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AnarkittenSurprise t1_iwcnia4 wrote

Reply to comment by FranksRedWorkAccount in The ethics of voting for the 'lesser of two evils' by ADefiniteDescription

This might not be popular, but I think individuals have a right to refuse association, and divest responsibility to a broader group.

This line of thinking (admittedly extrapolated to the extreme) would make you responsible for any person who died from lack of access to a resource that you have, simply because you didn't seek them out to provide it to them. The level of effort involved is a fair qualifier to bring up, but I would still disagree that there is any scenario where someone is obligated to make a decision they feel is immoral to mitigate a worse outcome - especially if you allow for metaphysical beliefs that could be effected by these decisions.

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FranksRedWorkAccount t1_iwcq4x4 wrote

"I bought an extra water bottle and now someone in Indonesia died because the relief effort was one water bottle short so I killed them" and "I personally chose not to use the epipen the person was begging me to stab them with while they were dying of anaphylaxis because I am morally opposed to stabbing people" are not the same. No reasonable person would be afraid of that slippery slope.

People have to make decisions that they feel are immoral to mitigate worse outcomes all the time. If cops are morally opposed to prostitution do they just not have to investigate the murder of a hooker? That awful woman who was the clerk for her town who was morally opposed to gay marriage should absolutely be legally forced to give out marriage licenses to gay people. If she didn't want to compromise her own personal morals she should have to leave her job.

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AnarkittenSurprise t1_iwcwrpn wrote

I agree with you in your examples, but don't think any are a good example of what I was trying to express.

The waterbottle scenario isn't a zero-sum situation as if you had a choice to take someone's water, endangering them in the process, while you didn't need it. I think the best alternative I could give to this one is an interesting inverse of having one vote but no one you desire to use it on: if I made you aware of people who are in danger of thirst or starvation, and need donations or funding to survive. You presumably have limited funds, and cannot help everyone who needs it, so you would need to choose which people you will save. The others will continue to die. According to the WFP, about 9MM people annually starve to death.

In this scenario, do you accept moral responsibility over all of the people you are choosing not to help? Or do we acknowledge that we aren't super heroes, there are reasonable limits to our responsibility to others, and that the individual pursuit of comfort, sustainability, and pursuit of passions/meaning has its own value?

The Epipen dilemma is similar in that we can imagine it as an inverse scenario to not voting - you have the option to do good, and can choose not to. Or extrapolate to assume you have two people, and only one Epipen. And you must decide who will recieve it, knowing the other will die.

Abstaining from voting isn't quite the same. If you genuinely believe that either candidate will do harm, then I don't think you have any civic responsibility to support one over the other.

For the last example about the trash bag that wouldn't give marriage licenses to gay people? I think she was perfectly within her right to refuse to perform a function of her job. I also think she, and anyone else who refuses to perform a function of their job should be fired from that job. If she truly believes participating in gay marriage will in some way cause harm to her in a theoretical afterlife, then I believe it is immoral to try to force her to participate in it.

I think we all have to find a balance of pursuing meaning and comfort in our own lives, while helping (or at the very least not harming) others. But when being a part of a society is compulsory for most people, I think it is too much to expect them to carry some kind of moral responsibility to engage with it and choose between two choices that do they disapprove of.

The best topical analogy I can think of that helps represent my thoughts on voting is the stranded passengers scenario. You are stranded on a desert island with a group of people and have run out of food. The group has pushed it to the brink of starvation, and without securing something to eat, you will all die. The prevailing opinion of the group is that you must resort to cannibalism, and you must choose between the two most popular meal choices, where your vote may be the deciding factor, or a third person who is almost garunteed not to be selected by popular opinion.

To complicate this a little further and help make it a lesser of two evils situation: one of the meal-candidates is a violent criminal, and the other is the one who's body would provide the most sustenance.

In the desert island scenario, do you have a moral obligation to vote?

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FranksRedWorkAccount t1_iwd4ybt wrote

I think your desert island example is a very good use here because it exemplifies what my point was. In the desert island scenario no matter what you do at least one person will die. Because almost all people choose cannibalism over starving. So if you vote you can influence who dies but you can't prevent someone from dying. This is like you can vote but you can't control who gets into office. You don't have a moral obligation to vote as much as you have to recognize that you can only do so much to impact the results of the election and that not voting as a protest means that you still bear some of the responsibility of the outcome. You can frame voting on the island as voting for who gets eaten but also voting for who doesn't get eaten. That was my point. You can call voting for Biden a vote for biden to be in office or a vote for trump to not be in office. If you can't bring yourself to vote for biden to be in office you are also accepting that you are not voting against trump being in office, specifically because of the nature of the first past the post nature of our election system.

>Abstaining from voting isn't quite the same. If you genuinely believe that either candidate will do harm, then I don't think you have any civic responsibility to support one over the other.

If the harm were somehow equal then yes voting either way would be just as bad and so your best bet would be to not vote. But when a clear and obvious difference exists you can't pretend that you didn't play a part in the results. Mind you, in the Biden/Trump example everyone that didn't vote at all is more culpable than someone that voted but voted third party but anyone who could vote against trump and doesn't is partly responsible for him being elected. Unless you just swim away from the island or refuse to eat the meat and die of starvation you will reap the results of the vote whether you cast a vote or not.

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AnarkittenSurprise t1_iwdbhrx wrote

This was well worded & good perspective for me, thanks!

I agree that it's clear our decisions or non-decisions have an impact on others, even if we resent it. I just disagree that we bear a moral responsibility for those (in)decisions.

Especially with how difficult it is to compare harm, and project the outcome of those decisions.

I'll vote for a Biden over a Trump. But I really resent being given that choice, and honestly feel like I have the right to disengage from a system that forces it on me. I didn't consent to this system. Enough people seem to like it enough that they maintain it, so I'm not sure it would be morally right for me to change it, even if I could. But I'd absolutely like to feel like I have the right to walk away from it if I get tired enough of feeling not represented.

On the desert island, I'd like to think I wouldn't eat the meat, or participate in the voting. That choice isn't for everyone, but feels like it's the right one to me.

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FranksRedWorkAccount t1_iwdec2v wrote

Thank you for helping me figure out how to best frame what I meant. Because I feel like the article is trying to pretend like not deciding to vote isn't itself a decision. I actually think most people would prefer a different system as far as the voting goes but we don't all agree on what the best shape of the new system would be and much like a third party option none of us feels empowered to make the change because most of us agree that this is better than a lot of other worse options. I think that's part of the plan. I think they want us to feel divided and powerless. I don't know how to fix that.

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AnarkittenSurprise t1_iwdipmk wrote

Could be. I wonder how much our individualism plays into it. I always see governance as "they" and "them" too. And that may be where my defense of the non-voter comes from.

Many of us are so disconnected that we don't want to be associated with each other, or consider ourselves parts of their group. So when it comes time to organize, it's very difficult to go in and pick which team you want to pretend like you belong in.

It's hard to get engaged in these broad concepts when I'm most comfortable in my own private world, and I kind of just hope to be stay safe there with the occasional interaction of the small community I connect with.

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