Frank H. Buckley
Encyclopedia
Frank H. Buckley is a Foundation Professor at George Mason University School of Law
George Mason University School of Law
George Mason University School of Law is the law school of George Mason University, a state university in Virginia, United States...

, where he has taught since 1989. Before then, he was a visiting Olin Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School
University of Chicago Law School
The University of Chicago Law School was founded in 1902 as the graduate school of law at the University of Chicago and is among the most prestigious and selective law schools in the world. The U.S. News & World Report currently ranks it fifth among U.S...

. He has also taught at McGill Law School in Montreal; and the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...

 (Paris II), and Sciences Po in Paris. His law degrees are from McGill and Harvard.
Professor H. Buckley is the author of numerous books and articles on law and economics and has published in many of the leading journals, including the Journal of Legal Studies, the International Review of Law and Economics, and Public Choice. His most recent books are Fair Governance: Paternalism and Perfectionism (Oxford 2009); Just Exchange (Routledge
Routledge
Routledge is a British publishing house which has operated under a succession of company names and latterly as an academic imprint. Its origins may be traced back to the 19th-century London bookseller George Routledge...

 2005); and The Morality of Laughter (Michigan 2003).

The Morality of Laughter

The Morality of Laughter is an entertaining book on the serious subject of laughter distinguish by its wide range of cultural references. Building up on the work of Henry Bergson
Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality.He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize...

, F. H. Buckley introduces the book advocating that the morality of laughter will be useful in answering one of the oldest question in philosophy: How ought I to live? In his book, he presents the Theory of Laughter, arguing that "laughter announces and enforces a code of behavior through the jester signal of superiority over a butt. There is no laughter without a butt and no butt without a message a risible inferiority". The above-mentioned is the positive superiority thesis while the normative superiority thesis states that the our laughter truly communicates superiority and the butt is truly inferior, making a stronger claim. Furthermore, F. H. Buckley explains that if the positive thesis is reject the normative must be rejected as well.


In his book, F. H. Buckley take the side of defending the laugh as the medicine for living the good life against the soulless forces of modernism which condemn those who are judgmental and the idea of laughter as old-fashioned. The loss of sense of humor, as F. H. Buckley states "has impoverished academic discourse, where nonsensical theories that could not survive the test of ridicule are now taken seriously. Before adopting a fashionable idea, we ought first to enquire whether it twigs our sense of humor"

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