Question Is it morally wrong to make someone happy by telling them an amusing story about a third party's bad misfortune?

Accepted:
November 3, 2005

Comments

I can't tell it the way he can, but Woody Allen has a story about how he had a chest pain and was very worried that he had a serious heart problem. Being too cheap to pay for the tests, he convinces his friend, who has a similar pain, to have the tests instead. The next he hears, his friend is dead. So Woody immediately has a battery of very expensive tests, only to be told that he has nothing worse than indigestion. Very annoyed at having paid all that money for nothing, he calls his friend's mother and asks whether his friend suffered much. 'No, the bus hit him and that was it', replied the mother.

Call me callous, but it made me happy to hear this amusing story about a third party's bad misfortune, and I don't think there was anything morally wrong about Woody Allen telling the story. But maybe it's crucial to the morality here that the story was made up. I'm not sure.

Question Is it morally wrong to make someone happy by telling them an amusing story about a third party's bad misfortune? Accepted:November 3, 2005

Question Is it morally wrong to make someone happy by telling them an amusing story about a third party's bad misfortune?

Accepted:
November 3, 2005