Comic #7043: consequent

Description

Here’s the transcription of the comic text:

Panel 1:
Person 1: "How is it that all humans have similar intuitions but we have multiple ethical frameworks that people can't agree on?"
Person 2: "We don’t. Everyone is a utilitarian consequentialist, they just don’t realize it."

Panel 2:
Person 1: "What about virtue ethicists, who concern themselves with behaving in a right fashion, or deontologists, or those who base traditions entirely on a deity’s commandments?"
Person 2: "Take any of those traditions and consider any behavior they permit which consequentialism doesn’t. Refusing to lie to save a life, eating forbidden food, that sort of thing. Now, ask them what they’d do if performing that behavior caused 400 hamsters to explode."

Panel 3:
Person 1: "Bet the moment the hamster-fur starts flying, they reevaluate their theory!"
Person 2: "You know that joke about how everyone is a prostitute for enough money? It’s the same with ethics. Everyone’s a consequentialist for enough exploding hamsters."

Panel 4:
Person 1: "I’d like to read a paper on this just for the illustrations."
Person 2: "Ham-splosions are the first objective measure of utility."