The notion that Biden represents a lesser evil compared to the chaotic reign of Trump is a common argument. However, we must not forget that there exists a moral threshold below which neither choice is acceptable. To suggest that enabling a literal genocide can be considered a lesser evil is a morally bankrupt stance.
Saying that voting for Biden is a moral obligation to prevent the return of Trump perpetuates a dangerous fallacy. It implies that the democratic party is immune from scrutiny and accountability, no matter the atrocities they commit. This line of thinking allows for a never-ending cycle of justification, as long as there’s somebody considered worse, the democrats are granted a blank check. This is nothing more than a form of gaslighting, manipulating the public into believing that their only choice is between two evils, rather than demanding a better standard of leadership and true representation.
How would you apply your reasoning on the trolley problem? I.e. on one track there are two anonymous people and on the other track there is one, the trolley is heading towards the two. Is it unethical to pull the lever to divert it because killing anyone is morally unacceptable?
If you want to use this tired and boring trope then at least set it up properly
One track is full of millions of people and the other is full of the same.
One track is painted with happy colors and rainbows and one track is painted with skulls and imperial eagles
You’re getting the exact same death and destruction no matter what, but one track is less openly an asshole about it.
If you saw what Biden and his cronies just did to college students for opposing 7 months of ongoing US-funded genocide in the last month or so and still somehow think he’s a lesser evil… I don’t think you understand words. Or you just don’t care. If you don’t value the lives of Palestinians, Yemenis, Iranians, Russians, Ukrainians, whoever, just say it, let everyone know you’re a POS, and move on. Stop coping. Accept what you support and stop hiding behind false thought experiments and shit
Stop yelling at those seeking to better things and yell at the people who told you to hate those who seek better things.
I don’t really get OP’s stance but I don’t feel like I’m getting much honest engagement from anyone here that’s holding that stance. Just down votes and blow off responses which make me wonder why I’m bothering to have an open mind on this issue instead of just scrolling by.
OP talked about how there is a certain level of evil where supporting becomes morally bankrupt even if the two sides aren’t the same. Your formulation lacks that completely. One side has genocide, the other side has genocide and destruction of the environment and persecution of LGBTQIA+ and a lot of other substantive things not found on the first side.
I’m being genuine here but on the verge of rolling my eyes and walking away from learning here. Is there a simplified formulation that is in the widely understood philosophical trolley format that can help me understand the position?
No, actually both sides have destruction of the environment. Biden blew up Nordstream in the worst act of ecological terrorism in history, forcing Europe into dependency on American LNG transported by highly polluting tankers. Biden just imposed massive tariffs on Chinese EVs and continued previous tariffs (imposed by Obama) on Chinese green energy tech. Biden has chosen to ramp up military production and give billions to the military industrial complex knowing full well that the US military is the biggest polluter on the planet. Democrats do jack shit for the environment, they are lackeys of the fossil fuel industry same as Republicans are, they are just better at virtue signaling, gaslighting and selling you false promises.
The mass delusion and wool over the eyes of the true believers of liberal democracy is honestly astounding.
I dont know if its because the media blacks out stuff like this or if people know all of this but still choose to ignore it because of misplaced tribalism/football team politics where the goal isnt to make life better, the goal is to win, at all and any costs.
I’d say it’s a combination of both. The media is a powerful force and it does fool many people, but just like with what was happening in Nazi Germany, deep down most people probably know what is really going on, in general terms at least if not the specifics…they simply choose to tell themselves that they don’t because that makes it easier for them to go along with it.
There have been many times that lib friends/family have posted something wayyy wrong, I replied with linked sources to the correct info, and they pretended not to see it- they react and reply to everyone but me, because i tried to make them know something but they refuse to know. If they don’t know it, they can’t be wrong.
The ‘simplified’ formulation is vote for and participate in a third party that doesnt advocate for genocide and preaches intersectional rights.
You might say ‘well biden is nice to lgbt+ people!’ but this is just ignoring the literal largest prison population, in history, in america, that is using the slave labor of black and white leftists predominantly.
There is no good option in this, when presented with two bad options the correct response is not to play.
This is the real answer
The trolley problem presupposes a dichotomy which does not exist here.
So if the election only had two candidates and was a dichotomy would it apply?
I’m trying to understand the reasoning here.
Another problem with the trolley analogy is that in the case of the idealized thought experiment you have perfect information. You know for sure which choice will lead to less harm. That is not the case in reality. In reality you are dealing with incomplete, imperfect information.
Furthermore, in reality there is always a third choice. Whether that’s third party or boycotting the vote, you can still make a choice that is consequential and distinct from the false dichotomy. This is not the case in the trolley problem where no such third option exists.
And lastly, in reality your choice of actions is not limited to the pulling of a lever. What if in the trolley problem you tried to get the people off the tracks? What if you tried throwing something on the track to derail the whole train? What if you worked to sabotage or dismantle the track itself? In other words, direct action.
You just need some courage and imagination to come up with alternative solutions. You don’t need to allow yourself to be limited to the lever-track paradigm. If you only have the audacity to think outside the box you can break out of the mental prison of “liberal democracy”.
I agree with you on all the ways with which the trolley thought experience falls to reflect reality.
However, the objective isn’t really to reflect reality but rather to elucidate the essence of the moral principle being examined.
The principle in this case I struggle to fully understand is OP’s idea that there is a threshold of evil beyond which lesser of two evils is morally bankrupt to follow. But why should that be the case when direct action can be combined with voting with no effect? In terms of the trolley problem that would be if you could instantaneously pull the lever while simultaneously attempting to get people off or derail the train or sabotaging the track.
You can do that. You can do that by voting third party or abstaining. As i tried to explain to you, these are also choices. These are also levers that you can pull, you are not forced to choose between pulling the red or the blue lever. Choosing such a third option has the beneficial effect of decreasing the legitimacy of the duopoly. The more people that choose to do this, the less believable the claim will be of whoever wins having a “democratic mandate”.
Further, as i have repeatedly tried to explain to you, it is not clear which if any of the two tracks that you think you have to pick from is actually the lesser evil. You axiomatically assume that you know which of those two tracks is less harmful, but you don’t.
Because pulling the lever adds legitmancy to the people who tied those people to the rails and made you choose, you agreed to play there game, you particpiated and are culpable.
This is the first response that I think is actually engaging with my question.
My disagreement stems from not seeing that adding of legitimacy as worth as much as actual people’s lives that are different in count on the different tracks.
It’s okay, I apparently made a faux pas trying to engage to learn here on this issue but this community is clearly more for comradeship like its name suggests rather than outreach. That’s fine, I’m going to discontinue this conversation here as my interjections are clearly unwelcome.
You have received a lot of attention and information. What do you expect, for people to bend over backwards to talk to you about this on your terms? What person who takes learning seriously does this? Do you show up to a classroom and leave if the teacher does not re-frame their lecture on physics into the trolley problem? “Outreach” does not mean you change nothing about yourself and everyone else changes what they’re doing for you. You could receive the ideal maximum of compassion, patience, and clarity of thought and word, but if you are only willing to approach it on your terms, then no matter what you tell yourself about your intent, the substance of your actions is that of reinforcing what you already believe, not learning.
And I am speaking from some experience here. I did not always have the views that I do and one of the most important things in changing that was doing more listening to people who are better informed. Philosophical questions like the trolley problem gives people a false sense of competence in understanding a given issue; that as long as you can abstract a problem to its component parts, you can overcome any ignorance of it and arrive at the correct position. This is not so. You must understand what is happening correctly, so that you can properly generalize. If your information on the fundamentals is incorrect, attempting to generalize will only obfuscate rather than clarify and give a false sense of confidence in your position.
Every single comment in this thread has fully engaged with your question, your inability to percieve that or your ego getting in the way isnt a failure on there parts, I havent seen one take in this thread I dont agree with. Most of them are poking at the american liberal exceptionalism you’re displaying, where you’re presenting this topic as a A:B situation.
The most effective way to save those people wouldnt be an induvidual act of pulling the lever, then running to untie the millions of tied down people. Its organizing into a large collective and dealing with the problem at its origin, not at its symptoms.
Break the tracks, save the people as a collective, no empty solutions that continue to perputate the endless cycle of violence.
Not when those two candidates both serve the same interests. What looks like two tracks may just be two sides of the same track.
Could you or anyone convert the scenario then into a trolley problem that does fit in your view?
No. The trolley problem is an oversimplification that can never accurately reflect reality.
Yes. There are ninety nine people on one side of the fork in the tracks, and one hundred on the other. The track loops around after the people to the other side of the fork, so no matter which way the lever is set, one hundred ninety nine people will be crushed. Or you can pull them off the tracks and destroy the trolley.
Why do you choose to play the trolley problem game? Nobody is forcing you. You’re deciding that you want to be complicit either way. Turning your back and walking away from being a party to mass murder is the moral choice. Fighting the system that is telling you that you have to play is heroic.
Why would anyone do that? It’s a useless level of abstraction. I’ve never seen scientists looking into the composition and structure of the sun say “Why don’t we apply the ideal gas law?” Because the answer is obvious, the myriad axioms the ideal gas law comes with aren’t applicable in a gigantic ball of plasma. The only reason one would even attempt such an oversimplification is if they don’t see the candidates serving the same interests structurally, and hilariously the exact same in some cases.
I will regardless offer you a simplified approach, so that you may use it to synthesise your own. It consists of 3 questions regarding policy differences: (1) how has the issue come to this [under Biden for stuff that happened in the last 4 years], (2) how do I really know the other guy will be that much worse, and (3) if there definitely is a difference, is it significant? Let’s use 3 issues to look how it turns out.
Palestinian genocide: (1) Although the zionist entity has been murdering Palestinians for decades with impunity, the massacre that’s been going on is unprecedented. 35k dead, 11k of which are children, and fuck knows how many more indirectly, as a result of conditions imposed by the zionist entity. (2) Amy argument that Trump supports the zionist entity and it’ll get worse is moot. Biden called himself zionist on multiple occasions, and the most he’s done is to not sell arms to be used in Rafah, not even s stop the sake of assume altogether.
Abortion: (1) Roe v Wade was undone under Biden. He didn’t have Dep. of Health policies changed to safeguard it, he didn’t withhold funds from states that criminalised abortion, he didn’t stack the courts. (2) What’s he going to do, double ban it?
Cannabis: (3) Biden regime sent out a note unofficially saying they’ll reclassify cannabis. Not only is that gesture miniscule when they could work to declassify it altogether, it’s done when he doesn’t have congressional support so likely won’t happen anyway.