The Moral Obligation to Choose the Lesser Evil

[tackattack]

Can you outline the benefits that outweigh the evils of letting the greater evil gain office?

I suppose I could outline benefits of one candidate that is the "more evil". That's not really my point though. My point was that all of the benefits for both "more evil" and "less evil" candidates don't have a net gain that outweighs the evil. If I were to vote for the "less evil" candidate without seeing a net benefit to society, I would be morally culpable in part for any of the evil that the "less evil" one does. I would also have the benefit of "at least I didn't go with the more evil one" which, in my equations don't amount to any point in favor. I could not morally choose the lesser evil unless that were the only choice. Notice I didn't say the only viable choice. Viability in a broken system where individual impact is negligible anyways is moot. It expresses an opinion publicly (as per your civic duty comment), and that opinion I would be held morally responsible for. All boils down to, "If it's true you should vote, then vote for someone/thing that produces the leas amount of cognitive dissonance within you." The lesser of two evils with an overall net loss of benefit to society doesn't sit well with my conscience and therefore creates more cognitive dissonance than other option.  I'm not afraid of voting for a less "viable" candidate, because I have 0 fear of splitting the vote because I know my vote doesn't really matter. I also have no desire to stop the "most evil" candidate from winning, because of the same reasons and a broken system.

As with the example earlier, If the only 2 viable options are mother's death with or without pain, I'd choose neither.  I'd choose neither because if I chose one I would be partly culpable for the mother's death, which is part of both choices. There are other options, albeit not feasible (faith healing, chemo, cryo, living, etc.), that would sit better with my morality than killing/accepting mother's death. It's reductionist and instinctive to reduce your choices to something binary, but I believe life is far too complex and valuable  to exclude options at that level of importance.  I have more complex choices with what I order from starbucks than the binary you try to limit your decisions to. It's understandable and necessary in instinctual critical situations, but I don't think it's well reasoned or rational in it's entirety for decisions that require no immediate action.