According to Ayn Rand, ‘to laugh at the contemptible, is a virtue; to laugh at the good, is a hideous vice’. But does this mean that humour and laughter can be the subject of philosophy? After all, different people laugh at different things. What about laughing at ourselves, and generally ‘not taking our life too seriously’, as a mantra of our era tells us?

And what about comedy? If we laugh out loud with films like ‘Dumb and Dumber’ or ‘The Hangover’, does it indicate something about our sense of life? Or is it that comedy should be taken lightly and one should just go with the flow?