The Moral of the Story

In 2012, a thread on the NaNoWriMo Plot Doctoring forum asked, 'What exactly is it that makes a story worth telling in your opinion?'  One commenter of many claimed that 'fiction [doesn't need to] teach you a moral lesson or even have a moral outcome'.  To this, I replied:

When we talk about stories having morals, though, we generally mean one of two things, which in practice often overlap but are probably worth distinguishing:

1. The story shows approval of characters, actions, or situations in accordance with the demands of an ethical system (e.g., the kind people win and the mean people lose; the poor are happy and the rich are sad; the people who care deeply about things are shown favourably and the cynical people are shown unfavourably); or

2. The story illustrates a general truth about the world or human nature (e.g., slow and steady wins the race).