Too often this option is presented by people who are deliberately manipulating you and causing you to think that you only have the two choices which each benefit them and neither you. Always consider who is offering this choice and why. The true lesser evil here is whatever you have to do to get out of the situation where this choice is being presented to you.
Its a large component of my morality. Being basically a subcomponent of ethic of least harm. I mean armchair idealized morality is great but this life don’t always give you a good option.
Depends on your meta-ethical framework. If you’re a consequentialist, then you should always choose the option that leads to less evil being done. Same if you’re a utilitarian.
If you hold to a Kantian value-based framework, like the action itself holds the primary moral goodness or evil in its own nature, then choose the action that itself is less evil.
There are many other frameworks. It also depends on what you think happens in the case of something like voting. Some people see participation in any sense as a sort of tacit agreement or endorsement of the system as a whole. So by casting any vote, even one of protest, you are legitimizing the system as a whole.
Others see voting as a mere means to an end, and thus, is justified if the outcome is better than not voting would be. Some see it as purely neutral, like a tool that can be used for good or bad.
Still, others see it as an inherently good thing, and view abstaining from the act of voting as a moral wrong, because it is a willing act of self-sabotage of the moral interests of the greater good, or sometimes as a violation of the social contract.
There are many other positions and considerations. Basically…it’s complicated.
Some people see participation in any sense as a sort of tacit agreement or endorsement of the system as a whole. So by casting any vote, even one of protest, you are legitimizing the system as a whole.
This assumes that there we are always afforded the option to choose whether or not to participate. If you are a bus driver and your full bus is careening toward a cliff, and you have the opportunity to swerve into a procession of nuns crossing the street (toward the cliff? What kind of street is this?), not choosing is still a choice. You can’t say, “well, I’ll just sit this one out. I can comfort my conscience with the knowledge that I’m not making a choice.” The people on your bus are still going to die, and it will be your fault. Now, if you swerved, the nuns would die, and that would be your fault, too.
A person who comes of age in a country with suffrage is a part of that system; they are not afforded the luxury of not casting a vote guilt-free, even if they tend more Kantian, because they were placed in the driver’s seat of that bus on the day they became an adult. In fairness, they share that seat with hundreds of millions of others, but they still face a choice between two bad options. No matter which they choose, even if they choose neither, bad things will happen.
I guess what I’m saying is, when the stakes are high enough and stacked up against you enough, you have to become at least a little bit of a consequentialist.
Depends how evil the lesser evil is. There is a point where even the less bad choice is so bad I refuse to choose at all, even if it means a worse outcome overall.
In politics for example I might vote for a party close to the centre, despite being far left myself, if it is the only tactically sound choice to prevent a fascist from being elected, but I wouldn’t vote for a fascist to prevent an even worse fascist.
But why? If you had the choice of getting stabbed with a pin or stabbed with a knife why would you ever abstain or not choose the pin? It just doesn’t make sense.
Your example doesn’t fit since it doesn’t involve doing something myself (as opposed to something happening to me) and there is no morality involved the choices.
The reason I wouldn’t do something evil to try to prevent something even more evil, is because I don’t believe in doing evil things, even with good intentions. Sometimes I think it’s better to just let the trolley do its thing, rather than getting involved, if there are no good choices.
Inaction when action is an option is still a choice.
One of the major premises of the trolley problem is the choice.
It’s very specifically a scenario where everything is a choice.
The only way to not choose a scenario option is to not participate at all.
Yes. But what I’m trying to say is that whether you are an active participant in the outcome matters too, not just the outcome itself.
I don’t disagree in principle.
Lets take your scenario of not voting for fascist-lite as a means to fight against Full-Fat fascist.
In the current American system ( the greatest and most functional system /s), not voting effectively gives the vote to the eventual victor (that’s reductive but you know what I mean)
Assuming the BigFash win, the choice of inaction would be more impactful than the action of voting for DietFash.
On a relative scale and depending on how you feel about fascism I suppose.
So yes the participation and outcome matter but the effect isn’t always equal.
Inactively participating in the rise of the GrandMasterFash would be the cost of feeling good about not actively voting for the LesserFash.
Ultimately it’s shit choices all around, but that’s the point of the lesser of two evils, right?
I mean I understand the cause and effect, but that’s not what the question was about. It was about morality. And I’ve explained how I feel about that.
What if fascist A plans to kill innocent group X and fascist B plans to kill innocent group Y, but group X is more people? Should I vote for fascist B then? How would you explain that to group Y, that is now being killed because of your choice, but would have been fine otherwise? Do you think they will be okay with your numbers argument?
That’s an extreme example, but I never said I would allow a fascist to win, because I disliked the other candidate’s policy on public transit, just that there is a line somewhere that I won’t cross, even if it means a somehow “less bad” outcome.
As i said, i don’t disagree in principle.
All i was saying in that response was that inaction should also be factored in to any consideration of morality.
Inaction that causes a harm is an action. Say for example you’re a muslim that doesn’t vote for a female candidate because you feel she doesn’t do enough to help your people. If the other candidate actively allows great harm to your people, you failing to vote for the female candidate is helping empower the harm on your people.
I just hope we never see this example in real life.
That’s a terrible example. I was talking about having a choice between two evils and not an evil and a woman.
That a disingenuous reply at best, the choice is clearly “person doesn’t do enough to help your people” vs “person who actively allows great harm to your people”.
The example could probably have done with being gender neutral, but even so.
I’m not sure why you zeroed in on the female part and not the “doesn’t do enough to help your people” part.
It’s a manipulative fallacy. Humanity has the total ability to control its destiny within what’s physically possible. People presenting two options and demanding a choice of one discount every possibly out of an infinite set of possibilities except those two.
See: horse image
It’s a great way to lose an election.
A friend of mine puts it this way: “I don’t vote for who’s turn it is to lead the KKK either.”
The day the KKK has control over your friend’s day-to-day existence, that will be a relevant policy.
I mean, couldn’t we all just join the KKK and vote in a more moderate grand dragon?
Not choosing is also a choice. It may or may not be the right or wrong choice.
I mean, if you truly have no other choice, what else can you do? Can it even be considered evil at that point or just “still painful”? If I have to chop off my/someone’s gangrenous leg to ensure survival, is that evil or just, you know, not ideal? It’s important not to get too lost in semantics…
Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos
I was in a discussion a couple months ago with someone on here who told me “you have to vote for the lesser of two nazis.” That wasn’t hyperbole. We were literally discussing how you could vote in election where the two options were Nazis. Something about Elon musk’s new party I think I forget. But the guy thought that if there’s two Nazis running the responsible thing to do is to vote for the one you think is less bad. Which I don’t know how you make that decision but okay. By the way that discussions seemed a little more absurd a few months ago now it seems downright prescient.
That discussion kind of perfectly encapsulates my feelings on the subject of voting for the lesser of two evils. Now I get the Strategic reasoning of voting for the lesser of two evils. I get the logic. But my feeling is it always does eventually end in what we were talking about. Voting for the lesser of two evils eventually is going to get you the point where you’re voting for a literal Nazi. That’s where the road leads.
pick the guy who is easier to fight
This question is redundant. Evil people choose the evil option, normal people choose the other.
Do not compare evils, lest you be tempted to cleave with the least of them!
–Victor Saltzpyre
(A raw line probably inspired by somebody else lol)
It’s always odd to me when words develop parallel but distinct meanings based on context. Like, I know “to cleave to” something is to attach to it, but it trips me up (esp. in a Warhammer context where Saltzpyre would be hanging out) since I default to “he was cleaved in twain”.
As with most other English oddities, I assume this is holdover from my ancestors treating other languages like swap meets.
God I love contronyms. Strike is also a fun one because it means to hit and also to miss.
Dust is the best one: to cover in dust (like sugar on a pastry) or to remove dust from (like a bookshelf).
Also a noun.
There is something to risk reduction, but it’s more about voting strategically, if you have a chance to sway the election it makes sense to vote in arisk reductive manner from a practical standpoint, however, There’s also something to be said about voting for a marxist canidate not because they have a good chance of getting elected but to show support for a marxist party. To make it more clear people support them. The lesser evil concept in us democracy is stupid to begin with because a. in the presidential election the majority of the population has bascially no effect on the system if you live in california they are going to vote blue if you live in texas tehy are giong to vote red. As such ti doesnt’ really matter. It also assumes the reason for voting is to get people elected. Which as a revolutionary marxist it should be more a means to an end regardless. You vote to raise awareness of your cause and to create solidarity. If you are voting in an electino you mathematically have virtually zero chance of swaying it makes more sense to vote for a marxist canidate in the hopes that if enough people vote for it it might show up in statistics and introduce people to the cause.
