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More on Morreall on Laughter

In a recent article, John Morreall responds to my criticisms of his theory of laughter which is couched in the formula that laughter results from a pleasant psychological shift, where "shift" means "sudden change". I had argued, contra Morreall, that what causes laughter need be neither a sudden change nor a pleasant change. Now, I shall argue that Morreall's defence is inadequate. The first example I advanced against Morreall's theory involved the case of a person being tickled, such that the pleasure builds up gradually before erupting in laughter. Morreall objects that this is not a counterexample. As he intends his theory to be understood, it is the psychological change that one finds pleasant that must be sudden, whereas one's coming to find that change pleasant need not be sudden. In support of this claim Morreall contends that for a baby, for example,