Mostly harmless?

Hitchhiker's and the ethics of entertainment

Nicholas Joll

pp. 50-72

in: Nicholas Joll (ed), Philosophy and the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012

Abstract

Douglas Adams was interested in what entertains people. Witness several passages that I shall quote below and also the wonderful Mostly Harmless passage that I have reproduced above.¹ That interest in entertainment is unsurprising. Adams was a comedy writer and, in person, a raconteur. Now, what interests me, as a philosopher, and indeed as a citizen, is this: Hitchhiker's prompts reflection upon the ethics of entertainment (and, actually, that seems to have been something that interested Adams himself as well).²