Diotima: The Marist Undergraduate Philosophy Journal
sounding norms themselves. In comparing the two theories side-by-side when
applied to a humorous situation, BV theory seems to be the more viable description
most of the time.
While BV Theory may be quite descriptive of humor, it maintains one claim
that in the end makes it deficient. BV theory does not hold that its three conditions
frequently produce humor, but that the “ three conditions are jointly necessary and
sufficient for eliciting humor” 13 ; it attempts exactly what Lintott pointed out that
Hobbes does not. To test McGraw and Warren’s claim, we may consider examples
where humor results despite the absence of one or more of these three conditions;
that is, examples where these conditions are not necessary. Consider your friend
whom you know to be quite talented in doing impressions or accents; upon their
performance, your natural response may very likely be to laugh, though it does not
seem that you are laughing because your friend is violating some norm of skillfully
portraying someone’s behavior, but rather because of how scarily accurate their
portrayal is. Additionally, some people may experience the frustrating behavior of
smiling or laughing in situations that are not benign. For example, some people
might find it difficult to suppress a smile while being yelled at (which often causes
more yelling) though it is unlikely that their urge to smile is because they truly
perceive the situation as benign. This phenomenon, called the inappropriate
affect, 14 seems to occur when the person knows the situation to be serious and that
their reaction is not appropriate.
These situations, though worthy of consideration, I concede to be weak
counterexamples. They seem to only work because they operate on technicalities (in
the first case: what would the norm even be? or in the second case: their laughter
must be because they truly think the situation benign ) and not their own merit. It is
very possible that with an imitation, one is benignly violating the norm of
individuality — one should not be able to be like someone else so convincingly. A
13 Peter A. McGraw and Caleb Warren, “Benign Violations: Making Immoral Behavior Funny,” Psychological Science 21, no. 8 (August 1, 2010): 1142, https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610376073. 14 APA Dictionary of Psychology, accessed December 9, 2022, https://dictionary.apa.org/inappropriate-affect.
Volume VI (2023)
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