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volts5000 posted:I think that this feeds into this toxic ideal of US individualism. That you and you alone are responsible for everything that happens to you, your community, and your country. "If you're poor, that's because you made bad decisions. And don't ask me to pay for your welfare check. And why should I wear a mask? Like I alone will be responsible for giving everybody COVID? I can make my own decisions about my health, right? Why do I need to join a union? I don't want anybody holding me back while I run up the company ladder! I'm going to make it big like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Henry Ford! Nobody ever helped them make their wealth!" To me this kind of hits on what the issue is to me that this is more a philosophical problem and people will feel differently about it depending on their own moral maxims. Even just looking at it from a consequentialist perspective the answer might be different if you are evaluating it with act consequentialism where you would weigh the consequences of individually voting for a candidate or rule consequentialism which would view the morality of voting as a rule. I lean towards it would be better if everyone voted as a rule holding their nose for the least bad candidate. We could talk about how individually that is not effective and that I could certainly agree with but let's not pretend like we have tried the alternative where we have the majority of the American voting population actually vote for their interests. We see constantly that there are tons of issues that the American population approves of in super high percentages like legalizing weed, background checks for guns, universal healthcare ect the list goes on. I can see the argument that if we had higher voter engagement from disaffected or apathetic voters we may be able to move the parties left to address these issues so I am sympathetic to go to vote campaigns. I think this is a large reason why places like Texas tries to do voter suppression so hard because if they are able to make you feel like none of this matters in a state like that they can hold on to reigns of power and makes sure that politics are broken. I don't think this solves any of our problems over night but I guess it just depends if you believe if slow incremental change is possible or if that even if we did everything we where suppose to do and consistently gave democrats super majorities for long periods of time like the Tories have had in the UK that they will never pass popular legislation or police themselves with corruption (might be a whole separate conversation or topic however like what would it take to get citizens united changed.)
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Feb 14, 2024 20:19
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theCalamity posted:That’s not how responsibility works here. If I feel that both candidates are lovely and do monstrous things, I’m not going to vote for either of them. If my goal is to not have monstrous things happen, then voting for monstrous people who will do monstrous things is not closer to getting my goal. Even if one does less monstrous things than the other, it is not closer to my goal especially when the lesser monster shows no sign of lessening their monstrous habits. I know the trolley problem is a meme but the reason people use it is that people don't seem to understand that inaction is also an action it has nothing to do about actually picking what's best its designed to show that if you do nothing you are still responsible. We can argue about how much responsibility that is like maybe its a very small amount barely anything even as you were not the person who tied them to the tracks etc but I would have to actually hear a convincing argument on why if you had the choice to do something that may kill less people its not your responsibility to engage in the question because people will still die.
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Feb 14, 2024 20:41
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World Famous W posted:the trolley problem falls apart when you add "derail this murderous train. my god why won't the engineer slow down?!" as a potential option It's a thought experiment as I said much like anything else when you are evaluating an action's morality it's not a trick question the whole point is to engage with the scenario. Derailing the train is not engaging in the question it is meant to illustrate so I am not sure what is being argued here. That you should not vote but instead "derail the train" aka overthrow the government? ( Not trying to strawman just trying to understand what you are saying.)
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Feb 14, 2024 20:47
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World Famous W posted:im saying that its worthless to drag out that loving powersliding train in a vacuum argument because we are not bound by it You are absolutely bound by it. The thought experiment isn't to find the least bad option that would be misusing it and I see it all the time where people will do their own edits to it with the two options. That is not the point. The point is to understand that inaction by not pulling the lever has consequences. I am not saying it is an objective truth. I am saying I have not heard a convincing argument to myself personally that inaction has no responsibility. You are welcome to make that argument and you might even change my mind but just saying it's worthless to drag out the topic is running away from the question. Do you think if you do nothing you have no moral copiability? If the answer is direct action can do it but electoralism can't then explain that and why it would be better than doing both since it is not an either-or thing.
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Feb 14, 2024 20:59
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