Ethicist Jeffrey Seglin answers ten everyday ethics questions over at the Real Simple website, and pretty much knocks them out of the park…except this one:

“If someone tells an offensive joke, is it my responsibility to speak up about it?”

Seglin writes: “Letting such humor pass without comment not only permits the teller to be offensive to you and other people but also sends the message that you’re OK with hearing such bunk. Unless the joke crosses the line into harassment territory, there’s no need to beat the person up in response. A simple ‘I enjoy a good joke now and then, but, you know, yours was pretty offensive’ will suffice.”

The answer assumes that there is such a thing as a universal, unequivocal, offensive joke. It also assumes that all offense is reasonable, which is most definitely not true. Some jokes work specifically because they are offensive; indeed, the person who doesn’t see what is offensive about it won’t get the joke. Seglin calls all offensive jokes “bunk.” I would call some offensive jokes “brilliant.” [See: “Blazing Saddles”] Is satire offensive? Black humor? Ethnic jokes? It all depends on your sense of humor.

As readers of this blog know, I am an advocate for pro-active confrontation to call unethical conduct what it is, and do so on the spot when appropriate. Not where humor is concerned, however. Humor is art. If we are not talking about humor, but harassment, cruelty and bullying, then that changes the equation: humor designed to demean, embarrass and hurt someone present should be confronted, stopped, and condemned. Suggesting, however, that there is an obligation to reprimand a joke-teller for an attempt at humor that you find objectionable just inhibits legitimate humor, which we need more of, not less.

Here are some simple guidelines, for Seglin and others:

1. If the joke offended most of the people in the audience or a significant portion of them, a competent humorist will know it. If he or she doesn’t, someone should let the joke-teller know, and explain why. It’s the kind thing to do.
2. If everyone, including you, laughed at the joke, then discuss your theories of offensiveness with the joke-teller in private. Just because you think a joke is objectively offensive doesn’t mean it is.
3. If everyone but you laughs at the joke, consult someone reasonable before saying anything. Nothing entitles you to bend the world’s humor to your standards. I know a woman who feels slapstick humor is cruel and sad. I feel sorry for her. I don’t want to hear her critique of “Noises Off,” however, and she has no obligation to give it to me if I directed a production of it.
4. Sometimes a joke-teller’s ethics alarm is out of whack but no harm was intended. I once told the old “wood eye” joke to a neighbor with an artificial eye, and realized it afterwards. A third party admonishing me for my mistake at the time would have made the gaffe even worse.
5. Don’t try to censor a joke on the theory that someone, somewhere, would find it offensive, nor is the fact that someone not hearing the joke would take offense sufficient justification, by itself, for you to take offense. This is the swamp where political correctness dwells. Don’t go there.