“One of the many virtues of Clair Morrissey’s The Virtue of Wit is that it exhibits the very aptitude it describes. Situating itself at the sometimes- precarious intersection of ethics and aesthetics, her investigation delves into matters ranging from the ways in which wit can foster human solidarity to the ways in which it embodies a facility for playing with language and ideas, from the moral weight it can bring to bear on situations to the ways it colors and enlivens our encounters with the world. That Morrissey’s exploration is, in itself, playful and engaging offers a kind of bonus demonstration of the happy enchantment to which wit can conduce.”

Eva M. Dadlez, Professor, Department of Humanities and Philosophy, University of Central Oklahoma

“In this insightful analysis of the nature, role, and value of wit, Morrissey shows that wit isn’t just valuable because it is fun, but more significantly because of the ways in which being witty facilitates connection and community between people, therein creating and maintaining an “us”. Working from the perspective of non-ideal theory, and informed by feminist analyses of human agency, Morrissey makes a compelling case that developing wit is an essential part of how non-ideal agents can flourish, even and especially in contexts of oppression. This book makes an important contribution to the philosophical literature on humor and wit, as well as to non-ideal theory itself.”

Lorraine Besser, Middlebury College