veiled
Explanation
This comic takes place at "The Annual Colloquium of Evil Philosophers," where a vampire-like philosopher presents John Rawls' famous "veil of ignorance" thought experiment to an audience of villains. The veil of ignorance is a concept from Rawls' 1971 book "A Theory of Justice," which asks people to design a society without knowing what position they would occupy in it -- their wealth, race, gender, intelligence, and so on. The idea is that rational self-interest behind this veil would lead people to create a fair and just society, since they might end up in any position.
The comic's humor comes from presenting this well-known philosophical framework at a gathering of evil philosophers. The vampire explains that under this reasoning, the society minimizing personal harm would be the one providing the greatest amount of good -- essentially arriving at a just society. But then "Evil Robert Nozick" (a reference to the real philosopher Robert Nozick, who critiqued Rawls) objects, arguing that equality of outcome isn't just -- what matters is whether each individual action along the way was fair, even if the result is inequality.
The joke escalates when the two positions devolve into a philosophical shouting match, and a third figure -- an anthropologist -- stands up and suggests that both philosophical frameworks are incomplete without considering cultural traditions and historical context. The audience boos this practical, less dramatic contribution. The punchline mocks how real-world, empirically grounded approaches to justice are seen as boring compared to grand abstract theorizing, even among villains.