I think a good measure of whether something is moral is to imagine everyone doing it and consider if it would make the world a better or worse place.
In the U.S., most people probably don’t vote for a third party because they assume no one else will, so they worry their vote will be wasted. It’s a bit of a prisoner’s dilemma: if you vote and no one else does, you lose, but if everyone voted, everyone would benefit.
So, if someone does choose to vote third party, was it the right thing to do? Well, what if every voter acted this way? There’s a good chance the third party could win, and while it’s debatable, it’s reasonable to assume they might be a better choice than the other two.
Ranked-choice voting would solve this issue, by the way.
Yeah, but then, if, say 20% of voters in swing states voted third party, it would let the greater evil in, this being the very immoral choice.
Surely a more relevant measure is what can I do that will do the most good. Voting for someone who is better than the other realistic option, this keeping extremists out of power feels like a more moral option than making a pointless vote.
Yeah, but ranked choice isn’t in operation, so you’ve got to make the better choice for right now.
Also, in that case Trump would be the better option. I would hope that in a scenario where the republicans had nominated Hitler that the democrats could do better than Trump but if they couldn’t, then yes, voting for Trump in that scenario would be r
the right thing to do as voting for, say, Bernie Sanders I. that scenario would let, you know, Hitler become the President.
As a non-US citizen, I’m getting the impression that a big number of left-wing voters are voting for Kamala not because she’s so great, but because she’s not Trump. Similarly, a ton of republicans are voting for Trump because they consider it a vote for the party, not for the candidate, and they sure are not going to vote for a democrat because (insert stereotypical grievances about liberals.)
To me, it seem reasonable to assume, that given the chance, there would be a ton of people on both sides that would rather give their vote to almost anyone else but either of these two, but they don’t because they know that a 3rd party can’t win and this would just risk the greater or two evils winning.
Why I referenced the prisoner’s dilemma is because I mostly see this as a coordination problem. What if instead of tactical voting, everyone just voted for the candidate they actually consider the best one? It’s not at all obvious to me that this would still mean that either of the two main candidates would win. This could very well give rise to a 3rd party.
Also, to return to my original point; it doesn’t seem immoral to me to vote for 3rd party even if that causes Trump to win by one vote. You did the right thing, rest of the people didn’t. If everyone acted like you, it seems to be that this would, in fact, lead to him not winning.
The outcome of your actions isn’t in a theoretical world.
You absolutely would be behaving unethically In that scenario, because you took an action that you knew, with absolute certainty, could only result in either no impact at all, or in making a monster president. There is no theoretical outcome where your action is capable of doing good, and there is a potential outcome where you action does extreme harm.
RCV doesn’t “solve” the issue though. The fact that third party candidates can sway elections to the least preferred candidate is known as the “Spoiler effect”, and RCV is also subject to it.
RCV seems to be objectively better than plurality (what we use now), but it and any other ranking-based voting system are still subject to spoilers. One thing that can actually “solve” the issue though is rating-based systems, like Approval Voting, Score Voting, or STAR voting.
I think a good measure of whether something is moral is to imagine everyone doing it and consider if it would make the world a better or worse place.
In the U.S., most people probably don’t vote for a third party because they assume no one else will, so they worry their vote will be wasted. It’s a bit of a prisoner’s dilemma: if you vote and no one else does, you lose, but if everyone voted, everyone would benefit.
So, if someone does choose to vote third party, was it the right thing to do? Well, what if every voter acted this way? There’s a good chance the third party could win, and while it’s debatable, it’s reasonable to assume they might be a better choice than the other two.
Ranked-choice voting would solve this issue, by the way.
One party favors RCV much more than the other. I know who I’m voting for.
Yeah, but then, if, say 20% of voters in swing states voted third party, it would let the greater evil in, this being the very immoral choice.
Surely a more relevant measure is what can I do that will do the most good. Voting for someone who is better than the other realistic option, this keeping extremists out of power feels like a more moral option than making a pointless vote.
Not in the case of ranked choice voting. If the 3rd party candidate doesn’t win the vote goes to the number two choice.
Also, sometimes the lesser evil is still evil. Imagine if the vote was between Trump and literal Hitler.
Yeah, but ranked choice isn’t in operation, so you’ve got to make the better choice for right now.
Also, in that case Trump would be the better option. I would hope that in a scenario where the republicans had nominated Hitler that the democrats could do better than Trump but if they couldn’t, then yes, voting for Trump in that scenario would be r the right thing to do as voting for, say, Bernie Sanders I. that scenario would let, you know, Hitler become the President.
As a non-US citizen, I’m getting the impression that a big number of left-wing voters are voting for Kamala not because she’s so great, but because she’s not Trump. Similarly, a ton of republicans are voting for Trump because they consider it a vote for the party, not for the candidate, and they sure are not going to vote for a democrat because (insert stereotypical grievances about liberals.)
To me, it seem reasonable to assume, that given the chance, there would be a ton of people on both sides that would rather give their vote to almost anyone else but either of these two, but they don’t because they know that a 3rd party can’t win and this would just risk the greater or two evils winning.
Why I referenced the prisoner’s dilemma is because I mostly see this as a coordination problem. What if instead of tactical voting, everyone just voted for the candidate they actually consider the best one? It’s not at all obvious to me that this would still mean that either of the two main candidates would win. This could very well give rise to a 3rd party.
Also, to return to my original point; it doesn’t seem immoral to me to vote for 3rd party even if that causes Trump to win by one vote. You did the right thing, rest of the people didn’t. If everyone acted like you, it seems to be that this would, in fact, lead to him not winning.
The outcome of your actions isn’t in a theoretical world.
You absolutely would be behaving unethically In that scenario, because you took an action that you knew, with absolute certainty, could only result in either no impact at all, or in making a monster president. There is no theoretical outcome where your action is capable of doing good, and there is a potential outcome where you action does extreme harm.
RCV doesn’t “solve” the issue though. The fact that third party candidates can sway elections to the least preferred candidate is known as the “Spoiler effect”, and RCV is also subject to it.
RCV seems to be objectively better than plurality (what we use now), but it and any other ranking-based voting system are still subject to spoilers. One thing that can actually “solve” the issue though is rating-based systems, like Approval Voting, Score Voting, or STAR voting.
Good video on the subject