What’s Wrong with the World

That's where I'm at, Zippy.

Me, I wouldn't vote for John McCain even in a state race, and the only reason I might consider voting for him for mayor or something is becuase he could do little harm there. So I'm arriving at the "don't vote for McCain" conclusion by a somewhat different route from Zippy's.

People recognize that they have a positive duty to vote. Just because your presence at mass doesn't cause the Eucharist to be confected or the sacrifice to take place doesn't mean your attendance at mass is trivial. I give you points for recognizing that there is a corporate responsibility for the evil done by our leaders. I take those points away when you think a vote or non-vote takes away that corporate responsibility.

The real question is if whether there is any genuinely good reason as to why anybody, most especially, Pro-Life Christians (unfortunately, there are Pro-Abort Christians -- a great example of an oxy-moron, if ever there was one) would actually vote for a candidate like McCain.

I still happen to wonder why a fervent, devout Pro-Life Christian like Dr. Beckwith would actually still support McCain regardless; and I don't particularly think it's because of McCain's atrocious endorsement of ESCR.

I live in a swing state and will probably be voting for McCain, if only to counter Obama's far more hideous record on life issues and his support of the FOCA. If I lived in a non-swing state, or if the entire election itself was leaning towards a landslide either way, I'd sit it out, for the very reasons than many folks have mentioned here.

IF you can't decide, elect this Candidate who is but a beacon of moral integrity:

VOTE FOR THIS GUY!

;^)

I know this might surprise you, Zippy, but I've been leaning this way all along. I blogged about it today, after reading your post.

Will Aristocles rejoinder be the Kantian doctrine: "Act according to that maxim which you would have be a universal law." If every Christian did as you say, Zippy, and in a non-swing state did note vote, Obama would win some of the currently "solid McCain" states, wouldn't he?

thebyronicman,

You will note that unlike here, the rigidity of the Zippy-nian Doctrine was originally such that no vote whatsoever, including those in swing states, carried any justifiable sense of proportionate reason since all votes to him were generally considered meaningless and futile.

Hence, what we have here is an development of doctrine.

Ari:
I haven't changed my position. I'm just looking for common ground. Note that the difference between a swing state and not is the factual question of how negligible my vote is or is not w.r.t. the outcome.

Red:
Thx, I'll have a look.

thebryonicman:
I've given my response to the Kantian counter before, for what it is worth.

Lydia:
I'm sympathetic, but what I am working on here is a very general argument that would not be limited to McCain: the argument that there is essentially never a proportionate reason to vote, in national politics, for a politician who supports murdering the innocent. (The 'essentially' qualifier just means 'in conditions anything like the conditions we are in').

Zippy,

I noticed that; however, I can't overlook the fact that you are now actually willing, at the very least, to entertain the thought of a compromise.

Yet, strangely enough (and quite ironically), the fact that you have budged from an initially adamant position premised on theoretically sound moral principles has, instead of leaving me cheery, rather sullen.

With all our contentious encounters on this very subject, I thought I would've been more gladdened by such a prospect.

Perhaps JohnMcG is right.

It seems it doesn't take much to get Pro-lifers to submit to compromise so long as folks get them optimistic at the mere possibility.

Aristocles, I can't imagine what you are talking about. Don't you understand the difference between a compromise of one's principles and saying, "Do we at least agree on this?"?

Lydia,

Allow me to put it this way:

In rudimentary chemistry, you learn the basics of reactants turning into products by chemical reaction.

In university chemistry (in rather overly-simplistic terms), you learn that prior to even becoming products, reactants initially become intermediates and depending on various factors (such as the thermodynamics & kinetics of the reaction); those intermediates can either return to being reactants or proceed to product.

Zippy strikes me as being in this seemingly delicate intermediate stage.

I was hoping that the Energy of Activation barrier (i.e., his own moral standards) was such that it was so high that not even a catalyst (i.e., the rhetoric of certain interlocutors) could lower it, wherein the reaction would inevitably proceed to "product": a compromised Zippy.

This blog has become a microcosm of sorts as far as the Pro-Life Movement is concerned and the willingness of certain members to give into compromise by the mere enticement of such appeals.

I, therefore, withdraw my vote for Zippy

Aristocles, that is absolute rubbish, and insulting rubbish, too. Did I forget to say smart alecky? That, too. I think you should bag it.

Although I don't agree with Ari's assessment of what Zippy has actually proposed, his disappointment over what he thinks was accomplished by "lowering Zippy's high standards" during these arguments suggests something rather disturbing about his own view of what the true cost is of compromise. Fortunately, I found some posters that Ari will find useful for enjoying his Pyrrhic victory:
http://despair.com/viewall.html

Heh. Despair.com is awesome. It is hard to pick a favorite Demotivator, but as a pilot of small aircraft I really get a kick out of Regret.

I've given my response to the Kantian counter before, for what it is worth.

Sure, of course I haven't forgotten that. And it's a powerful argument, for those inclined to think in such terms--as I am. Really, I was just taunting Aristocles.

I am in a swing state, and it is one of the most corrupt.
I live in a city where the voter fraud is between 10-30% of the total vote - in favor of Democrats.
In the 2004 race, there were 13 ballots cast, 11 of which were for Kerry in my residence.
There are only two citizens that actually reside in said residence - neither voted for Kerry.

I loathe McCain's stances on a number of issues, ESCR is at the top.
I detest practically every plank in the Obama Messianic Platform.
I am Constitutionally barred from the Presidency until 2012, and therefore aught not write my own name in.

...But McCain is old...

Wow, am I cynical.

Thankfully there is a bar only a block away from where I vote.
I don't think I can drink to the point of hilarity on November 4th, so I will have to set a dollar limit.

I don't think I can drink to the point of hilarity on November 4th, so I will have to set a dollar limit.

Padraig,

The key here is, you belly up to the bar before you go to pull the lever. Politicians are like the homely gal at the end of the bar. You drink until she looks good to you.

what we have here is an development of doctrine.

Speaking of DD, I attended a talk by Fr. Ian Ker last night. He has every confidence that J.H. Newman will someday be made a Doctor of the Church. Perhaps our Zippy will follow in his footsteps, so you'd better think twice before contradicting him (Zippy), since the last thing you want to be is on the wrong side of history.

In answer to your original question: here's the proportionate reason: to choose not to vote or to vote against McCain will promote a policy that goes beyond the specific circumstances and justifications of your vote to a general policy that will apply in the swing states and therefore have a real impact on the election.

Just on the moral question, however, should we not all act as though our decisions matter? If our vote in a non-swing state does not matter, then how is it remote cooperation with a grave evil? One could vote for Obama even if you personally knew him to be planning to nuke Middle America to ensure a permanent liberal majority- so long as you did not approve of those plans- because, by your reasoning, the vote does not have any impact.

Isn't the remoteness of the material cooperation with grave evil entirely proportional to the impact one's action actually or potentially has? Presumably you would agree that if you had the only vote for President, and only the Democratic and Republican ticket to choose from, there would be a proportional reason to vote for McCain. Sure, there would be some material cooperation with evil, but there is very clearly a proportionate reason. Ditto if you were one of 151 voters -because while your proportionate reason is far less, so too is your degree of material cooperation with evil. And so it goes, right down to your less-than-critical vote in Wyoming.

Perhaps Professor Beckwith could help in expressing the ethical principles I'm describing (and correct me if I've gone wrong).

Zippy--I don't think you have identified the disagreement accurately. The difficulty isn't that people disagree with how much weight to give a particular vote. The difficulty is that you think when the benefit of the vote goes down due to less weight, the evil in the vote does not correspondingly go down, even though the vote's less weight also contributes less to electing the bad guy. So if by "other considerations" you mean evils involved in the act of voting, which do not go down by virtue of the vote being cast in a wide race, you just have to identify those for us, so we can compare them to the alleged benefits and determine whether the belefits constitute a proportionate reason to outweigh the evils.

In answer to your question, I don't think that whether you're in a swing state or not changes the proportionality equation. But if your vote really doesn't matter you might not do it just because it is a waste of time.

The difficulty is that you think when the benefit of the vote goes down due to less weight, the evil in the vote does not correspondingly go down, ...

The difficulty here is that people are treating human acts as if they were an analog radio signal which can be gradually attenuated down to nothing. They aren't. An act either categorically is deliberate remote material cooperation with grave evil, or it is not. It takes a certain minimum movement of the will to act at all. If an act is deliberate remote material cooperation with grave evil at all, it can only be justified in the presence of a proportionate reason. And if the act is causally negligible with respect to the very outcomes which the person is analyzing under double effect in order to justify it, then a proportionate reason does not exist.

Zippy--you're wrong in the way you are applying the term "categorically." Helping elect a bad guy without intending the bad things he wants is categorically "material cooperation" in those bad things, but it is not categorically "remote." The remoteness changes--that's what remoteness is. It can be more or less remote.

Consider the ultimate evil we're talking about, killing embryos. When I vote for a guy without intending that policy, I am not killing an embryo, I am not funding the killing of an embryo, I am not siging a bill to fund the killing of an embryo. I am voting for a guy who might sign a bill to fund someone else to kill an embryo. If I pay city taxes I help fund the polling place wherein citizens vote for a guy who might sign a bill to fund someone else to kill an embryo.

Each of these acts is more or less remote to the killing of the embryo. At some point my cooperation in the evil of killing an embryo gets negligibly low.

The question is: considering the degree to which my vote helps elect the bad guy, is that degree outweighted by the degree to which my vote brings about some other benefit.

You can't say that the nationalness of an election takes away the proportionate reason, because it also lowers the hurdle of cooperation in evil that I need to overcome with my good benefit. And they are lowered to the same degree, because they are both dependent on how much my vote helps the guy I vote for win or not.

The remoteness changes--that's what remoteness is. It can be more or less remote.

An act of deliberate remote material cooperation with grave evil can become more and more remote; but it does not thereby cease to be an act of deliberate remote material cooperation with grave evil.

At some point my cooperation in the evil of killing an embryo gets negligibly low.

Not if you deliberate on it and choose to cooperate with it. A deliberate choice to intentionally cooperate with grave evil is never morally negligible.

Zippy--your first point is a helpful clarification, but let's elaborate: in being more remote, is the level of cooperation less? Isn't it true that a more remote act is less helpful, less cooperative in the evil in question?

In your second point I think you are mixing up formal and material cooperation. Remember an act has three characteristics, an intent, an object, and circumstances. By definition the hypothetical voter we are discussing is not intending the evil. But in saying he is materially cooperating it also means the object of his act, what he chooses, is not evil. He is materially cooperating with an evil--his act helps it, and he foresees that, but he doesn't intend it, and it's not accurate to say he deliberately chooses it. He deliberately chooses an act that he see will help, but he is not choosing the evil. He could not do so--if he did that would be formal cooperation.

By calling a vote for an abortion supporter material cooperation, Cardinal Ratzinger is denying that it is "A deliberate choice to intentionally cooperate with grave evil". That's not an accurate description.

He deliberately chooses an act that he see will help, but he is not choosing the evil.

I agree that he is not deliberately choosing the evil; but he is deliberately choosing to cooperate with it. He apprehends it and chooses to cooperate with it, however remotely. That is the very thing which makes it necessary for him to have a proportionate reason.

And here I was worried that my comments would have been regarded as overly fawning!

At any rate, there's a big difference between folks like Drs. Bauman & Beckwith (sounds like a comedy act!) who choose to do an act they believe is the right thing; quite another for somebody to give into, let alone, even entertain the thought of compromise of what they consistently considered evil.

Such is the high regard I have for Zippy -- even if he is but a stubborn sock puppet! ;^)

(Suffice it to say, we sometimes need the adamant nature of such folks in order to hold the line at some point, some where or else...)

At any rate, on another matter, I just wonder what sheer enthusiasm I will find amongst thebyronicman & Lydia when the headlines ultimately read:

"Obama Defeats McCain"

I'm sure there'll be much rejoicing to the joyful tune of thousands of more victims!

Zippy--I don't think you are correct. In material cooperation the actor neither desires the sinful act as an end nor as a means.

You can't say, well he doesn't desire the act but he desires cooperation in the act, because there's no moral difference between the two in this type of case.

Cooperation is to assist someone else in committing an objectively evil act. If you desire to assist them, that is formal cooperation. Formal cooperation is choosing the act as an end *or means*. You seem to be saying that voting for an abortion supporter is choosing to help him support abortion as a means to achieve some other end. It isn't. If it was it would be formal cooperation. Material cooperation, by definition, means you do not desire the act, and you do not desire to assist in it.

Cardinal Ratzinger says you can vote for an abortion supporter and it may be material cooperation. That means the vote need not be a desire to assist in the sinful act. See also Bishop Myers. http://www.wf-f.org/Myers-90-cooperation.html

In sum, if the vote is material cooperation, especially if it is remote, then we know from Cardinal Ratzinger that it is not a choice to assist in the evil end.

You may ask, how can you vote for an abortion supporter without desiring to his abortion support? Perhaps it is because the act of a man being elected to an office is not in itself, per se, inherently sinful. The object of your act, what you are choosing, is to elect that guy, and that in itself is morally neutral. The object is not to help him in his bad policy. Neither is your intention, in this hypothetical.

So that gets us back to the point about whether national elections make the vote un-proportionate. You seem to be saying that the bad effect in such a vote has a minimum quantum of evil, a glass floor, set by the basic fact that you are desiring to cooperate in evil. But you're not.

Instead, I propose that the bad effect is simply that your vote might help the guy you vote for win, and then he may do some bad things. But that effect goes up or down with the significance of your vote, national or local, swing state or not. If the benefit goes down, the bad effect goes down too, because they both flow from helping elect this guy, and your vote wasn't very effective in that regard.

To say that the low benefit falls below the proportionate evil effect, you must tell us some other evil in the act that doesn't go down with the benefit, something distinct from "my vote may help this guy win."

Suppose I were to suggest that people who do not live in swing states do not have a proportionate reason to vote for McCain/Palin.

That about sums it up for me, too. I live in NJ, which may be close (NJ likes liberal Republicans). If the polls show that the week before the election, I'll hold my nose and vote for McCain. If it's not close, I'll push the button for Barr or Baldwin.

You seem to be saying that voting for an abortion supporter is choosing to help him support abortion as a means to achieve some other end.

Material cooperation, by definition, means you do not desire the [evil] act, and you do not desire to assist in it.

At any rate, on another matter, I just wonder what sheer enthusiasm I will find amongst thebyronicman & Lydia when the headlines ultimately read:

"Obama Defeats McCain"

I'm sure there'll be much rejoicing to the joyful tune of thousands of more victims!

McCain still has time to get my vote, if he wants it. He can harden his position on ESCR between now and Nov. 4th, can't he? And he can do it in such a way that I'll believe it, which means he's got to stump the issue. What sort of influence will Palin have on McCain in the next month? I'm paying attention.

If I am to vote, I am to vote dead sober. If I vomit in the parking lot afterwords out of a sense of pity for future generations, yet my vote is the best option as far as my limited intellect and (partially) formed conscience can determine, so be it.

Even so, I'm gonna need several triple Jim Beam's - straight up, before I can handle solid food again. Thankfully I'm born and bred in Wisconsin. Whiskey is an appetizer here.

This document would seem to indicate that a vote for McCain is permissible per Catholic teaching, even given his less-than-ideal views on ESCR and abortion:

http://www.caaction.com/pdf/Catholic_VG_Bulletin_4_Web.pdf

Voting for McCain is permissible on Catholic teaching (proportionate reason). The question is whether or not there is proportionate reason in actuality, granted that many Catholics think there is. In other words, just because you think there is proportionate reason, there may not in fact be one. A Catholic can have a clean conscience, be eligible for communion, and still be in error as to the fact of the matter, and it's the fact of the matter that we've all spent so much time arguing.

True enough. But if that document is accurate, it seems to me that Obama fails on all counts re: the five "non-negotiables," while McCain fails regarding two at most. Given that no 3rd party candidate has a realistic chance of winning, the options seem to be either to vote for McCain to attempt to stop a greater evil (in which case one is voting not for McCain, but against his opponent) or not to vote at all.

Is that a fair summary?

Rob G:

Your summation is precisely what the Bishops were attempting to articulate here:

"When all candidates hold a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, the conscientious voter faces a dilemma. The voter may decide to take the extraordinary step of:

1. not voting for any candidate or,

2. after careful deliberation, may decide to vote for the candidate deemed less likely to advance such a morally flawed position and more likely to pursue other authentic human good."

Given that no 3rd party candidate has a realistic chance of winning, the options seem to be either to vote for McCain to attempt to stop a greater evil (in which case one is voting not for McCain, but against his opponent) or not to vote at all.

Is that a fair summary?

To my way of thinking, and those residents and usual guests of this blog, that's how it works out. You can look back on the recent archives and see there have been a few other Catholic guests here who think Obama is a real option, for "proportionate reasons," of course, and not to intentionally support his abortion stance. I don't profess to understand them. Well actually I do think I understand them, but not in the way in which they want to be understood.

**there have been a few other Catholic guests here who think Obama is a real option, for "proportionate reasons"**

Yeah, that I don't get at all. As an Orthodox and not a Catholic, I guess I can't really speak to that issue specifically, but I would express the same puzzlement towards any "Orthodox for Obama" group.

Is Andrew Bacevich Catholic (or Orthodox) ? He calls himself an "Obama-con," which makes zero sense to me.

Zippy,

An act of deliberate remote material cooperation with good can become more and more remote; but it does not thereby cease to be an act of deliberate remote material cooperation with good. Therefore vote for McCain.

Cooperation with good never has to be justified in itself. Cooperation with evil is never licit without a justification.

"Is Andrew Bacevich Catholic?"

Yes, Bacevich is a conservative Catholic, West Point grad and former Lt. Colonel who served in Vietnam and the first Iraq War. Though pro-life, he sees an Obama victory as necessary to rendering a correct verdict on the Iraq War. He believes repudiation will serve as a prelude to changing the reckless course of our foreign policy and the the necessary restructuring of our military. His son was killed in May '07 while serving in Iraq.

He morally objects to the reason we so frequently gone to war (to support an unsustainable life of consumption), but also finds the use of such abominations as depleted uranium weapons unconscionable.

As the ongoing trauma in our economic system (is it state capitalism or corporate socialism?) unfolds, more Americans are going to find themselves receptive to Bacevich's message.

"Long accustomed to thinking of the U.S. as a superpower, Americans have yet to realize that they have forfeited command of their own destiny. The reciprocal relationship between expansionism, abundance, and freedom—each reinforcing the other—no longer exists. If anything, the reverse is true: expansionism squanders American wealth and power, while putting freedom at risk."
http://www.amconmag.com/article/2008/sep/08/00018/

But Kevin, I've known you _very_ impatient (to put it mildly) with pro-Obama "conservatives" before, regardless of the way they bring in the war as an argument. I hope you retain this reaction. It seemed to me healthy.

Lydia, Obama is morally disqualified as an option and I think Bacevich wrong on this count. However, given his first person encounter with the evils of war and his deep emotional ties to the military, I can understand the coloring that went into his decision.

I am demoralized by how many culturally conservative members of the officer corps are going to follow Bacevich's lead this November and am only grateful that they are not very vocal about it. A couple of them spared Bush the embarrassment of publicly turning down the offer to head CENTCOM. Of course, this left taking Petraeus out of Iraq as the only viable choice.

The whole thing is a nightmare.

Zippy,

"Cooperation with good never has to be justified in itself. Cooperation with evil is never licit without a justification."

Voting for McCain cooperates with evil. I agree. I suppose every sensible person agrees. But I cannot think of single candidate in any political election in the history of the world where that was not precisely the case. Can you? Every candidate and every party platform is flawed and evil in some way, bar none. I am not saying they are equally evil. They normally are not. But they all are at least partly evil. In this election, for example, neither party with any real world chance to win will likely stop ESCR. We have their word on it. Therefore, regarding the ultimate winner, we have no meaningful choice on that issue this time.

But on abortion we do have a choice, an enormously important choice. One party will expand abortion and the other party will restrict it. Believe me, if I can vote efficaciously to restrict abortion, I will. I will cooperate with evil so that a greater good will come. Restricting abortion is indeed a greater good because far more deaths have, and will, result from abortion than from ESCR.

So far as I can tell from your description to date, your voting intentions will not serve to restrict either of the two evils in view (ESCR or abortion) in any real world way; nor will they actually produce good (save lives) in any real world way.

Unless we are dealing with something like a dollar auction.

Thanks, Kevin. Although I'm pretty much in agreement with Bacevich on foreign policy (there is a cultural element to it, however, that I think he overlooks -- see Paul Gottfried on that), but I don't see how the Iraq war, problematic as it is, trumps the life issues, i.e., the 'non-negotiables.'

I sincerely hope that the number of "Obama-cons" remains exceedingly small.

Rob G, agreed on Bacevich he's making an error in endorsing Obama.

However he would rightly say the practice of launching wars in order to either; a) remake cultures in our own image, or b)underwrite a way of life otherwise unsustainable through peaceful means, squarely fall under the culture of death's rancid canopy.

I understand why he wants an electoral rejection of neo-conservatism's foreign policy, but think he'll find Obama more of the same and at the head of an Administration whose signature can be stated thusly; There will be blood.

Zippy,
You are NARAL's dream come true: A pro-life Catholic who refuses to vote for the only candidate able to restrict abortion.