works on ethics and related questions about human agency and human knowledge. He is the author of Reasons without Rationalism, Knowing Right From Wrong, Midlife: A Philosophical Guide and Life Is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way, which was selected as a Best Book of 2022 by The Economist and The New Yorker. He also maintains a Substack newsletter, Under the Net.