2011-09-29
Explanation
This comic presents a dialogue between what appears to be a philosophy professor and an economics professor (or student). The setup involves a classic ethical thought experiment: if you were in a burning building and could save either an elderly woman or a Mona Lisa, which would you save? The economist immediately launches into a cost-benefit analysis, noting that the Mona Lisa is worth at least 672 times the value of a human life by certain economic metrics.
When pressed about what he would actually do in the situation, the economist continues to dodge the moral question, instead pivoting to discuss how the scenario is unrealistic from a risk-assessment perspective, noting that the expected yield from savings on insurance alone would be substantial. The joke escalates as the philosopher grows increasingly frustrated, trying to get the economist to engage with the ethical dimension of the question, while the economist keeps reducing everything to financial calculations.
The punchline comes when the philosopher asks how the economist can compare the value of a great work of art to a human being's life, and the economist cheerfully suggests using "fractions" -- treating it as a simple math problem rather than a profound moral dilemma. The final panel reveals that economists are now banned from philosophy, playing on the real-world tension between economics (which tends to quantify everything) and philosophy (which grapples with questions that resist quantification).
The votey panel adds a final gag where someone asks "Why?" and the answer is "Not enough beards" -- a playful jab at the stereotypical appearance of philosophers, suggesting the real reason for the ban is purely superficial rather than intellectual.