Radford By John Ashram Bradford

Radford’s puzzle is, that we feel pity (have feelings in general) towards fictional characters although we should not because they are not real. Radford presents us with the case of a man approaching us with a tragic story about his sister and while we feel pity for her he confesses that he has no sister. Once we hear this we no longer feel pity for the sister. This case seems to show that we do not feel emotions when we do not think that something has truly happen or the character is not real. Radford's puzzle focuses on the idea that our emotions could be directed towards fictional characters. While, Walton would make the distinction that our emotional engagement from fiction only results in quisai emotion. Both puzzles, still entail emotional responses from fiction, but Radford sees the
His own solution involves the retraction that we can only feel pity towards someone if we believe something terrible has happen to them, by showing that we can feel pity towards someone although nothing terrible has happen to them. He supports his solution by explaining that when we feel pity in those cases we are being irrational. An example of this is, a mother who feels sadness by the possibility of her children dying after an accident. There is a real possibility that her children could be dead however they are not. She might be irrational in reacting as though her children are already dead, by crying over the possibility but her emotions are still real. Although, our emotional reaction is irrational, it is still occurring because we become caught up in the ‘incoherence’ and ‘inconsistency’ of the fiction in the same way that we think of the possibility of terrible things happening to someone, as likely or unlikely the possibility might be. According to Radford we are still emotionally engaged in both cases because we become invested in the possibility of the situation and develop pity for the