by Alex Baia
Utilitarianism
If a return brings you more happiness than it brings our store unhappiness, then you may return.
Egalitarianism
You deserve the opportunity to return your purchase, just as much as the next person.
Conservatism
Returning puts things back the way they were. Therefore, we encourage it.
Egoism
If it’s in your self-interest to return, go ahead.
Hobbesianism
A very powerful monarch will decide whether your return is allowed. We all agreed to this, so it’s fair.
Kantianism
You may return only those items that you would wish everyone else to also return.
Skepticism
We do not know whether there are any returns, and neither do you.
Functionalism
We don’t care what you return, as long as you return it correctly.
Stoicism
It is best that you suffer the fleeting hardship of your bad purchase, and learn from your error of judgment, smiling all the while.
Speech Acts Theory
To return an item, you must state that you are returning it. If you do, we will state that we accept it. That is what a return is, essentially.
Logical Positivism
As long as we can verify your return using physics or chemistry, we’re fine with it.
Presentism
No past or future returns, only present ones.
Reductionism
A return is nothing over and above the item being returned, the persons involved, and the act of giving back the merchandise. What else would a return be? Some special fairy dust? Nonsense.
Non-Cognitivism
When you return something, what you are really doing is just making an emotional ejaculation to effect that you do not like what you purchased. Knock yourself out.
Relativism
At some of our branches, returns are accepted within 90 days. At other stores, 14 days with a receipt. At one of our stores, if you try to return anything, they’ll just beat the shit out of you. (Don’t bother blaming them, though, that’s just how they are.) There’s not really one big overarching policy.
Dialetheism
There are many, many problems and paradoxes when it comes to returning things. So, here’s what we’ve come up with. You may return. Also, you may not return. As far as we can tell, this takes care of everything, and if it hurts your puny brain that’s not our problem.
Rawlsianism
To determine whether it would be OK to allow a return, we must place ourselves behind a veil of ignorance where we know nothing about the item purchased, the purchaser, our own store, or anything circumstantial like that. From this vantage point — the original shopping position, as it were — we may determine fair return policies that help even the least gifted shoppers.
Modal Realism
In some possible world, you (not literally you but your counterpart) return a pair of jeans successfully for cash. In another possible world, the jeans fit slightly better and you are perfectly satisfied. In yet a third possible world, instead of jeans you purchase a kangaroo with no tail, but it topples over. But then you get a dragon. All of these things really happen.
Nihilism
There are no returns.
