virtue
Explanation
This comic is a philosophical discussion about three major ethical frameworks: deontology, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics. One character complains that virtue ethics "isn't a theory of ethics, it's just a strategy." The other character asks them to consider the alternatives.
Deontology is described as requiring you to intuit "the coherent set of moral laws for the entire universe" -- the character reacts with a dismissive "well good luck, dweeb!" Utilitarianism is described as requiring you to "constantly sum for maximal total happiness over the space of all possible actions for everyone" -- an absurdly demanding computational task. Virtue ethics is then reframed as saying "none of that stuff is possible, so the only move remaining is to try to be less of a dickwad."
When the first character protests, wanting "a simple math-like framework to perfectly govern all behaviors of talking apes," the virtue ethicist responds: "Whining is not virtuous."
The humor lies in the deliberately crude but surprisingly accurate characterizations of these philosophical traditions. The comic sympathetically presents virtue ethics as the most pragmatic and self-aware framework -- it acknowledges human limitations rather than demanding impossible moral calculations. The phrase "talking apes" deflates philosophical pretension by reminding us of our biological nature. The final exchange is a perfect self-referential joke: the virtue ethicist uses their own framework to shut down the complaint, demonstrating that virtue ethics at least has the advantage of always being applicable, even in an argument about ethics itself.