The Moral Obligation to Choose the Lesser Evil

[Sal]

I agree with that wholeheartedly. If such institutions are robust, as some seem to claim, then talking about it is possible.

The only purpose of power should be to ameliorate the (human) conditions of the society. We can easily recognize just how valuable such non-political institutions, with their own method of enforcement, are and how they service the society we're in. Fire Stations, police, hospitals, schools, etc. are instantiations of that Will for improvement of our conditions, to make life better.

Fascists are parasites in this regard of those institutions.

[tackattack]

@Sal well I'm glad we could agree on something today .but even those institutions can be put in a place where the institutions survival is more important than the values and ideals. Case in point that thin blue line...

I guess the question would be how to deconstruct the survivability aspect of an institution while keeping it alive for it's purpose, values and ideals?

[Anomalocaris]

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.

Ah yes, your perceived culpability is more important to you than whether the thing could Objectively have been prevented, and what is the best possible outcome.    Your mere perception of purity is more important to you the suffering of your fellow men.      Of course a religitards  who shirks a intelligent humans’ s responsibility to dispense with basal superstition would also shirk a intelligent humans’s Responsibility pursue actions that leads to the best overall consequence.   The cleanliness of a conscience Such as yours is worth nothing in any grander scheme than your ego, and the basal cruelty of your choice is made even more grotesque by the absolutely nothing that Your seek to sooth at the price of other’s objective suffering.

[Rhizomorph13]

I love it when people use terms like religitard, republicunt, demonrat, fucktard, or any of the many slurs I've heard. These terms show intellectual superiority and a willingness to engage in thoughtful discourse. /not

This thread is fun and now it will be in "My Posts"

Carry on your witty banter

[Anomalocaris]

I love it when people use terms like religitard, republicunt, demonrat, fucktard, or any of the many slurs I've heard. These terms show intellectual superiority and a willingness to engage in thoughtful discourse. /not

This thread is fun and now it will be in "My Posts"

Carry on your witty banter

It is long past thoughtful discourse.

[Rhizomorph13]

I love it when people use terms like religitard, republicunt, demonrat, fucktard, or any of the many slurs I've heard. These terms show intellectual superiority and a willingness to engage in thoughtful discourse. /not

This thread is fun and now it will be in "My Posts"

Carry on your witty banter

It is long past thoughtful discourse.

Clearly

[arewethereyet]

We are presented with three choices:

1 - A horrific, awful one who will surely do more damage to the country and its people, some of which will take years, if ever, to overcome.

2 - The choice we were given by the other party who hopefully won't do more damage but will probably not be able to fix much, if anything...perhaps he can slow the collapse. Stem the bleeding, as it were.

3 - The throw away vote that will almost certainly benefit #1.

Too many people went with #3 last time and that helped create this shitshow.

[Rhizomorph13]

I had never heard of stemming the bleeding. I would staunch bleeding. I looked it up; stemming = staunching, nothing to see here.

Oh, and yeah thinking, "Well maybe it will send a statement if I vote for Bernie." Wasted vote!

[arewethereyet]

I had never heard of stemming the bleeding. I would staunch bleeding. I looked it up; stemming = staunching, nothing to see here.

Oh, and yeah thinking, "Well maybe it will send a statement if I vote for Bernie." Wasted vote!

I am somewhat literate.  At least I like to think I am.  

[Rhizomorph13]

I had never heard of stemming the bleeding. I would staunch bleeding. I looked it up; stemming = staunching, nothing to see here.

Oh, and yeah thinking, "Well maybe it will send a statement if I vote for Bernie." Wasted vote!

I am somewhat literate.  At least I like to think I am.  

My wife constantly challenges the phrases and words I use, then we google, then she has a sad. It bugs her so much because she is a teacher and feels she should know more than most people. I'm not most people; I read a lot, not so much books anymore, but random shit on the internet so I know some shit? This forum has expanded my knowledge of trivial turns of phrase for example.