Agenda

• Today: Ethics and the Citizen

    - The Trolley Problem: Does delegating the switch matter?
    - Reciprocity
    - Back to Aristotle: voting and political participation

• Video 28: Wrap up and Final Exam review

The Trolley Problem: Delegation

The Trolley Problem: Delegation

John Wick

The Trolley Problem: Delegation

The Trolley Problem: Delegation

• Three possible answers:

    - The client is immoral for hiring the assassin, the assassin is amoral. It's just a job. 

The Trolley Problem: Delegation

• Three possible answers:

    - The client is immoral for hiring the assassin, the assassin is amoral. It's just a job. 
    - The client is immoral for hiring the assassin and the assassin is immoral for taking the job. The assassin is a weapon used by the client.

The Trolley Problem: Delegation

• Three possible answers:

    - The client is immoral for hiring the assassin, the assassin is amoral. It's just a job. 
    - The client is immoral for hiring the assassin and the assassin is immoral for taking the job. The assassin is a weapon used by the client.
    - The client is immoral for hiring the assassin, but the assassin is worse because whatever justification the client may have, the assassin is doing it just for the coin. 

The Trolley Problem: Delegation

• Three possible answers:

    - The client is immoral for hiring the assassin, the assassin is amoral. It's just a job; the assassin is just a weapon. 
    - The client is immoral for hiring the assassin and the assassin is immoral for taking the job. 
    - The client is immoral for hiring the assassin, but the assassin is worse because whatever justification the client may have, the assassin is doing it just for the coin. 

• No one reasonably claims the client is without guilt for setting the wheels in motion.

The Trolley Problem: The Switch and a Gun

At base, democracy is just a decision-making method. 18 In politics, democracy is a method for deciding when and how to coerce people into doing things they do not wish to do. Political democracy is a method for deciding (directly or indirectly) when, how, and in what ways a government will threaten people with violence. The symbol of democracy is not just the ballot—it is the ballot connected to a gun.

• Jason Brennan, “The Ethics of Voting”¹

The Trolley Problem: The Switch and a Gun

Two, three or more layers of culpability:

• Voting for the government / leaders

• Leaders setting policies backed by coercive violence on when the switch gets pulled

• Coercive violence used to force someone to pull the switch

• Coercive violence used to pay the bills

Reciprocity

    - Hillel the Elder
    

Reciprocity and voting

Reciprocity and Voting

    - Me with apologies to Hillel
    
    

Reciprocity and Civil Discourse

• Politics is always polarizing by nature
• Current American politics (as well as other countries) has become extremely polarized
• What can the principle of reciprocity tell us about how to properly discuss politics?

Reciprocity and Civil Discourse

• Politics is always polarizing by nature

• Current American politics (as well as other countries) has become extremely polarized

• What can the principle of reciprocity tell us about how to properly discuss politics? Some ideas:

    - Respect the basic dignity of the other human being you are talking with
    - Consider the life experience of the person you are talking to
    - Assume good intentions on all parts: We may disagree about what is best or how to get it, but 97% of people want the best
    - Try to encourage the other parties to do the same
    - If the other person is stubbornly disrespectful, leave
    - If the other person won't discuss in good faith, considering all aspects, save the stress and leave

Back to Aristotle

voting and political participation

• What is the fundamental difference between the True and Despotic forms of government?

Back to Aristotle

Aristotle’s Government Types

Back to Aristotle

voting and political participation

• What is the fundamental difference between the True and Despotic forms of government?

• The selfish interest vs interest in the common good by whom?

Back to Aristotle

voting and political participation

• What is the fundamental difference between the True and Despotic forms of government?

• The interest in the common good vs selfish interest by whom?

    - The ruler!

• In Polity and Democracy who is the ruler?

Back to Aristotle

Aristotle’s Government Types

Back to Aristotle

voting and political participation

• What is the fundamental difference between the True and Despotic forms of government?

• The interest in the common good vs selfish interest by whom?

    - The ruler!

• In Polity and Democracy who is the ruler?

    - The many = the voters!

The Folk Theory of Voting Ethics

• “Each citizen has a civic duty to vote. In extenuating circumstances, one can be excused from voting, but otherwise, one should vote.”

• “While it is true that there can be better or worse candidates, in general any good faith vote is morally acceptable. At the very least, it is better to vote than to abstain.”

Brennan, The Ethics of Voting

The Ethics of VOting

• There is a distinction between

    - The right to vote
    - The rightness of voting

• Everyone having the right to vote is fundamental to democracy

• Everyone exercising the right every time is not fundamental to democracy, especially if their vote will be questionable

The Ethics of Voting: Bad Voting

• In May 2008, the California Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage.
• In November 2008, Proposition 8 was on the ballot, adding the language “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California” to the state constitution
• It is indisputable that in a democracy, everyone had the right to vote on this and should not have been prevented.
• “Was it ethical for everyone to vote their own beliefs?” is a separate question.

The Ethics of Voting: Bad Voting

• February 23, 1861, Texas held a referendum on secession from the Union
• At issue were several disagreements with the new President, Abraham Lincoln
• The most important of these issues were enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act and the future of slavery

The Ethics of Voting: Bad Voting

The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.

    - Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1, Constitution of the Confederate States of America
    - Adopted unanimously by the Congress of the Confederate States of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.

The Ethics of Voting: Bad Voting

• 46,153 Texans voted to secede

• 14,747 voted against secession

• At the secession convention which called for the referendum, 70% of the participants were slaveholders voting in their narrow self-interest

• Were the convention participants acting ethically?

• Were the voters acting in the common good?

The Ethics of Voting: Bad Voting

• The common good:

    - 30% of the population were enslaved so slavery was not in the common good
    - Most of the white population did not own slaves so slavery was not in the common good
    - Secession led to the Civil War against the rich, industrialized North (predictable common bad)
    - In the aftermath of the Civil War, Texas endured the trials of Reconstruction (somewhat predictable common bad)

The Ethics of Voting: Bad Voting

If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.

    - Abraham Lincoln
    
    - On the other hand, the slaves were freed as part of the War (unpredictable common good) and might not have been freed for several more years without it
    

The Ethics of Voting

Why not? Because most of us wouldn’t want to be disenfranchised and…“What is hateful to you, do not vote for the government to do to your neighbor.”

The Ethics of Voting

The Ethics of Voting: Brennan concludes

• “Citizens have no civic or moral obligation to vote [because]
• Citizens can pay their debts to society and exercise civic virtue without being involved in politics.
• People who lack certain credentials (such as knowledge, rationality, and intellectual virtue) should abstain from voting.¹
• Voters should not vote for narrow self-interest.”

The Ethics of Voting

• Should you vote?
• What should you do if you are going to vote?
• Should you vote for common good or self-interest?

The Ethics of Voting

• Should you vote?

    - If you want to invest the time to do it properly
    - If it matters to you
    - If you do not feel you can contribute as a citizen in more important ways using the same energy

The Ethics of Voting

• Should you vote?

• What should you do if you are going to vote?

    - Understand the issues
    - Really understand them at their core
    - Don't take the word of politicians or activists (or even college professors) on how things really work
    - and...

The Ethics of Voting

• Should you vote?

• What should you do if you are going to vote?

    - Understand the issues
    - Really understand them at their core
    - Don't take the word of politicians or activists (or even college professors) on how things really work
    - and...

• Vote for the common good, not your narrow self-interest

Ethics of Voting: Other considerations

• Most people do not vote ethically

• Distinguish between votes that take rights from others and votes that preserve or enhance rights

    - if you vote to take someone else's rights to improve your own position, that is self-interested and unethical
    - voting to tax others to pay for something you want for your own benefit, but that the people paying for it don't want or benefit from 
    - Voting to tax others to pay for something for common good, that no one will voluntarily pay for without the guarantee that others will also pay for it

• Voting in self-defense and defense of others is often ethical, even if it is self-interested

    - Voting to preserve your own lawful rights is self-interested and usually still ethical
    - Voting to preserve the rights of others may or may not be self-interested, but is almost always ethical

Next class

• Wrap up of concepts
• Final Review
• So Long, Farewell, auf Wiedersehen, Adios, Paalam

Authorship and License

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• Author: Tom Hanna

• Website: tomhanna.me

• License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.