Lance yells about philosophy and swears a lot
[So remember that hc/prompt I mentioned about Lance being good at philosophy? Well here it is. And I have to take a ton of Philosophy courses bc I’m a Liberal Studies major, so this rant is literally my own thoughts lmao. Hardin can eat shit and so can that one edgelord neckbeard pissant I had Ethics with.]
Lance isn’t great at math. In fact, Lance has problems with most traditional academics. Confusion with math, poor handwriting, attention span difficulties....these all made Lance the brunt of many “lol so dumb” comments.
And Hunk, being his best friend since grade school, knew this. So when Team Voltron, minus Lance who was grabbing something he forgot in his room, starting cracking those same “lol Lance is dumb sometimes” jokes - well, to be honest it was mostly Pidge, who regularly forgets that not everybody thinks in numbers and schematics - he got fed up.
“Hey, that went a little too far, Pidge. I know I joke about it too sometimes, but Lance is actually really smart. Just not in the way that most people put value in.”
Pidge raised a skeptical eyebrow, “Oh yeah? What do you mean by that?”
“I’ll show you,” Hunk turned to face the door, which had just opened for Lance, and cupped a hand to his mouth as an amplifier, “Hey Lance! Do the lifeboat theory ethics rant, I need to prove a point!” Lance looked up and immediately dropped the book he was holding, running over to Hunk with a fire in his eyes.
“HELL YEAH, okay so lifeboat theory is a crock of SHIT philosophical standpoint made up in the 1970′s by this shithead named Hardin, which is a stupid name by the way. He said that it ~proved~ that humanity is inherently selfish, which no freakin DUH Sherlock Holmes, have you ever MET a baby? And that it meant ~helping people is a bad idea~ but, like, fuck that shit! It’s based entirely around a large group of complete strangers thrown into a traumatic life-or-death experience, in which very few people have any control over their thoughts or actions because TRAUMA, so you can’t uphold it as an accurate depiction of the human conscious, let alone whether or not wealthy and high-power nations should offer aid to countries in need!
No, the drowning child model by Peter Singer is far more accurate and easier to process and visualize, not to mention safely recreate and test. It reduces the number of variables and the person whose ethical, knee-jerk reaction is being observed would have more time to think and would be more present rather than the frantic response one would give in the lifeboat scenario.
And even then, ethics and morality are too gray and abstract to quantify or project from small scale to large scale. Just because one person is or isn’t willing to save another person’s life doesn’t have anything to do with the ethical actions of entire nations! They’re not comparable! And no matter how much philosophers like Hardin say they know what people will do most of the time doesn’t mean SHIT! Because people are dumb and fickle and there’s always that one asshole who plays devil’s advocate just because he wants to be an asshole! Sometimes there is no right answer! FUCK LIFEBOAT ETHICAL THEORY AND FUCK THAT ONE EDGELORD PISSBABY FROM MY ETHICS CLASS!” Lance ended his rant panting, and Hunk smirked. Everyone else was slack-jawed in awe. Pidge’s glasses had fallen down their nose midway through, Shiro looked like he didn’t understand any of what just happened, Allura blinked in shock, and Coran looked absolutely giddy with pride. Keith was the first one to speak up.
