Lesser-evilism is not objectively correct. It is an ideology, a specific strategy and belief system, and one that is supported by neither reason nor evidence.
Your willingness to potentially support Hitler is what destroys the chance of a non-Hitler candidate winning. It also betrays the people Hitler will harm and who find supporting him completely unconscionable and destroys trust. Voting for Hitler is not a tool that you should have at all in your toolbox of tactics, and if I saw that someone had it there, as I’m seeing now, then I would be extremely concerned and suspicious of them.
I shudder to think what other tools and tactics you’re prepared to use if you manage to convince yourself it’s a “lesser evil” than the alternative. Unexamined consequentialism is an abhorrent belief system.
Lesser-evilism is not correct, however it’s the system we currently have.
It’s the natural result of a system with a single vote. You might be able to change enough people’s minds to impact a single election, but the system will default back to a two-party system eventually. That is not an ideology you can break people out of, it is simply how the system works.
It sure would be nice to vote FOR someone instead of AGAINST someone else, but that’s not a choice we have the luxury of making right now. We have to change the system first before that has a chance of succeeding. Otherwise it’s just helping elect Super Hitler.
No, it is not. First-Past-the-Post is the system we have. Lesser-evilism is a specific ideology.
Suppose that a gunman has taken 5 people hostage, and gives you a choice. You can either kill one of them for him, and he says he’ll let the rest go, or he will kill all of them himself. The ideology of lesser-evilism says that you should do it. But there are plenty of other belief systems that say you shouldn’t. Your ideology of lesser-evilism, which you present as an inevitability, is actually a specific philosophical position, and one that is frankly complete nonsense. But regardless, it is impossible to critically examine any ideology if we cannot identify the fact that it is an ideology.
What if you execute a hostage, and then the gunman says, “Great, you work for me now, my first order is to gather up more hostages so I can do this again. If you don’t, I’ll kill twice as many people.” Is that still ethical? That is what your ideology implies.
What if five people are dying and need transplants, and one innocent person happens to have the exact organs all five of them need to live? Is it ethical to kill them? That is what your ideology implies.
You are completely writing off contrary ideologies and belief systems without even recognizing that they exist, while presenting your own unexamined and indefensible ideology as objectively true and not even an ideology.
That’s not how logic works. If you believe that lesser evilism is a valid ideology, then you don’t get to just arbitrarily exclude the natural conclusions of that ideology whenever they’re inconvenient to you. At that point, you should just say, “I’m voting for Kamala because I feel like it” without appealing to lesser evilism, because by presenting lesser evilism as a reason to vote for Kamala, you’re arguing that because lesser evilism is true in general, it should be applied in this specific situation. You can’t then go back and say, “lesser evilism isn’t actually true in general” without undermining that whole argument.
It seems like you expect me to vehemently defend this ideology “in general” when I told you it’s only for specific circumstances because of the way the system has been rigged since before we were born.
It’s also a smart move to double down bets in specific situations in Vegas, but I’m not going to defend always doing that “in general”. Context matters, and you seem to be ignoring the fascist in the room.
You’re free to say that you’re just voting for Kamala or Hitler or whoever because you want to, but if you try to justify it in terms of choosing the lesser evil then you need to show that the general reasoning of choosing the lesser evil is a valid line of thought. If you abandon it whenever it leads you to a conclusion that you don’t like, then you don’t really believe that it’s valid, you’re just doing whatever you feel like and using that as a rationalization.
It’s also a smart move to double down bets in specific situations in Vegas, but I’m not going to defend always doing that “in general”
If you follow some other principle or calculus to reach the conclusion that you should support someone who also happens to be a lesser evil candidate, then sure. But your calculus is just that you should vote for them because they’re the lesser evil.
To continue your analogy, it’s like if someone says, “I’m doubling down because doubling down is a good strategy,” vs “Based on a separate cost benefit analysis, I should double down in this situation.”
You haven’t offered a reason other than lesser evilism, and you have also applied that logic not just to one specific situation, but also to a hypothetical of “Hitler vs Hitler+.” It is therefore completely arbitrary to limit it when it leads to conclusions you don’t like, and proves that you don’t actually believe it.
…you need to show that the general reasoning of choosing the lesser evil is a valid line of thought.
I really don’t though. There isn’t an ethics test after the vote. You don’t have to show your work. The fact that you’re so hung up on this makes me think you just want to “win” an ideological debate, but I’m not having one of those.
You can vote or not, but there’s only two possible outcomes at this point. Believe it or don’t. Excuse it or don’t.
Lesser-evilism is not objectively correct. It is an ideology, a specific strategy and belief system, and one that is supported by neither reason nor evidence.
Your willingness to potentially support Hitler is what destroys the chance of a non-Hitler candidate winning. It also betrays the people Hitler will harm and who find supporting him completely unconscionable and destroys trust. Voting for Hitler is not a tool that you should have at all in your toolbox of tactics, and if I saw that someone had it there, as I’m seeing now, then I would be extremely concerned and suspicious of them.
I shudder to think what other tools and tactics you’re prepared to use if you manage to convince yourself it’s a “lesser evil” than the alternative. Unexamined consequentialism is an abhorrent belief system.
Lesser-evilism is not correct, however it’s the system we currently have.
It’s the natural result of a system with a single vote. You might be able to change enough people’s minds to impact a single election, but the system will default back to a two-party system eventually. That is not an ideology you can break people out of, it is simply how the system works.
It sure would be nice to vote FOR someone instead of AGAINST someone else, but that’s not a choice we have the luxury of making right now. We have to change the system first before that has a chance of succeeding. Otherwise it’s just helping elect Super Hitler.
No, it is not. First-Past-the-Post is the system we have. Lesser-evilism is a specific ideology.
Suppose that a gunman has taken 5 people hostage, and gives you a choice. You can either kill one of them for him, and he says he’ll let the rest go, or he will kill all of them himself. The ideology of lesser-evilism says that you should do it. But there are plenty of other belief systems that say you shouldn’t. Your ideology of lesser-evilism, which you present as an inevitability, is actually a specific philosophical position, and one that is frankly complete nonsense. But regardless, it is impossible to critically examine any ideology if we cannot identify the fact that it is an ideology.
What if you execute a hostage, and then the gunman says, “Great, you work for me now, my first order is to gather up more hostages so I can do this again. If you don’t, I’ll kill twice as many people.” Is that still ethical? That is what your ideology implies.
What if five people are dying and need transplants, and one innocent person happens to have the exact organs all five of them need to live? Is it ethical to kill them? That is what your ideology implies.
You are completely writing off contrary ideologies and belief systems without even recognizing that they exist, while presenting your own unexamined and indefensible ideology as objectively true and not even an ideology.
None of these examples are government elections, which is the only place where I’m using this ideology.
That’s not how logic works. If you believe that lesser evilism is a valid ideology, then you don’t get to just arbitrarily exclude the natural conclusions of that ideology whenever they’re inconvenient to you. At that point, you should just say, “I’m voting for Kamala because I feel like it” without appealing to lesser evilism, because by presenting lesser evilism as a reason to vote for Kamala, you’re arguing that because lesser evilism is true in general, it should be applied in this specific situation. You can’t then go back and say, “lesser evilism isn’t actually true in general” without undermining that whole argument.
It seems like you expect me to vehemently defend this ideology “in general” when I told you it’s only for specific circumstances because of the way the system has been rigged since before we were born.
It’s also a smart move to double down bets in specific situations in Vegas, but I’m not going to defend always doing that “in general”. Context matters, and you seem to be ignoring the fascist in the room.
You’re free to say that you’re just voting for Kamala or Hitler or whoever because you want to, but if you try to justify it in terms of choosing the lesser evil then you need to show that the general reasoning of choosing the lesser evil is a valid line of thought. If you abandon it whenever it leads you to a conclusion that you don’t like, then you don’t really believe that it’s valid, you’re just doing whatever you feel like and using that as a rationalization.
If you follow some other principle or calculus to reach the conclusion that you should support someone who also happens to be a lesser evil candidate, then sure. But your calculus is just that you should vote for them because they’re the lesser evil.
To continue your analogy, it’s like if someone says, “I’m doubling down because doubling down is a good strategy,” vs “Based on a separate cost benefit analysis, I should double down in this situation.”
You haven’t offered a reason other than lesser evilism, and you have also applied that logic not just to one specific situation, but also to a hypothetical of “Hitler vs Hitler+.” It is therefore completely arbitrary to limit it when it leads to conclusions you don’t like, and proves that you don’t actually believe it.
I really don’t though. There isn’t an ethics test after the vote. You don’t have to show your work. The fact that you’re so hung up on this makes me think you just want to “win” an ideological debate, but I’m not having one of those.
You can vote or not, but there’s only two possible outcomes at this point. Believe it or don’t. Excuse it or don’t.
OK, so you’re just speaking complete nonsense that you can’t defend at all.