104. Ethics Overview & Moral Voting | THUNK

Some believe that voting a certain way this election is right/wrong. Let's look at some ethics & see why.

-Links for the Curious-

Again, many thanks to Liz, Kevin, Elena, & /u/Althuraya on /r/askphilosophy for their help with this week's episode.

[attackpanda]

This is one of the best simplified overviews I've seen. A lot of ground was covered while remaining easy to understand. I wish you would have given a quick definition of pragmatism though, instead of just an example. Great stuff.

[ethanmcdermott]

I just found your channel and it's already one of my favorites

[krltu]

I like virtue ethics, but also find some appeal in deontological systems. Also, what are your thoughts on hybrid ethical systems ?

[seatek]

it's very good seeing you explore ethics for us, and I believe you did a very good job of it, considering the woefully limited space for such an important aspect of life I wish we might all discover and explore. it's peculiar that an engineer would devote their normally hyper-narrow rational focus to such supposedly messy stuff. sciences need this in their intellectual repertoire as well. thank you for what you do.

[CosmoShidan]

Is there a video on the differences between the two types of moral objectivity? E.g. Moral realism and moral absolutism?

[bdbs]

Are there grounds for a valid comparison between voting and the old trolley problem? In the trolley problem, whether your like it or not, either one person dies or five people die. You might not want to kill anyone, but that's the condition you are faced with in life. In voting, whether you like either of the candidates, one of them will be elected. Wouldn't the most rational decision be to vote for the person you, to the best of your ability, determine better than the other person, no matter how slight that difference is?

[BroCactus]

Your pitch for zoltan istvan piqued my curiosity. Do you have videos on transhumanism, or will you create some in the future?

[AmaranthOriginal]

I'm voting largely for survival. Not sure where that falls ethically, but I doubt it's the "courage" option.

[larsme]

About virtue ethics:
Do you always do the virtuous thing or does it matter if endangering your life might strip you of the chance to become a different person?
In case there are deontologist and consequentialist subgroups, is it really a different branch of ethics?

[erato]

You''re joking I think at the end there (or maybe you aren't) but I did actually vote for zoltan in a swing state. My reasoning for this is I see ethics as it relates to voting deontologically in the terms of the Categorical Imperative. My reasoning being that I want to live in a world where everyone honestly votes or doesn't vote. If I wanted to live in a world like that, why would I vote for the lesser of 2 evils or choose to vote in the case I'm apolitical. Therefore if I want to live in a world like that the best action I should take is by voting or not voting whether I care and honestly for who I care for regardless of the circumstance. However there is also a consquentialist portion to this thought strangely enough, if I want to further the political idea of complete voter honesty, I am completely failing that change by voting for who I dont agree with. Overtime if more people thought like this what WOULD happen is a lot people would slowly vote for other parties and that would give 3rd party candidates or even fringe candidates even more representation in the current messiness that is the bipartisan system. Which would thereby give people an understanding that there is more to a political issue than the reasons that these 2 polarized groups give. And while I don't think that you even CAN vote. People make a good case when they say that in a swing state the pragmatic option is to vote for the lesser of two evils but strangely enough for me I see the bipartisan system itself as the ultimate "evil", so consequentially if I want to change that I should make my voice heard no matter how small I am, or no matter whom it would bring into office out of the two. This also goes into my other point which is that I want the condorcet method or at LEAST the runoff voting method implemented, so that way this ethical dilemma can be avoided entirely, and because of the fact that it wont change over night, I will continue to be stubborn no matter what the political outcome is. Thanks for reading this if you did and let me know if that line of logic is broken somewhere.

[Roshkin]

What's it called when I mostly use one group but resort to another when things get too hard ?

[kevinbee]

It seems that you said, that a deontological ethicist should never act strategically, for example vote strategically.

I don't know...
If you had the literal rule "You shall not kill" that would say nothing about how you should vote.
If you had the rule "Killing is bad", you could either vote for the candidate who kills the least people or the one who kills the least people within the candidates who have a chance. I don't know why you shouldn't think strategically.
On the other hand, it would be goal-oriented ethics.

I can see how a world where everyone lies is bad, but what is so bad about a world where everyone votes strategically? (By the way if Kant tries to argue with consequences for something, that means that consequences are important. But I guess people have noticed that before.)

Maybe there are two candidates that are bad, but have high chances to win and a good candidate with slim chances. You could argue that it would be great when a lot of people would vote for the third candidate, despite it being strategically bad.

I'd say it *wouldn't* be strategically bad if you have a reason to believe other people are voting for him (or her). For example if there were surveys before the election that asked "Which candidate do you like best?" and lot's of people chose him.
If you had reason to believe that noone will vote for him, even in a world, where nobody votes strategically, he wouldn't get elected.

[billy]

i think voting for moral reasons is mornic, voting should be a combination of self intrest (that does not harm others) aswell as pragmatisim.

[Huststyler]

If you believe murder is bad then shouldn't that apply for each case regardless of the outcome of murder (i.e., your example of killing one person to save millions)? Making exceptions of murder would mean you are acting immorally and don't truly follow (or haven't actually internalised) the belief that murder is bad.

[Dorweaver]

You passed on a golden opportunity to used the word propinquity in discussing utilitarianism. Such a shame. ;-)

[WAX]

Stop dancing around it and go ahead and shill for Hillary. All the big channels are doing it. I'll pass on your situational ethics lesson. Thanks.