Irony and Sarcasm in Ethical Perspective

Abstract

Irony and sarcasm are two quite different, sometimes morally dubious, linguistic tropes. We can draw a distinction between them if we identify irony as a speech act that calls what is bad good and, correspondingly, sarcasm calls good bad. This allows us to ask, which one is morally worse. My argument is based on the idea that the speaker can legitimately bypass what is good and call it bad, which is to say that she may literally mean what she says. This is not true of the opposite case: one cannot bypass what is bad and, therefore, she paradoxically does not mean what she says. In other words, irony is a morally less guilty trope. What is bad has its faults and thus it can be ironized; what is good is without blemish and thus it is difficult to know how it could be called bad. Also, irony can be freely intended, or verbal, or it can be situational in social context. I also discuss dramatic irony in Classical context. Sarcasm does not allow such complexity. Instead, we speak of cynicism and even nihilism as moral attitudes that accompany sarcasm and give it its typical force; or sarcasm may lead to cynicism and nihilism, that is, to the denial of values. Irony does not entail any corresponding attitudes or moral positions. This paper is a philosophical contribution to the ethics of communication and language.

Metaphysics, Universal Irony, and Richard Rorty’s “We Ironists”

“…4 How to define something that is the very opposite of what is definite and definable? Some texts are ironic per se, that is, they represent the textual version of situational irony (Airaksinen 2020a). Their ironies are embedded in the text so that the reader can find them there.…”

“…Their ironies are embedded in the text so that the reader can find them there. She need not create them through her ironic method of reading, or do not represent verbal irony (Airaksinen 2020a;Bryant 2011). Here is an example, first in oratio recta: In Euripides' Bacchants, the god, Dionysus, pretends to accept king Pentheus' claim of having power over him-how could he?…”

“…In the case of cynicism, I am prone to use sarcasm but much else is entailed as well, namely, valueless dispositions and blindness to all that is good and beautiful. Irony breaks language, but sarcasm breaks life and what value language talks about (Airaksinen 2020a(Airaksinen , 2020b.…”

“…One may discuss whatever one likes in ironic terms, even if one must notice that sometimes this is easier and more natural, like my reading of Sade sand Euripides shows. Let us take an example from Socratic irony: Suppose I know a fact, but I pretend I do not know it and ask a member of my audience to explain it to me (see Currie 2006;Vasiliou 2013;Airaksinen 2020a). My discussants may refuse, of course, but it is too late; I already ironized the situation by using my favorite meiotic debating strategy.…”

“…2 See (Airaksinen 2020a(Airaksinen , 2020b; also (Bernstein 2016;Kreuz 2020;Allen 2020;Gans 1997;Colebrook 2002;Lear 2011).…”