"Men cannot laugh heartily without showing their teeth," quipped Samuel Butler. From St Paul to Descartes to Adorno, scholars and writers have questioned the ethics of laughter - any laughter. In "The Pleasure of Fools", Jure Gantar wrestles with our moral right to laugh and the limitations of contemporary critical approaches. The crucial question is not whether or not there is offensive laughter but whether or not all laughter offends.Almost everyone has felt the bitter stab of malicious laughter and knows that laughter can be cruel, but it is more difficult to decide if there is also...