Tuesday, November 10, 2026
4:00-6:00 PM
Can humour 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 comedy: why isn’t it vicious to draw pleasure from another’s suffering, as we do when comics 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 humour to confront adversity. Content note: violence and sexual assault.
Kieran Setiya is 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. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, the LA Review of Books, the TLS, the London Review of Books, the Boston Review, The Atlantic, Aeon, and The Yale Review, as well as numerous academic journals. He is working on a book about laughter as a guide to life.
More information about Kieran Setiya can be found here: http://www.ksetiya.net/
About the Tanner Lectures on Human Values
Michigan is one of nine institutions worldwide that hosts an annual Tanner Lecture on Human Values. Tanner Lectures are funded through the generosity of the late Professor of Philosophy, industrialist, and philanthropist, Obert Clark Tanner, and his wife, Grace Tanner. Professor Tanner wrote:I hope these lectures will contribute to the intellectual and moral life of mankind. I see them simply as a search for a better understanding of human behavior and human values. This understanding may be pursued for its own intrinsic worth, but it may also eventually have practical consequences for the quality of personal and social life.Although the Tanners established the supporting endowment in 1978, Joel Feinberg's April 1977 lecture at Michigan inaugurated the international series of Tanner Lectures.Each year, Michigan has a Tanner Lecture combined with an interdisciplinary symposium to which we invite distinguished scholars from around the world. These events are free and open to the public. The complete list of Tanner Lectures at Michigan is available here:
https://lsa.umich.edu/philosophy/news-events/all-events/tanner-lecture/tanner-lectures-on-human-values-at-the-university-of-michigan.html.
Kieran Setiya is 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. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, the LA Review of Books, the TLS, the London Review of Books, the Boston Review, The Atlantic, Aeon, and The Yale Review, as well as numerous academic journals. He is working on a book about laughter as a guide to life.
More information about Kieran Setiya can be found here: http://www.ksetiya.net/
About the Tanner Lectures on Human Values
Michigan is one of nine institutions worldwide that hosts an annual Tanner Lecture on Human Values. Tanner Lectures are funded through the generosity of the late Professor of Philosophy, industrialist, and philanthropist, Obert Clark Tanner, and his wife, Grace Tanner. Professor Tanner wrote:I hope these lectures will contribute to the intellectual and moral life of mankind. I see them simply as a search for a better understanding of human behavior and human values. This understanding may be pursued for its own intrinsic worth, but it may also eventually have practical consequences for the quality of personal and social life.Although the Tanners established the supporting endowment in 1978, Joel Feinberg's April 1977 lecture at Michigan inaugurated the international series of Tanner Lectures.Each year, Michigan has a Tanner Lecture combined with an interdisciplinary symposium to which we invite distinguished scholars from around the world. These events are free and open to the public. The complete list of Tanner Lectures at Michigan is available here:
https://lsa.umich.edu/philosophy/news-events/all-events/tanner-lecture/tanner-lectures-on-human-values-at-the-university-of-michigan.html.
| Event Type: | Lecture / Discussion |
|---|---|
| Tags: | Philosophy |
| Source: | Happening @ Michigan from Department of Philosophy |
