The AskPhilosophers logo.

Death
Ethics

Following the recent tragic events in Japan there has been a "wave" of jokes and puns on the internet about the earthquake and tsunami. Is it morally acceptable to joke about something so serious and tragic? Should ethical people be outraged at photoshopped pictures showing Godzilla as the true source of the tsunami or at bad puns about waves?
Accepted:
March 15, 2011

Comments

Gordon Marino
March 20, 2011 (changed March 20, 2011) Permalink

I don't think it is morally acceptable to joke about tragedies. While I know that it is part of the orthodoxy amongst comics to try and be edgy, perhaps even to try and shock, cracking jokes about thousands of people being killed and thousands upon thousands more losing their homes certainly evinces a lack of compassion and humanity. I don't have a syllogism to proof this but I think that finding entertainment in tsunamis, or maybe next, the holocaust, makes us more indifferent to others and is bad for the soul.

  • Log in to post comments
Source URL: https://askphilosophers.org/question/3909
© 2005-2025 AskPhilosophers.org