Ethical and moral choices are two very distinct things. To avoid marching right off into a semantic morass, let me just start out by putting forth the distinction I am drawing between these two terms. Moral choices are the relatively straightforward choices between wrong and right. Ethical choices are the much murkier choices between right and right.
Rushmore Kidder wrote a book entitled “How Good People Make Tough Choices”– which is a very readable, solid book on ethical decision making (even if the title does not sound that impressive). In particular, he notes that there are a number of different elements to ethical decision making, nearly all ethical choices can be boiled down to a fairly small set of discrete types of ethical dilemmas:
Now, for the moonbats, wingnuts, and other assorted members of the tinfoil hat brigade (including the Right Wing Regiment, the Left Wing Regiment, and the Really Out There Regiment), elections are a moral choice. The views these folks hold are assumed to be morally right, and all those that disagree are morally wrong (be it through malice or sheer ignorance). And while it is tempting for many in the blogging community to toss the label wingnut and moonbat around with abandon, discerning the true loons is a little bit more difficult. Just because someone selects evidence you feel is unimportant, reaches conclusions you don’t agree with, and manages to do so in a petty, vicious manner, does not make them a tinfoil hat conspiracy monger. Willing omission of major evidence, unwillingness to subject prejudice to rational examination, inability to admit that someone else can reasonably come to differing conclusions about a subject, and failure to recognize the biases endemic to their own inherent worldview are all much more reliable markers of latent lunacy.
The political process generally marginalizes these people, as well it should. In any case, this discussion does not pertain to such people – for they cannot reasonably be reached. Rather, we look towards the remainder of voters – the majority that actually think about their decision rather than search for evidence to shore up their worldview at any price.
For these folks, voting is an ethical choice between two (or more) suggested approaches to solving the world’s ills. Granted, many people may have decided long, long ago, how they vote. There is nothing wrong with this, provided that they are willing to recognize that if the positions of the parties were swapped, their vote would follow the positions, rather than the parties.
The decision making process involved in voting is rather complex once one starts digging into deeper and deeper layers of the rationale involved in making a choice. Sure, one may place a great importance on issues of security over domestic issues, but why? What if that decision is ill informed? What if the other guy’s worst-case scenario is possible, or even likely? How about the opposition’s best-case scenario? Many voters approach these and other similar questions on a subconscious level, and these decisions are informed in large part by the process of political socialization. Political socialization is a large and complex subject, but for our purposes, let us consider one fantastically critical element of this: faith.
Although the term has been attached to many things, I do not speak of faith in religious terms, but rather in the acceptance that insufficient data or reasoning can be applied to a situation to reach a clearly definitive solution. For example, Steven den Beste and Donald Sensing are both very bright men with radically different, but extraordinarily well-reasoned, views on the existence of God. Rather than rehashing that debate, let us simply note that in both cases, logic and evidence have done the vast majority of the heavy lifting in forming their views, but at the end of the day, a smidgen of
pure belief is needed to come to a final conclusion.
Matters of belief and faith inform much of our political decision making process – this catalogue of beliefs inform the ethical decision making that lies behind political choice. This is understood. What is often lost during the electoral season is that any reasonable voter must exert some measure of faith in casting their vote. If nothing else, we cannot foretell the future, we can only make educated guesses about which course of action will be better for us and our nation. We cannot, axiomatically, prove that any given set of policy proposals, within the space of 4 years, result in a single, specific outcome.
As the famous statesman Yogi Berra once said, “When you come to a fork in the road....Take it.” And casting your vote in the voting booth is very much the same problem. Aside from those who are so filled with passion and emotion, for those whom voting is a matter of choosing good over evil, the rest of us have to make a small leap of faith at the end and go with our best educated guess.
The question then goes to those who are undecided and choose not to vote at all. Many of the truly undecided are people who are genuinely uncertain as to which candidate may provide the better choice. Those who are undecided out of apathy and ignorance have willingly forfeited any political voice and simply are beyond the scope of this exchange.
The more interesting question is those undecided voters who are stuck with some measure of analysis paralysis. To these people, I would say that it’s important that the gut feel call and the rational belief be included in the decision making process. Perfection is not one of the attributes that can be attributed to man, and we don’t have to vote the perfect vote. One voice, more or less, in the electorate is astronomically unlikely to alter the fate of all mankind.
Then there are the undecided who choose not to vote out of a sense of disgust. To these people, I would like to point out that the purpose of voting, on some level, goes beyond simply adding one more voice to the yeas and nays shouted out by a nation. The voting process is also, in large part, accepting responsibility for the actions of your government. If an individual who voted for Bush in 2000 did not support the invasion of Iraq, it is irrelevant. As someone who cast that vote, they bear some small measure of responsibility for the actions of President Bush. If someone who opposed the war voted for Gore or Nader in 2000, they too share some measure of responsibility as mature adults. One of the conditions implicit in representative democracy is that when you lose the vote, you have an obligation to back the will of your fellow Americans. As I noted earlier, anyone who views political decision making in ethical, rather than moral, terms –
there has to be an understanding that your decision as individual could be wrong. That’s why we have the vote in the first place – to recognize that we can’t magically assume that our point of view is the best answer, bar none. We ask others (in voting) to develop a consensus and choose a course of action. We ask that if the other guy loses the election, that we, as a people, unite behind our President and support his actions (at least until the next election). A person may not be excited about either candidate (and few people ever are), but the exercise of the franchise is a vital portion of our duties and obligations as a citizen – on some levels, more significant that paying taxes.
But if voting is so important, you may ask, why isn’t it compulsory? I suspect that the Founding Fathers not only placed great weight on the free will of the citizenry, but also understood human nature. A virtuous activity made compulsory loses its virtuous character. It’s the difference between understanding and memorization. We have to have the option not to vote in order for the decision to vote to have any real meaning.
Which, in a fashion, reminds me of a conversation I had many years ago with a Jesuit priest. He was talking about atheism, religion, and agnosticism. Much of the discussion has been lost to memory, although one point he made sticks out. There was much more disrespect for agnostics than atheists, because the atheists will at least choose a path. Agnostics simply sit and dither at the crossroads. I don’t really know what to think of this argument as it applies to religion, but I am interested in the parallels with the voter who simply makes a clear choice not to cast a ballot.
For in accepting the larger ethical burden that falls on the shoulders of all participants in a representative democracy, they at least reaffirm their participation in the larger community that is their nation. Those who sit it out are, in effect, saying that they find the business of making an ethical choice too bothersome and are content to foist the burden off on others. Free loading is a sign of poor character in virtually all cultures. Free loading on an ethical burden undertaken by others is a sign of weak character indeed.
Which brings us to our final point – character. Character drives ethical decision-making. Character and ethics together are critical (some would say core) elements of leadership. In choosing a president, we base much of our decision based on our estimation of the candidates’ character. But we fail to recognize that the Presidency is the only job in the nation in which one ends up with 281 million bosses. As one of those bosses, we have an obligation to leadership inherent in our post as citizens, to provide good leadership to the leaders. We may not always make the right decision, but as any military leader will tell you, paralyzed indecision is the worst decision of all.
Matters of belief and faith inform much of our political decision making process – this catalogue of beliefs inform the ethical decision making that lies behind political choice. This is understood. What is often lost during the electoral season is that any reasonable voter
must exert some measure of faith in casting their vote. If nothing else, we cannot foretell the future, we can only make educated guesses about which course of action will be better for us and our nation.
Now, as the famous statesman Yogi Berra once said, “When you get to a fork in the road, you have to take it.” And casting your vote in the voting booth is very much the same problem. Aside from those who are so filled with passion and emotion, for those whom voting is a matter of choosing good over evil, the rest of us have to make a small leap of faith at the end and go with our best educated guess.
The question then goes to those who are undecided and choose not to vote at all. Many of the truly undecided are people who are genuinely uncertain as to which candidate may provide the better choice. Those who are undecided out of apathy and ignorance have willingly forfeited any political voice and simply are beyond the scope of this exchange. The more interesting question is those undecided voters who are stuck with some measure of analysis paralysis. To these people, I would say that it’s important that the gut feel call and the rational belief be included in the decision making process. Perfection is not one of the attributes that can be attributed to man, and we don’t have to vote the perfect vote. One voice, more or less, in the electorate is astronomically unlikely to alter the fate of all mankind.
Then there are the undecided who choose not to vote out of a sense of disgust. To these people, I would like to point out that the purpose of voting, on some level, goes beyond simply adding one more voice to the yeas and nays shouted out by a nation. The voting process is also, in large part, accepting responsibility for the actions of your government. If an individual who voted for Bush in 2000 did not support the invasion of Iraq, it is irrelevant. As someone who cast that vote, they bear some small measure of responsibility for the actions of President Bush. If someone who opposed the war voted for Gore or Nader in 2000, they too share some measure of responsibility as mature adults. One of the conditions implicit in representative democracy is that when you lose the vote, you have an obligation to back the will of your fellow Americans. As I noted earlier, anyone who views political decision making in ethical, rather than moral, terms – there has to be an understanding that your decision as individual could be wrong. That’s why we have the vote in the first place – to recognize that we can’t magically assume that our point of view is the best answer, bar none. We ask others (in voting) to develop a consensus and choose a course of action. We ask that if the other guy loses the election, that we, as a people, unite behind our President and support his actions (at least until the next election). A person may not be excited about either candidate (and few people ever are), but the exercise of the franchise is a vital portion of our duties and obligations as a citizen – on some levels, more significant that paying taxes.
But if voting is so important, you may ask, why isn’t it compulsory? I suspect that the Founding Fathers not only placed great weight on the free will of the citizenry, but also understood human nature. A virtuous activity made compulsory loses its virtuous character. It’s the difference between understanding and memorization. We have to have the option not to vote in order for the decision to vote to have any real meaning.
Which, in a fashion, reminds me of a conversation I had many years ago with a Jesuit priest. He was talking about atheism, religion, and agnosticism. Much of the discussion has been lost to memory, although one point he made sticks out. There was much more disrespect for agnostics than atheists, because the atheists will at least choose a path. Agnostics simply sit and dither at the crossroads. I don’t really know what to think of this argument as it applies to religion, but I am interested in the parallels with the voter who simply makes a clear choice not to cast a ballot.
For in accepting the larger ethical burden that falls on the shoulders of all participants in a representative democracy, they at least reaffirm their participation in the larger community that is their nation. Those who sit it out are, in effect, saying that they find the business of making an ethical choice too bothersome and are content to foist the burden off on others. Free loading is a sign of poor character in virtually all cultures. Free loading on an ethical burden undertaken by others is a sign of weak character indeed.
Which brings us to our final point – character. Character drives ethical decision-making. Character and ethics together are critical (some would say core) elements of leadership. In choosing a president, we base much of our decision based on our estimation of the candidates’ character. But we fail to recognize that the Presidency is the only job in the nation in which one ends up with 281 million bosses. As one of those bosses, we have an obligation to leadership inherent in our post as citizens, to provide good leadership to the leaders. We may not always make the right decision, but as any military leader will tell you, paralyzed indecision is the worst decision of all.
A nice essay but I'd take a moment to edit it again if I were you. Unfortunately, you repeated at least 4 paragraphs (To the point that it looks like you were selecting between 2 versions of the same essay and inadvertantly posted both as one essay). Eliminating the redundent parts would improve this post and might allow you the chance to tighten your points.
Posted by: The Snark Who Was Really a Boojum at September 23, 2004 03:14 AM