I am not offering advice (directly) on who to vote for, or whether to vote. Rather, I am offering comments on various bad ideas to avoid in formulating your choice of whether to vote and who to vote for. As a public service, I offer these critiques of stupid, false, or pernicious errors about voting. The first is stupid, others may be merely wrong, YMMV. This list is not exhaustive – there can be others that should be mentioned. So mention them, OK?
1. A vote for X (insert one of: Castle, Johnson, Mickey Mouse, other) is a vote for Hillary.
No. Direct proof: A vote for Castle is a vote for Castle. Castle is not Hillary. So a vote for Castle is not a vote for Hillary. End of story. The logic really is as simple as it looks. It’s the silly-clevers who want to distort it.
Reductio Proof: Assume the logic of the premise “a vote for X is a vote for Y” is valid.
Person A thinks that Castle is the best candidate, while his friend B thinks Trump is. Person B points out to A “a vote for Castle is a vote for Hillary.”
Person A thinks that Castle is the best candidate, while his friend C thinks Hillary is. Person C points out to A “a vote for Castle is a vote for Trump.”
Consequently, if A votes for Castle it is both a vote for Trump and a vote for Hillary. Which is absurd. Therefore, the premise is invalid. QED
Bonus Corollary: In an election where there are more than 3 candidates, X, Y, and Z1...Zn, the premise “A vote for X is a vote for Z1 AND a vote for Z2 AND a vote for Z3, AND a vote for … Zn” is just as invalid a premise. And, vice versa, the premise “A vote for X is a vote for Z1 AND a vote for Z2 AND a vote for Z3, AND …for Zn” is just as wrong as the premise “a vote for X is a vote for Hillary”, because they are wrong on the same principles.
Additional Argument: There are, in addition to the primary effect of a vote, many secondary and tertiary effects. A vote for X cannot have all the same secondary and tertiary effects as a vote for Hillary. Hence a vote for X is not a vote for Hillary. (More on this later.)
Sub-Mistake 1a: Not voting for Party R candidate is “taking a vote away” from R. This is a lie. My vote is MINE until I bestow it (if at all). No party, group, or candidate has a prior claim on it. They can’t have a claim on it and have it remain a FREE election. My voting for someone other than R is not taking it away from R because they never had it to begin with.
Sub-Mistake 1b: A presumption that my vote goes to Party R. This is a lie. There is no valid presumption about my vote until I cast it. Party R and their candidate don’t get to presume on my vote. If they can’t field a candidate I feel I can vote for, then they don’t get my vote, and they never had a right to presume on my vote other than by putting up a candidate I want to vote for. So my voting for somebody outside of R isn’t “violating” some script that they had a right to presume upon.
Sub-Mistake 1c: Rhetorical tactic “If all (insert one: conservatives, Republicans, right-thinking people, non-liberals) were to act that way, that would undermine Trump’s chances, and that’s wrong.” No: Trump being a problem candidate who cannot command the preference of voters is what would undermine Trump’s chances. In fact, if all conservatives and all Republicans and all non-liberals were to vote for Castle, then Castle would win and that would be a very good thing indeed, comparatively speaking. You can’t use “if everyone did it” cafeteria fashion, i.e. picking just enough out of everyone such that these voting for Castle and not Trump means that no non-Hillary candidate got a majority and “causes Hillary to win”; but then not have the REST of everyone voting Castle so that Castle would actually win. “Everyone” is everyone.
Also, the concept “if everyone were to do it” and its parallel “everyone does it” are notoriously unsound as standard bearers in some cases – e.g. they cannot _justify_ an intrinsically wrong kind of act - also the concept cannot be used in isolation for an act that is neutral in itself. For an act that is morally neutral considered on its own (i.e. its object is neither inherently good nor inherently evil), considerations of “if everyone were to do it” cannot render the act morally good nor morally bad without reflecting on other facets of the act, such as the intentions and the circumstances. But if the parties in the conversation disagree on the totality of pertinent circumstances under consideration, claiming just one circumstance to “decide” the issue is mistaken qua argument, and the tactic logically fails. Ok, “Trump will lose…and maybe that leads to good things down the road…” is a sufficient rejoinder to the circumstance “Trump will lose” to defeat the tactic.
2. One person’s vote doesn’t affect the outcome of a national election.
Mistake. The truth is that every vote affects the outcome. You have to look at “affects” and “outcome” in the proper sense(s).
(Ignoring electoral college for the moment:) If X gets 100 million votes, and Y gets 90 million, X wins. If you were one of the 100M voting for X, your act has a participatory share in achieving a win for X. Your vote affects the outcome. The “last 10M - 1 votes” would only NOT have a participatory share if we “counted” the votes in a determinate order (say, according to time cast), and you cast your vote after all 90M votes for Y were cast and counted and after the 90,000,001th vote for X was cast and counted. I.E. after X had already won. Since that’s not how votes are counted, it’s not how their effect takes place. In reality, no person’s vote for X harbors any more or less weight than every other person’s vote for X, so if X won, every single one of them for X are votes that gave X the win. So every one of them has a participatory share in the win. Each one causes the win (in part).
(Side note 1: Large numbers are irrelevant to this truth. If 5 boys are shoveling a long driveway, all 5 participate in the achievement of a shoveled driveway. If 50 men are involved in a particular assembly line when a particular car is started and they see it all the way through, all 50 have a participatory share in “making” the car, even if one person’s share is smaller than another’s. If 50,000 men work on the transcontinental railroad over 5 years, then all 50,000 have a participatory share in the achievement. If 5,000,000 American men serve in the army overseas in WWII, all 5,000,000 have a participatory share in fighting and winning the war, and all 5M of them are entitled to the title of “veteran of foreign wars”. Each man who fights is morally responsible for his act to choose to cooperate with his country’s call to arms (some few didn’t), and that moral act of cooperation just is the base of his being a participant – and therefore a participatory winner – of the war. Large numbers don’t change the fundamental nature of his moral responsibility as “participant”. A Gestapo officer who ordered the murder of just ONE Nazi prisoner was a participant in bringing about the regime’s mass murder, and holds moral responsibility as a participant, even if he did nothing overt to cooperate with the other 11+ million murders. Large numbers may dilute his “share” in the totality of the mass murders outcome, they do not eradicate the causal – and moral – responsibility as a willing participant in a regime of murder.)
(Side note 2: throwing the Electoral College permutation into the consideration doesn’t change the principle, but it does potentially change the share: Effectively, the “first effect” of participating in a successful vote for X is now at the state level instead of the national level, meaning your vote for X “counts” at the stage of 3M for X versus 2.7M for Y. But it still has a participatory share in causing X’s win, which is the same underlying truth.)
In addition, if “one person’s vote does not affect the outcome of the election”, then X’s win has no cause that accounts for it. For you are not allowed to use any person’s vote to account for it. Hence in considering every one of the 100M votes cast for X, you would be forced to say “this one does not affect” and therefore is not a cause, and you would have no cause to point to which “does affect” the outcome. X’s win would be without a cause. Which is absurd.
If you are one of the voters for Y who loses, your vote still has an “affect” on the outcome. Part of the outcome is that “Y lost”, but another part is that “Y lost by 90M to 100M.” That’s a _different_result_ than if you hadn’t voted for Y. Similarly to the vote for X above, your vote makes you morally a participant of Y’s 90M total, and ALL of what that means. “The outcome” includes first-order results, and also second order, third order, etc. If, for example, Y getting 90M and not some lesser total may lead some other candidate Z to think “gee, I would have been able to get all of Y’s 90M plus more”, then your vote has an indirect causal share in encouraging Z to consider running next time. “The outcome” of the vote is not solely the sheer fact of “whether X or Y wins. “ That’s only part of “the outcome”. When you take note of the whole outcome, your vote is part of the 90M for Y, and that means it is part of the cause of all the events that flow from Y getting 90M votes.
That’s even aside from the consideration that when you vote for Y, you don’t know that Y will lose.
Sub-Mistake 2a: “There is no difference between Y getting 90M votes and Y getting 89,999,999 votes, so your vote does not affect any of the events that flow from Y getting 90M votes.”
Obviously, there is a difference of 1. “There is no difference” is mathematically erroneous. Let us admit, though, that the argument means something like “there is no _practical_ difference” between 89,999,999 and 90M. But the claim still fails. It is wrong in the order of voting causality, because it would imply that for EACH of the people who vote for Y, their vote for Y is the numerically irrelevant difference between 90M and 89,999,999, and (which follows logically from this) that for ALL of the people who vote for Y, their vote is a numerically insignificant difference. Which leads to the absurd result that ALL votes for the losing candidate “do not affect the outcome” (the winner would still be the winner even if his opponent got NO votes), and are pointless acts. You should never vote a vote for the person who might be the losing candidate!!! Which is absurd.
Or, to put it another way, because votes are not cast or counted with temporal significance, there is no picking out one of them as having a different character than any of the others, and since there is manifestly a significant difference in outcomes (beyond “Y loses”) that flow from “Y got 90M” votes versus “Y got 10 votes” or “Y got 10M” votes, each vote for Y bears an _equal_share_ in all of the significance of Y getting a very large number of votes even though a losing number.
Secondly, when you cast your vote, you did not intend to cast the vote that changes the vote from a losing 89,999,999 to a losing 90M, you cast a vote intending to help Y win, a vote whose inherent nature, was capable of helping Y win. The form and nature of the act of so voting is determined not by the after-the-fact (first order) outcome, which is unknown and which is indeterminate before the event is over (no concrete human act has an “indeterminate” nature), but by what is present to the act as you do it. Further, If Y was the only really good candidate and X was a really bad one, your vote for Y is a morally different event than your not voting for Y, in a morally significant sense TO YOU.
Also, the argument fails by ignoring sorites truths. A heap is not “made” by any one member of the heap, but it is not entirely the heap that it is if it doesn’t have its pieces. The fact that you cannot determine a specific number of elements or pieces or members that make the heap have its effects K1, K2, K3, etc, means that you must assign all such effects to ALL of its members, not just to some subset of them. The effects come from each of the members in a small but participatorily significant way, just as the gravity exerted by the Earth on an object at the surface comes from each cubic foot of dirt in the Earth in a small but participatorily significant way, visible as a gravitational force of 32 ft/sec/sec. Each addition to the gravity from each cubic foot of dirt is small, but is REAL for all that.
3. An efficacious vote against Hillary (one that would effectively prevent her presidency) is one that goes toward her opposition that has the best chance of electing him. This is the only moral alternative.
False.
Reason 1: We are humans, not God. We are not required to make our acts efficacious, we have not the omnipotence implied in that. We can act with an intention, but whether the intention is brought to fulfillment is up to God. Morality is not determined by the efficaciousness of our acts. You cannot determine whether an act is moral or not on the basis of whether it is efficacious in bringing about a good intended.
Reason 2: That’s not how voting works: A vote outcomes includes many results, not just who wins or loses. Voting for X may not bring about X winning (or Y losing) as you would like but may bring other effects that are intended and good. If “efficacious in causing a good result” were the sole deciding criterion, one good result would justify the vote.
Reason 3: That’s not how voting works (version 2). The nature of a vote is not determined solely and strictly by the need to defeat one specifically worst candidate, which is what the thesis implies. Sometimes there is no “worst” candidate, and even if there were, sometimes there is no likely way to defeat her, so SUCCESS in defeating her cannot be the determining factor. And even if there is a possible way to defeat her, there is no moral mandate to use only that approach, because defeating her specifically is not the defining purpose of the vote.
Reason 4. This is not how morals work. Even the narrow, strict, old-fashioned Catholic Church doesn’t subscribe to a totalizing view of concrete acts, i.e. a view that either an act is the morally best possible act you could do in the circumstance or it is a sin. That’s a false concept. Even if you have rightly sorted out options that are evil in themselves and discarded them, and then sorted out options that imply bad intentions or bad circumstances, and discarded them, you may be left with SEVERAL options. If you have more than one option left, and you cannot judge between them as A being better than B, or B being better than A, you are morally free to choose either. Further, even if you decide that B slightly edges out A in good, choosing A may be merely a lack of perfection rather than an actual sin. In choosing what to sacrifice for Lent, a Christian can choose N, or choose N+M, and either one is good though one may imply a higher perfection than the other, NEITHER implying sin. There is something puritanical about the view that every act that fails to be perfect in every respect is a sin.
Reason 5. This is not how prudence works. Assuming, for the sake of the argument, that we are speaking of candidates whose person or policies do NOT make voting for them tantamount to formal cooperation with what is intrinsically evil: A winning vote has many, many proximate, intermediate, and long-range effects, and a losing vote also has many, many effects. The future is CONTINGENT rather than necessary or certain. Of the many results to reflect upon, the probability of each of them is not always mathematically determinable; for many, they are at best only determinable in generic “more” or “less” styles, and sometimes not even that, clearly. The estimation of likelihood involves, for each person, factors highly dependent on their own experiences and their own education, and so each person’s understanding of the likelihood of various results is individually colored – without offence to a pure conscience. Similarly, each person’s understanding of the relative merits and demerits of each possible result – including the proximate and intermediate as well as long term - is also subject to individual coloring: there is no applicable definitive standard that all must apply in good conscience. For example, A might be a much better candidate, and B might be a much more likely candidate, and there is no conclusively definitive framework in which to assign the one criterion more weight than the other: it’s a judgment call, about which reasonable people can disagree without offence to good conscience. Judge Learned Hand said “Life is made up of a series of judgments on insufficient data…” Since the estimation of the expectation of good or ill that may follow from an act includes a weighted relative evaluation of the long range goods or ills and their respective probability, each person will come to a distinct conclusion as to the relative value of each voting option – without offence to pure conscience. If there is more than one poor candidate available for a vote, the judgment as to which complete set of possible outcomes in voting for this or that one is “worst” is not determinate in a manner that binds all good consciences, (which is unlike the way that the conscience is bound to avoid intrinsically evil acts known so under the natural light of reason). And, likewise if there is more than one fair candidate available.
These prudential (estimative) judgments are open to indeterminacy of one degree or another, and to that extent a reasonable person may retain significant doubt as to the better of the options available. It is a fairly commonly accepted position in ethics that where judgment of better and worse is uncertain, the conscience is not bound. It is not immoral to vote for one or the other of acceptable candidates whom you reasonably judge may be better than another even if you judge him unlikely to win. The nature of prudence permits that this can be a moral choice.
4. Democracy – rule by the many - is morally degenerate as a governmental form, and so voting at all is just supporting evil.
This argument is completely wrong. It’s premise is wrong: rule by the many is by nature one of the naturally licit forms of government. We can see as much from the testimony of St. Thomas (no democrat himself):
In like manner we must divide just governments. If the government is administered by many, it is given the name common to all forms of government, viz. polity, as for instance when a group of warriors exercise dominion over a city or province. (On Kingship)
And the Summa (Pirma Pars, Q 105):
I answer that, Two points are to be observed concerning the right ordering of rulers in a state or nation. One is that all should take some share in the government: for this form of constitution ensures peace among the people, commends itself to all, and is most enduring, as stated in Polit. ii, 6. The other point is to be observed in respect of the kinds of government, or the different ways in which the constitutions are established. For whereas these differ in kind, as the Philosopher states (Polit. iii, 5), nevertheless the first place is held by the "kingdom," where the power of government is vested in one; and "aristocracy," which signifies government by the best, where the power of government is vested in a few. Accordingly, the best form of government is in a state or kingdom, where one is given the power to preside over all; while under him are others having governing powers: and yet a government of this kind is shared by all, both because all are eligible to govern, and because the rules are chosen by all. For this is the best form of polity, being partly kingdom, since there is one at the head of all; partly aristocracy, in so far as a number of persons are set in authority; partly democracy, i.e. government by the people, in so far as the rulers can be chosen from the people, and the people have the right to choose their rulers.Such was the form of government established by the Divine Law. For Moses and his successors governed the people in such a way that each of them was ruler over all; so that there was a kind of kingdom. Moreover, seventy-two men were chosen, who were elders in virtue: for it is written (Deuteronomy 1:15): "I took out of your tribes wise and honorable, and appointed them rulers": so that there was an element of aristocracy. But it was a democratical government in so far as the rulers were chosen from all the people; for it is written (Exodus 18:21): "Provide out of all the people wise [Vulgate: 'able'] men," etc.; and, again, in so far as they were chosen by the people; wherefore it is written (Deuteronomy 1:13): "Let me have from among you wise [Vulgate: 'able'] men," etc. Consequently it is evident that the ordering of the rulers was well provided for by the Law.
Our Founders in some measure imitated this plan in erecting a presidency, Congress with 2 houses, and voting by the people on different levels.
5. Our country is morally degenerate, so voting has become immoral.
This is nuts. If our country is morally degenerate, but is not yet to be overthrown, it is for good men to do all that they can to ameliorate the evils thereof. If the country be governed by all as through the vote, then sometimes good men can ameliorate the evil by voting well.
6. You can only morally vote for a candidate ALL of whose policies or proposed acts are in every case morally good acts.
This is erroneous. The case in voting for a person, i.e. a candidate for office, is more nuanced and less open to definitive prohibition than voting for a specific law or policy, which is much narrower. But even in the case of voting for a law which provides for an evil, there can be circumstances where voting for that law is moral: Though flawed in some ways, the 2007 “Faithful Citizenship” document by the USCCB has it right when it says:
32. Sometimes morally flawed laws already exist. In this situation, the process of framing legislation to protect life is subject to prudential judgment and “the art of the possible.” At times this process may restore justice only partially or gradually. For example, Pope John Paul II taught that when a government official who fully opposes abortion cannot succeed in completely overturning a pro-abortion law, he or she may work to improve protection for unborn human life, “limiting the harm done by such a law” and lessening its negative impact as much as possible (Evangelium Vitae, no. 73).
The justification can be located either in the principles of cooperation with evil or the principle of double effect. The work is left as an exercise for the student.
A human person is not a specific law or policy, they are much more than that. Hence, if it is possible to justify voting for a _law_ that enshrines evil because doing so is permissible cooperation with evil, so much more can voting for a bad person be (potentially) justified – in the right circumstances. Not all circumstances justify it, there are standards that lay out what is needed for the act to be moral.
There will be many cases where voting for a bad person is NOT justified. You actually have to do the work of figuring out the standards and applying them in detail - and honestly - before you can come to a morally defensible conclusion that you can vote for X candidate who is a bad person or who holds bad policies.
Comments (31)
In this Presidential election, once again, the choices appear to be either not to vote at all or to choose the lesser of two evils. Is not choosing one possibly aiding the other? One of the two has got to take the election.
Frankly, I’m sick having to choose between moral cretins but I feel obligated to vote.
Posted by Lauran | October 23, 2016 5:09 PM
Lauran, while it is highly likely that one of the 2 major party candidates will take it, it isn't morally certain.
The following may be morally acceptable, in my opinion (and, in this order):
1. Vote for Castle, of the Constitution Party. While his chances of winning are abysmally low, that's not the only effect of voting for him. For instance, if he were to get a significant vote, say 10% in 4 or 5 states, it would (a) put the party on the map, gaining enough visibility to encourage others to consider it; (b) force the Republicans as a whole to reconsider some aspects of their current strategy; and (c) be an effective statement to BOTH major parties that some people simply will not vote for moral cretins. Long range goods are legitimate options to work for, when none of the short range goods are plausible.
2. Not vote for president. Where the only options that have a realistic chance of winning are moral cretins, it is legitimate to not vote. Though, on this score it is hard to see how voting for a third-party candidate is any worse than not voting.
3. Some reasonable and decent people say that: if, after you complete the above kind of moral analysis as described in item 6 using "cooperation-with-evil" and double-effect principles, you conclude that overall the goods to be expected in voting for Trump outweigh the evils, you could morally vote for him. At least his party platform is not evil, which cannot be said for Hillary. For myself, I have not bought into that result, but I leave it as open: at the moment, I doubt the opposite (that it is not moral, or that voting for Trump is as definitely immoral as voting for Hillary) can be established firmly.
Posted by Tony | October 23, 2016 5:46 PM
Lauran, (you Dylan-hater you) I'm going to object to that phrase. Nominating Donald Trump is just like nominating Mitt Romney? False statement. Trump is much worse. Likewise, Hillary is a much worse person than Gore or Biden. This election presents us with uniquely awful candidates either side (leaving off the alternatives that Tony ably summarizes).
Posted by Paul J Cella | October 23, 2016 5:59 PM
People are also using Arrow's theorem to disparage voting. The mistake they make is imagining that voting is done to implement voter's preferences. However; in a representative democracy, people vote to elect their representatives who are supposed to deliberate on their behalf. This deliberation can not be captured within any mathematical scheme and thus real-life voting is immune to Arrow's theorem.
Posted by Bedarz Iliaci | October 24, 2016 2:09 AM
Posted by Bedarz Iliaci | October 24, 2016 2:24 AM
Paul Cella,
That Clinton is calling to implement no-fly zone in Syria against Russia that neo-cons are beating drums for a war against Russia on flimsies of pretext--this is not alarming to you? You are perhaps one of those adamant that Assad must go?
Trump is infact one of the most truthful persons to contest in presidential elections in near history. Compared with those parroting Islam is the religion of peace, he is truth himself. His magnificence is truly and adequately displayed in one great statement, the statement that would be eternally remembered--that America does a lot of killing too. And all true conservatives hate him for that.
I remember you were calling for Total War against ISIS last year. I then warned that this would go nowhere given American entanglement in alliances with Turkey and Saudis. And how we see the Democrats-neo-con war-making in action:
America bombs to facilitate ISIS advances. Is it worth nothing to you to stop this sort of thing?
Posted by Bedarz Iliaci | October 24, 2016 2:34 AM
Bedarz, perhaps I meant, and should have said, "mathematical certainty." On the other hand, perhaps not.
I perceive the possibility of 2 different classes of "very high probability" that could both be considered "moral certainty". On the one hand, some future event could be so certain to occur that operating on the basis that "it will come about" is justified. And on the other hand, some future event could be so certain that operating on the basis "it will NOT come about" would be completely unjustified. Such as, for example, that "the sun will rise tomorrow" (i.e. tomorrow will occur, the world will not end before tomorrow).
In many cases the two possibilities, positive and negative, go hand in hand, they are conjoined: operating based on the positive is justified, and operating on the basis of the negative is UNjustified. But it is not logically necessary. It can well be the case that an action on the basis of the positive assumption is _justified_ whereas the action on the basis of the negative assumption is NOT completely unjustified. There can be a certainty gap between "may act on" and "must act on". If we call the former "morally certain" then we shouldn't assume that "moral certainty" implies the latter. In which case, we would need to generate 2 distinct kinds or types of "morally certain" categories, or name them differently.
Posted by Tony | October 24, 2016 8:38 AM
Bedarz: Paul was saying Trump is much worse than Romney was.
Posted by Beth Impson | October 24, 2016 11:49 AM
What a nutty thing to say! In one sense, it is trivially true: we killed a lot of people in WWII, and conservatives don't regret saying that AT ALL. It is also obviously true that we killed a lot of people in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Many conservatives don't mind the former in the least, some are not bothered much even about the latter.
The thing that some Americans hate about Trump saying the above is the implication that we killed people that we shouldn't have killed, which of course is quite a bit more than merely pointing out that we killed them. But there ARE people that America has killed that we shouldn't have killed, such as at Nagasaki. And plenty of conservatives AGREE with that point. So, your "all true conservatives hate him for that" is just plain nutty. Get a grip on reality. The conservatives who oppose Trump mostly do so because he isn't conservative. That's usually good enough reason, without needing to imagine additional silly nonsense.
But this post isn't really about Trump, it is about voting concepts. To which: your first comment is entirely on point. Thank you.
I didn't recall Arrow's Theorem, so I had to look it up (pretty sure it came up in 2012 also). If I understand it, (and if we can trust Wiki on it) roughly speaking it says
that under the prescribed conditions, no rank-order voting system can be designed that always satisfies these three "fairness" criteria:
---If every voter prefers alternative X over alternative Y, then the group prefers X over Y.
---If every voter's preference between X and Y remains unchanged, then the group's preference between X and Y will also remain unchanged (even if voters' preferences between other pairs like X and Z, Y and Z, or Z and W change).
---There is no "dictator": no single voter possesses the power to always determine the group's preference.
Prescribed conditions include such things as transitivity of preference, the independence of irrelevant alternatives.
If people are claiming that voting is stupid because of Arrow's Theorem, then I have to agree that this seems to be a misuse of the theorem. For example, just because an applicable system of rank-order voting cannot guarantee that "If every voter prefers alternative X over alternative Y, then the group elects X over Y, nothing about the theorem insists that the elections held must contradict that result coming about often. More importantly, though, of course WE DON'T HAVE a ranked order voting system.
Manifestly, this is not how our voting occurs. The theorem as such is not applicable.
Independence of irrelevant alternatives: The introduction of a third candidate to a two-candidate election should not affect the outcome of the election unless the third candidate wins.
This too in an assumption that does not apply - or cannot be proven to apply - to our system.
But also important, I think, is that the theorem (and most of the theorems of game-theory and voting) use as "the outcome" solely the specific point of which alternative wins the election, and fails to include considerations beyond the election, such as "A wins now, but B is thereby in a better position to achieve X results at a later election."
Posted by Tony | October 24, 2016 1:22 PM
Sweet Christmas.
Posted by Paul J Cella | October 24, 2016 3:41 PM
What's all this chatter about?
In a couple of weeks, Hillary Clinton will be elected President of the United States.
The first woman ever to hold that office.
A historic event. Possibly even more historic than when Barack Obama became the first (more-or-less) Negro to hold that office.
There can be no doubt that, in her tenure, she will heal the divide between the sexes, just as Obama healed the divide between the races.
Posted by Steve Burton | October 24, 2016 7:22 PM
I agree that Trump’s party platform is not evil as compared to Clinton’s, but her vision is as evil as Obama’s yet Trump had no complaints against Obama in eight years--in short, I believe Trump is a fraud and I don’t care to be used by him.
Though I’m not in favor of a third party and would prefer the Republican party reacquaint themselves with their roots (like deference to the Constitution, for instance), your suggestion was an option that never occurred to me (I’m embarrassed to admit).
So I’ve got some research to do on the Constitution Party and Mr. Castle before he becomes a possible choice. Thank you, Tony.
Posted by Lauran | October 24, 2016 7:29 PM
Paul Cella,
There is no comparison, I agree--to include your entire comment. I was thinking of the 2008 Presidential Election between McCain and Obama when I wrote “once again,” although then I chose who I thought to be the lesser of the two evils, McCain.
And I do not hate Bob Dylan! Your barb really cracked me up, though.
Posted by Lauran | October 24, 2016 7:47 PM
Steve, you're hilarious.
Posted by Tony | October 24, 2016 9:20 PM
Tony, I always appreciate your careful argumentation and good sense. I agree with most of what you say here, but not your defense of democracy.
Those (like me) who say that democracy is morally degenerate do not mean "rule by many" is morally degenerate. And we _especially_ don't mean that a polity (a mixed government with a democratic element) is degenerate. At least I don't.
There are two ways in which the democracy I would attack differs from that which Aquinas defends: First, I attack democracy full stop, not polities with a democratic element, and secondly I attack democracy in the modern universal-adult-suffrage sense, not in the milder "rule by many" sense. Indeed I think the best form of government would contain an element of representation of the respectable middle class, who are many, and who on the whole have enough virtue to deserve the privilege of having a voice in government -- although I would want an old-fashioned aristocracy to predominate, and I think the mixed polity that our Founding Fathers bequeathed to us has proved to be too heavily weighted in the democratic direction. We have effectively become a full-fledged democracy. That's not to say that the "general will" actually rules. That never happens. Every large society is a functional oligarchy, and one of the ill-effects of democracy is that it tends to elevate the most unprincipled sort of oligarchs to positions of power: those who are best at manipulating the demos, capitalizing on their ignorance and appealing to their baser desires. Trump, Clinton, Sanders, Obama: these would not have surprised Plato. They are the very sort of candidate we should expect a democracy to produce.
So one of the effects of voting at all is supporting this sort of system. The more citizens exercise what is called their "right" to vote, the more legitimacy is granted to the governments they elect. Now I'm entirely open to the possibility that considerations of the _other_ effects of voting can lead to a prudent decision to cast a vote in spite of this. But from my perspective there is indeed at least one benefit to not voting at all rather than voting for a third-party candidate.
Posted by Christopher McCartney | October 24, 2016 10:06 PM
Me too. Or something like, say: those who have either served in the military, or who own a home and have a positive net worth, and are over 30, and have no convictions for crimes.
I could go along with that too, if there were a mechanism which made it fairly easy to elevate to the aristocracy many who demonstrated their worth. Say, at least 20 years in the military with an exemplary record, or 40 years in business or otherwise doing excellent things for the polity.
I attribute much of it to LOWERING the voting standard to "survived to age 18 and are breathing". I blame this for much of our ill health.
But the latter can be fixed, in theory. There is nothing about "we are going to have a democratic form" that precludes limiting the vote to a much smaller subset of "the people" than we do, and I am pretty confident that a rational approach would do just that. So, what I want is a BETTER democracy than the one we have.
It is certainly the case that democracy holds within its form the tendency to certain evils. So do the other good, licit forms of government, because men have original sin. You can't make a form of government free from the danger. My thesis above was that "democracy" as such is not something that it is IMMORAL to uphold by voting.
Posted by Tony | October 25, 2016 5:08 AM
Tony,
But what about the prudence of voting at this particular time and place? Moral permissibility is a very weak thing and the Catholic Church grants it very widely, for wrongs done against human nature. But would the same church regard voting for a Nazi permissible? Or would all the fine nuances go flying out the window when the question is voting for a nativist?
The Supreme Court, the supreme interpreter of the constitution, at present considers all the social conservative agenda to be mere irrational expression of bigotry and animus. To take part in elections and vote is to validate the supreme court as presently constituted and its attitudes. This I submit and also that it is imprudent in the highest degree for any social conservative to vote. All you do is to validate this political system that is dead set against yourself. This goes squared when one does not vote for Trump.
Posted by Bedarz Iliaci | October 25, 2016 7:41 AM
"People are also using Arrow's theorem to disparage voting. The mistake they make is imagining that voting is done to implement voter's preferences. However; in a representative democracy, people vote to elect their representatives who are supposed to deliberate on their behalf. This deliberation can not be captured within any mathematical scheme and thus real-life voting is immune to Arrow's theorem."
Actually, it can. One can use the mathematics of coupled systems, where f(c) is a function relating how coupled the electors are to the representatives. f(c) can range over a multidimensional space of variables representing values for various choices for topics of deliberation. In such an abstract space, one can rigorously define a correlation function which tracks how closely the trajectories of choices of the electors on certain issues match the representatives. The closer the correlation coefficient, C, is to one (it ranges from 0 to 1), the more closely the representatives, "represent," the electors. When C = 1, Arrow's Theorem holds, identically. When C = 0 ( no correlation), Arrow's Theorem is uncoupled from the wishes of the electors and does not hold. For values 0
The Chicken
Posted by The Masked Chicken | October 25, 2016 9:20 AM
Tony, I esp. appreciate your skewering of the "not voting for A is a vote for B" and "you're taking away a vote for A by voting for B." These statements are so wearily incorrect, and yet they get recycled ad infinitum every election. It's to the point where those of us who realize they are completely wrong are forced either to just shake our heads and walk away when someone says these manifest falsehoods yet again or else take turns among ourselves refuting them. But it's like a game of whack-a-mole. No matter how many times we point out that these statements are false, they will come back up yet again. And sometimes from highly intelligent people who ought to know better.
Quips can help a little, but if someone is really determined, he will hang onto it. I was involved in one Facebook discussion in which someone made the quip that I must be voting twice if I vote third party, since the Democrats can argue that not voting for Hillary is a vote for Trump and the Republicans can argue that not voting for Trump is a vote for Hillary. But I kid you not, someone very solemnly came in and tried to dispute it even after that. He seemed to be using some version of the assumption that, if you are politically conservative, your vote prima facie "belongs" to the Republicans so you are "taking it away." Which is also false.
Concerning the "what if everybody who thinks like you did this" argument, my usual response is that if all the conservative Christians refused to vote for either major-party candidate in some presidential election year, we would become a voting block to court and would have to be taken more seriously instead of being taken for granted by the Republicans. If hundreds of thousands of conservative Christians sat out an election or voted third-party, even the most cynical campaign manager could hardly advise his client to ignore them or slight them the next time around. Hence, idealistic conservative candidates would have an argument with which to push back against the more cynical establishment that tries to tell them that being strongly and explicitly conservative on social issues is a losing strategy.
Posted by Lydia | October 25, 2016 9:51 AM
Bedarz, I have no idea what this even means. Are you sure you didn't leave out a "not" or two? Some other phrases? For instance, the Church does not allow the moral permissibility of actions against human nature.
Each complete adult human act, knowingly and freely chosen, is morally good or morally wrong. If it is not evil in its object, but is disordered in its end or circumstances, it is not wrong by its very genus but still wrong in the concrete instance. Voting for a bad man is not wrong in its genus, but is often wrong in the concrete due to being wrong in the circumstances.
Bedarz, did you notice that I did qualify my comment for item 5 by "If our country is morally degenerate, but is not yet to be overthrown,"?
I grant the theoretical possibility that our country could get to the point where overthrowing the government is right. If, as a hypothesis, that time is now, it can STILL be true that voting makes sense. Consider: in carrying out an overthrow, you will need to carry out acts that confuse and fool the enemy, send them down the wrong paths, convince them of things that are not so. Many things that are not intrinsically evil can be used this way, INCLUDING voting. For, the primary evil that you point to is the the kind of evil that comes from causing scandal: to lead others to error by your action. But all you have to do to unwind the problem is to TELL your friends and family (the ones you trust and don't want to fool) that you are voting merely to present a facade of compliance with the regime, a tool you are using to further the true good. Nobody else even notices whether you do or don't vote, it's not like "I voted" is publicized or something. Since it is NOT intrinsically evil, and voting for a good man (even where the government needs to be overthrown) does no evil to any person, you CAN use this as a tactic in your overall schemes. And if, by good luck, you should happen to succeed in helping to elect that good man, THAT TOO can help your overall schemes. There is nothing that makes this kind of appearing to be in conformity with the existing social order something inherently contrary to serving your real aims.
Posted by Tony | October 25, 2016 7:28 PM
Chicken, while this may be theoretically possible, the practical reality is quite another thing. If the dimensions needed are, (to pick an extreme) comparable to the number of voters, it is extremely implausible that we would ever have a SOLUTION for the function. Or, finding the solution would be the computational equivalent of getting "42" in the Hitchhiker's Guide: takes half a universe to achieve. We don't know a priori how many factors are relevant to voting outcomes, empirical analysis is not decisive so far. It _could_ be close to one for each voter. Or, possibly, even more. We can probably prove that it is not infinite, that much I would grant readily. But I doubt that a priori we can mathematically _prove_ the impossibility that each voter generates within his own mind one (or more) unique value parameter.
In any case, Arrow's theorem assumes rank-order voting as a condition, and we don't have that. Other theorems may be more applicable, such as the Gibbard–Satterthwaite theorem:
that (under the applicable conditions), for three or more candidates, one of the following three things must hold for every voting rule:
---The rule is dictatorial (i.e., there is a single individual who can choose the winner), or
---There is some candidate who can never win, under the rule, or
---The rule is susceptible to tactical voting, in the sense that there are conditions under which a voter with full knowledge of how the other voters are to vote and of the rule being used would have an incentive to vote in a manner that does not directly reflect his or her preferences.
Where, "an incentive to vote..." means "can successfully push the OUTCOME to something he prefers by registering his vote as something other than what he prefers most.
Posted by Tony | October 25, 2016 7:52 PM
MC,
Existence of such a function would need to be demonstrated first. It is not self-evident that the relation of electors to the elected is capable of formalization.
Tony,
I meant moral permissibility of voting for a candidate that stands for wrongs done against human nature. The Church or at least USCCB does give a lot of leeway for voting for a pro-abortion, pro-same sex marriage, pro-transgender rights candidate. My question is would the same leeway be granted to vote for a nativist candidate?
In other words. Is USCCB anything other than a shill for progressive agenda?
Posted by Bedarz Iliaci | October 26, 2016 12:18 AM
Certainly the principle the USCCB states, with JPIIs's example, can be used to justify voting for an imperfect candidate, even a bad man, who is a nativist.
That doesn't prevent the USCCB, or at least the bulk of the organization, from being progressive shills. A pretty good share of the functionaries there cannot tell the difference between teachings of the Catholic Church and their own progressive preferences. This reflects the state of the US bishops, most of whom have a great deal of trouble knowing where Church teaching ends and their own personal conclusions pick up. It's very sad, but true.
Posted by Tony | October 26, 2016 5:01 AM
But if they don't "leave much leeway" for voting for a candidate who is pro-abortion, presumably they would also not leave much leeway if "nativist" is a euphemism for (say) "advocate of actual genocide against the non-natives." And so it should be.
Posted by Lydia | October 26, 2016 9:29 AM
Dear Tony,
I stand by what I said. This is nothing more than the mathematics of bilinear forms (or multilinear forms if more than two variables are involved). F(c) is the mapping function from elector space to representative space, where f(c) may map from null space up to isomorphism or even map homomorphism. If Arrow's theorem holds in one space, then it holds identically in the dual space if there is an isomorphic mapping. It may hold partially for partial mapping, depending on the structure of the space.
The original poster said that there was no way to relate electors to representatives. Of course, there is. In fact, there are several method, such as the transfer function method, as another example. In fact, one can use method of neural nets to do it.
As you point out, if Arrow's theorem does not work for the electors, then all bets are off about whether or not it works with the representatives. I was assuming that it did work, because that was specified in the original problem.
Bendarz,
There are many such functions, defined either abstractly or from empirical data. There is a whole branch of statistics devoted to this: Bayesian updating. One either assumes an initial distribution or measures one.
The Chicken
Posted by The Masked Chicken | October 26, 2016 3:23 PM
Lydia, I am not sure what to say about someone who doesn't get the absurd when an absurdity is put in front of them. Not much you can do, except shake your head and walk away, I suspect. Makes one wonder if (way back when things weren't so pernicious) we should have made access to voting more stringent, with tests that checked for the ability to discern absurdity and other things. Now, of course, testing would be used against us.
Posted by Tony | October 26, 2016 7:39 PM
Tony, you want it to be
But the whole point of the aristocracy is that they be few because only the few have the exceptional excellence to govern men well (actually to govern, as distinct from merely having a voice in government) and the overwhelming majority of them ought to be from old families, because only such multi-generational interest as is provided by receiving one's title to rule as a patrimony can instill the kind of long view that is needed for ruling an entity as long-lived as a nation. Being "in business" is about the opposite of a qualification to nobility. Seriously, that principle would elevate Donald Trump. Forget about him, the very notion is repugnant to the meaning of aristocracy. Toqueville aptly described the "aristocracy" of businessmen in this way:Businessmen are not always motivated merely by profit. Sometimes they care about their employees and even try to do something to help them outside the exchange of labor for money. But they are not in a position to govern, as distinct from managing, their employees. The structure of their position is such that they can make use of their employee's labor as a commodity, a thing, and cannot take responsibility for their lives in a fatherlike manner. Responsibility is proportional to authority, and employers' authority extends only over the labor of the employee. Even the most well-intentioned businessman is part of a system that promotes deracination. It alienates worker from his labor; it undermines the industry of the home, so that the household becomes a locus of consumption but not of production; it sets up an antagonism between a man's responsibility to provide for and to lead his family, since what he must do to provide for them tears him away from his family for most of his waking hours; he thus has no opportunity to involve his sons in his own labor, so that an important aspect of father-son relationship is undermined. Indeed all members of the family were, in pre-industrial times, typically involved in their own ways in the economy of the household (familia), and their industry bound them together with an organic unity that is much compromised by modern industrial capitalism.
Being "in business" is not immoral. But it has, like all stations and vocations, its own peculiar temptations and stereotypical vices, and they happen to be exactly the vices that make businessmen particularly unsuited to being good rulers: they tend to have a utilitarian attitude towards their inferiors; they are typically lacking in high culture and manners; there is nothing to instill in them a love of place, or to make them understand why the people need a connection to place. Etc.
In every age wealth brings with it potential political influence. The genius of aristocracy is to check the political influence of the merely wealthy who lack culture, tradition, a sense of noblesse oblige, and the long view - long in the sense of centuries - of old families.
Posted by Christopher McCartney | October 26, 2016 10:56 PM
I meant to cut off the quote before the last bit, "Je pense qu’à tout prendre, l’aristocratie manufacturière..." I disagree with the sentiments Tocqueville expresses there. He's too much of a (classic) liberal for me, though he saw clearly things that most liberals don't, things that should have lead him away from his liberalism if he had followed them to their logical conclusions.
Still, I suppose it is good to acknowledge that the great Frenchman is on the whole closer to you than to me: you want a mixed polity in which the democratic element predominates. I don't see how you prevent it from degenerating into mere democracy. It's not as if that degeneration is just an accident of history: the constant drift of our polity has been in an ever more democratic and egalitarian direction. When something moves always in the same direction for many generations, we have reason to think the motion is a constitutional feature of the beast. I put it to you that there is an inherent tendency in American-style republicanism to become ever more democratic. If so, the attempt to "fix" this by returning to an earlier version of the republic is doomed to failure.
Posted by Christopher McCartney | October 26, 2016 11:21 PM
MC,
My problem is that the representatives are supposed to deliberate among themselves and this process does not seem amenable to mathematical formalism.
You define the function as
Is f(c) about the choices of the topics of deliberation? But what about the result of deliberation? Can this ever be output of a computation?
Posted by Bedarz Iliaci | October 27, 2016 4:24 AM
Fair enough, Christopher, that's a reasonable charge. Many commentors on democracy admit that it has an inborn tendency toward the peculiar tyranny of the many, and egalitarian-leaning to the point of madness. I am not confident that this ought to be represented, though, as having a more definitive tendency toward degeneracy than aristocracy or monarchy, both of which ALSO tend toward their degenerate forms quite strongly. Usually more quickly than over a 200 year period.
Sorry, I don't buy it. Each clause is plausible on its own, but conjoined they fail, I think. The exceptional excellence needed to govern well is NOT usually found in generation after generation of a family. The frequency with which we see true excellence - as opposed to merely going through the motions and resting on custom alone - in 3 generations in a row is small to vanishing. We have rarely - if ever - seen an aristocracy whose structure and modus operandi qua ruling did not tend to inure to the material benefit of the ruling families, and this very fact causes many of the factors that lead to later generations of the family geared not so much toward ruling well as toward either seeking power, wealth, pleasure, leisure (in the sense of indolence), or all of these combined. The besetting problems of aristocracy plague that form just as much as the besetting problems of democracy plague us.
You might do one of a few things to repair the problems. Such as (1) have the familial role of ruler stay in the family, but have it descend not by order of birth, but by another mechanism that is built on finding among the whole family (and making) an excellent ruler, which first birth does not do. And, of course, cast the net amongst the extended family, not just the immediate descendants of the previous ruler. (2) Have a generational re-set on wealth, so that the next ruler in the line knows that he cannot "keep" amassed wealth for long. (3) periodically purge the least effective, most degenerate 1/4 of the ruling families, (or gradually but constantly) and replace with NEW aristocratic lines that have more promise. Of course, how you locate that group is as fraught with political peril as, in our democracy, locating the "representatives" who should not return as incumbents.
A multi-generational outlook IS valuable in statesmen, and having a multi-generational class of rulers would help with that. But you can have that while still not simply affirming that every first son's first son will rule forever-more, because THAT descends into other problems. Demanding some kind of re-proof of excellence every 2nd generation, for example, in order to continue as a member of the ruling class.
I submit that this tends to be true in our system, but is not wholly true. That is, I have seen businessmen who exercise a paternal-sort of leadership toward their employees, even though they do not technically rule them outside of the business. And, for that matter, these deficiencies of our economic form were ALSO being felt in aristocratic countries, because some sort of change in the economics is implicit once your main wealth is not agricultural. I would say, then, that you have to consider the question of political form as capable of solutions GIVEN the fact that we cannot tie the economy primarily to agricultural production, and it is not clear how you are going to do that with an aristocracy built on fiefdoms. Mind you, I have seen "future history" stories that posit future businesses that operate VERY MUCH like aristocratic fiefdoms, wherein they control much of the cultural and political forms as well as the economics. (And stories that posit a US senate composed of "my esteemed colleagues, the senators from General Motors and Microsoft suggest..." ) If an aristocracy is what we should have (to serve us best), it has to be one predicated on something other than mere holding of land.
.This is going away. Telecommuting will limit this problem, I now spend more of my working hours at home than away. My wife also works from home part time, so she can remain the homemaker essential to raising the kids. Waldos controlled via online sources will be the final final nail in the coffin of the distance.
It was equally true that most men HAD to go into their father's business, regardless of whether that was what they were best capable of or not, thus stifling total productivity as well as damaging to human morale/happiness. The proliferation of types of work implies the greater likelihood of a man finding a due and suited niche for his own personal style, taste, capabilities and desires. The real problem you are pointing to, though, is the take-over of the economy by BIG business, not just "business". I have a cousin, for example, who started a business 15 years ago and who now employs 4 of his kids. Whereas the others have had the freedom to find work elsewhere that suits them better.
One of Plato's proposals was for the rulers to be from the class of elders who, having served their time in the military, and then served as businessmen etc, are now "retired" from the day to day busies and can take the time to consider fully, at length, in depth. Businessmen who expect to turn the reins of business over to others when they reach 60 or so, to go on to do the more worthy task of ruling, will not by nature be quite so typified by utilitarianism and lacking in culture. I submit the benefits of someone having spent considerable time "in the trenches" of actually keeping a business afloat brings a needed practicality to the table (of ruling) that a nobleman who has never worked a day is unable to grasp. Perhaps the ideal, then, is not a class of rulers who don't get utility, nor a class of them molded entirely by utility, but a class of rulers who HAVE utility down pat but are MORE than that, who have been raised up to expect to leave it behind as the limited thing that it is, men trained to expect to supercede that part of their lives for a better.
I refuse to take the bait of "manners", given the tendency of nobility to become fops (or worse) based primarily on their EXCESS of time, money, and servants into which they can generate ever new extremes of "fashion" that is nothing more than conspicuous consumption. Let's just say that the one and the other evil offset, with neither being desirable.
Posted by Tony | October 27, 2016 6:03 PM
By the way, Christopher, I guess I was a little unclear in my conjunction there. The criterion was supposed to be: or otherwise, AND doing excellent things...
---In business for 40 years and doing excellent things for the polity; or
---Otherwise engaged (like in charity work) and doing excellent things for the polity.
Both items were supposed to have "doing excellent things for the polity" as an additional feature, before you got the needed condition. Trump would have failed this about 20 different ways, not least being married multiple times, building casinos, (and I could just go on and on.) It wasn't the "being in business" that was the important element, it was the "doing excellent things for the polity" WHILE being engaged fully in society. Anyone who builds a thriving and wholesome business, has a start. If he adds thereto being a solid father, and a leader in the community, or a philanthropist, or volunteering and (eventually) helping run something that isn't a business but does good things, who doesn't let "being in business" swallow them up but treats it as means to more important goods... This is the sort of thing I was referring to.
Posted by Tony | October 27, 2016 9:19 PM