.jpg)
E-mail
Print
RSS
G-bookmarks
Live
TechnoratiThus, you have a scenario in which the voters are faced with supporting a candidate they agree with 100 percent of the time while fully recognizing the fact that in supporting Candidate Baker, they will help insure the success of another candidate they agree with on moral issues only 10 percent of the time (Candidate Smith), and the defeat of a candidate they agree with 80 percent of the time (Candidate Jones), as well as their “first choice” (Candidate Baker).
However, if they choose to vote prudentially for Candidate Jones (80% agreement), there is a very good chance that their support might insure the defeat of Candidate Smith (10% agreement) and the victory of Candidate Jones (80% agreement).
If they know this and still vote for Candidate Baker, do they become morally responsible, at least in part, for Candidate Smith’s win? Also, in the general election that follows, voters would be faced with the grim choice of not voting, voting for Candidate Smith (10% agreement), or voting for a candidate 100 percent opposed to their values.
In such a hypothetical scenario, if they choose to vote for candidate Jones in the primary, are they choosing the lesser evil—or the lesser good?
Is it more moral to choose prudentially to vote for the candidate who agrees with them 80 percent of the time on moral issues (Candidate Jones), knowing their support will insure that candidate’s victory, thus giving the nation a choice between someone they agree with 80 percent of the time and a person they don’t agree with at all?
Most ethical systems contend that a person has a responsibility to take expected, even if unintended, consequences into account in their decision-making process.
Here is THE question: Borrowing from the philosopher Voltaire, does a person make the perfect (Candidate Baker) the enemy of the good (Candidate Jones), and thus help insure the least desirable outcome (the victory of Candidate Smith)?
This is an ethical exercise that may or may not find real application in the lives of Evangelical voters during the upcoming primary and general election cycles.
Do we choose the “best” candidate (Baker), knowing this may result in the ultimate triumph of the greater evil (the candidate you agree with 10% of the time)? Or do we choose the lesser evil —or lesser good—of supporting the more viable candidacy of the person we agree with 80 percent of the time (Candidate Jones)?
Most religious, and many secular, ethicists would say that one should at least take such questions into consideration before making a final decision.
This is clearly a question of individual conscience. Each person must make this decision for himself or herself, praying for God’s guidance and direction.
____________________________________________________________
Dr. Richard Land is president of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist Convention's official entity assigned to address social, moral, and ethical concerns, with particular attention to their impact on American families and their faith.
da6383ma »
Agree: 
Disagree: 
