Depends on your meta-ethical framework. If you’re a consequentialist, then you should always choose the option that leads to less evil being done. Same if you’re a utilitarian.
If you hold to a Kantian value-based framework, like the action itself holds the primary moral goodness or evil in its own nature, then choose the action that itself is less evil.
There are many other frameworks. It also depends on what you think happens in the case of something like voting. Some people see participation in any sense as a sort of tacit agreement or endorsement of the system as a whole. So by casting any vote, even one of protest, you are legitimizing the system as a whole.
Others see voting as a mere means to an end, and thus, is justified if the outcome is better than not voting would be. Some see it as purely neutral, like a tool that can be used for good or bad.
Still, others see it as an inherently good thing, and view abstaining from the act of voting as a moral wrong, because it is a willing act of self-sabotage of the moral interests of the greater good, or sometimes as a violation of the social contract.
There are many other positions and considerations. Basically…it’s complicated.
Not choosing is also a choice. It may or may not be the right or wrong choice.
Do not compare evils, lest you be tempted to cleave with the least of them!
–Victor Saltzpyre
(A raw line probably inspired by somebody else lol)
It’s always odd to me when words develop parallel but distinct meanings based on context. Like, I know “to cleave to” something is to attach to it, but it trips me up (esp. in a Warhammer context where Saltzpyre would be hanging out) since I default to “he was cleaved in twain”.
As with most other English oddities, I assume this is holdover from my ancestors treating other languages like swap meets.
God I love contronyms. Strike is also a fun one because it means to hit and also to miss.
There are always more choices.
I mean, if you truly have no other choice, what else can you do? Can it even be considered evil at that point or just “still painful”? If I have to chop off my/someone’s gangrenous leg to ensure survival, is that evil or just, you know, not ideal? It’s important not to get too lost in semantics…
It’s a great way to lose an election.
A friend of mine puts it this way: “I don’t vote for who’s turn it is to lead the KKK either.”
The day the KKK has control over your friend’s day today existence, that will be a relevant policy.
I mean, couldn’t we all just join the KKK and vote in a more moderate grand dragon?
It’s highly context dependent.
In medicine, you face this question all the time. Will a surgery do more harm than good. Can I just leave that person suffering, or should I roll the dice with this surgery? It’s a proper dilemma to ponder. How about this medication that improves the patient’s quality of life in one area, but causes some side effects that are less horrifying than the underlying condition. Sounds like a win, but is it really?
In various technical contexts, you often find yourself comparing two bad options and pick the one that is “less bad”. Neither of them are evil, good, great or even acceptable. They’re both bad, and you have to pick one so that the machine can work for a while longer until you get the real spare parts and fix it properly. For example, you may end up running a water pump at lower speed for the time being. It wears down the bearing, moves less water, consumes too much energy etc, but it’s still better than shutting the pump down for two weeks.
In various technical contexts
You probably do this all the time without thinking much about it. For example, updating mains-powered devices without UPS. There’s a chance the power goes out and something gets screwed up.
Yeah, but depending on where you live that would be a freak accident and not something worth considering. In my entire life I have never experienced a mains power outage, it’s not really a thing in Germany
Yeah. Roll the dice, hope for the best and all that. If power goes out, you could be looking at several days of troubleshooting, but it is unlikely to happen.
On the other hand, you could get that UPS, but that’s going to take time, and the server really needs those security patches today. Are you going to roll that dice instead and hope nobody tries to exploit a new vulnerability discovered this morning?
Either way, it’s pretty bad.
“lesser risk” is a lot different than “lesser evil”
so is “higher cost”
In medicine you chose the best option not the lesser evil
The way I see it, that’s just different wording for the same thing. More patient friendly, for sure.
Thats how it is in our grayscale world
I was in a discussion a couple months ago with someone on here who told me “you have to vote for the lesser of two nazis.” That wasn’t hyperbole. We were literally discussing how you could vote in election where the two options were Nazis. Something about Elon musk’s new party I think I forget. But the guy thought that if there’s two Nazis running the responsible thing to do is to vote for the one you think is less bad. Which I don’t know how you make that decision but okay. By the way that discussions seemed a little more absurd a few months ago now it seems downright prescient.
That discussion kind of perfectly encapsulates my feelings on the subject of voting for the lesser of two evils. Now I get the Strategic reasoning of voting for the lesser of two evils. I get the logic. But my feeling is it always does eventually end in what we were talking about. Voting for the lesser of two evils eventually is going to get you the point where you’re voting for a literal Nazi. That’s where the road leads.
If there really are only harmful options, for sure choose the least harm. But you have to make sure that you’re not ignoring an option which involves no harm.
The problem really is when people assume there’s only two choices. If you dont like the choices, be creative and come up with something else.
I could do it once. When the “lesser evil” decides their whole strategy is being the lesser evil and blackmail me with “if you don’t vote us the big evil will come” then I grow tired and issue a big fuck you to the “lesser evil”.
So, the worst thing happens but hurray for you because you didn’t let yourself feel bad about it?
Hurray because I choose to stir towards the good thing instead of one of the evils. People supporting big evil or small evil should be questioned, not me.
So, you’re going to skip over the whole ‘worst thing happening’ part?
No, but it’s not my fault.
Why it have to be responsibility of the people who doesn’t want the “lesser evil”?
Why is not responsibility of the people not wanting “the actual good thing”?
“No, but it’s not my fault.”
Sounds like what millions of Germans said after WW2.
Disengage
gotta call their bluff eventually. otherwise you just end up with the “lesser evil” still being genocide.
The choice is rarely actually binary.
It’s often used misleadingly. For example, in an election in a de facto two-party system, it’s often said that you should vote for ‘the lesser evil’, but this presumes that your vote will decide the result of the election, which it clearly won’t. Thinking e.g. “the Dems winning would be the lesser evil compared to the Republicans winning, and I’m voting third party (or spoiling or even abstaining)” is therefore entirely coherent imho.
I would like to see it used more to describe political situations outside of the West tbh. When we talk about x regime, it should always be ‘compared to what’. But of course, no-one cares about ‘lesser evils’ in this context, which I think says a lot.
