• osarusan@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    This is exactly the kind of situation the trolley problem was invented to illustrate… and I’ve never seen anyone fail at it so badly with such a weird take.

    You’ll allow the greater evil to happen because you don’t want to have any part or any responsibility in helping a lesser evil happen. But you do have responsibility, because you do have a choice. In the trolley problem, f you never knew about the lever, you couldn’t be asked to pull it or not. In the election problem, if you can’t vote you have no responsibility. But the trolley problem states you know about the lever, and in the election scenario, you do have a vote. So you are involved no matter what. And that means you’re just as guilty as the person who acted; only your action resulted in more deaths than the person who acted either way. Yours was the worst possible choice.

    Try flipping the words from evil to good. The greater evil is worse, and the lesser evil is better. Therefore, you are choosing the worse scenario rather than the better one. It’s ridiculously absurd.

    • Sybil@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The trolley problem is a litmus test for finding your ethical system. I’ve long tended toward deontology. More recently I’m looking at virtue ethics but I still at the moment identify as a deontologist. just because you let the trolley problem mislead you into some form of ontological ethics doesn’t mean that you got the right answer. it means that it taught you about yourself.

      I’m going to vote for who I want to win. I’m not going to vote for someone I think is evil to any degree.

      • osarusan@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        If your method of voting is to choose the best person you can imagine, rather than someone who has an actual chance of winning, why vote for any candidate? Why not just write-in vote for Superman? Surely he is less evil than any candidate on the ballot.

        Voting is like a game with rules. Sometime you simply can’t win. But if you want the best outcome for the game you need to pick the strategy that leads to that outcome. Folding your arms and refusing to change your strategy when your preferred outcome has no chance of success ensures that the people actually playing the game will have it their way. Demanding nothing but the absolute best to earn your vote, and thus not voting for someone with a chance, is statistically identical to supporting the worse evil. It’s sheer foolishness.

        This kind of purity contest accomplishes nothing but shooting yourself in the foot. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.