[Caller (Casey)]: "The question I have is kinda theoretical, but it has some practical applications. It's something a buddy of mine and I have been arguing about a couple of years now... it's an argument about the obligation a Catholic has while voting."
[Mr. Donovan] Right.
[Casey] For instance he is set up with these three possible candidates. I mean, go back to 2008, where you had Obama, who is violently anti-life; you got McCain, who is kinda wishy-washy. But then you did have an option where they were staunchly pro-life. The question is, are you obligated to vote for someone who has the right views, but doesn't really have a good chance of getting elected... I mean' it's not a practical vote.
[Mr. Donovan] Yeah, it's much clearer when you have two people. There's a long moral theology tradition that you can find that you can find in any collections of moral theologians over the decades, centuries even, that you can chose or you ought to choose the lesser of two evils. Whatever will serve the common good.
[Casey] Right, kinda like the principle of double effect idea.
[Mr. Donovan] Essentially, I mean, what you are are doing is you are choosing them for the good effect that you are at minimum preventing a worse candidate from getting in there, even though you are not embracing some of their positions, and you are only tolerating them. This has been wrongly, very wrongly, interpreted as you can vote for a pro-abortion candidate if the alternative is somebody who has some other things that are contrary to Catholic teaching. And that's the whole debate of course between the whole Bush-Gore, Bush-Obama debate was, well. If you think the war is unjust, do you have a right to say, well I want to vote for Obama, or for Gore or whoever it is, because they are not pro-war, even though they are pro-abortion. When you stack up the positions, what is intrinsically evil versus what is a political judgment, there really was no debate, reasonably, although some attempted to say that there was. So when you have two candidates it's pretty, I think you usually have a clear choice, if you look at the critical issues of those who support intrinsic evils, such as stem-cell research, abortion, and homosexual marriage and so on, versus those who may on prudential judgments you disagree with them. And that's often the case.
Now when you have three, I think most theologians and the bishops even who have spoken on it, are prepared to give some latitude to people to say that, sure you do not want to be responsible for bad candidate #1 getting in because you vote for good candidate #3. Now you can certainly, very easily see the argument, well if I vote for the straight-line pro-life candidate, then the worse of the two other candidates will get in. And do you want to be morally responsible for that? I think that has got to weigh on the consciences of people. But most theologians and the bishops who I have mentioned do, at least I think, understand that for some people they simply cannot swallow hard enough to vote for either 1 or 2, and they want to vote for the third.
So I don't think there is any, I think that they, a voter, a Catholic voter should seriously think of abandoning an electable candidate, weaknesses he may have, in favor of the lily-pure candidate, such as they think he is, or she, even though that candidate has no chance being elected. Because after all, politics is a practical thing. It's not meant to, we're not going to set up paradise on earth after all.
[Casey] Utopia doesn't exist.
[Mr. Donovan] Yes, you're not gonna have have Utopia. The one bad thing Thomas More wrote, probably, was about utopia.
(This begins at about the 23:25 mark in the program.)
By the way, St. Thomas More actually is the patron saint of statesmen and politicans.
So it would appear that Mr. Donovan endorse the position that one should vote for the lesser of two evils, in order to prevent the worse candidate from winning. It is almost like a form of consequentialism that attributes to the external act no moral status. It is not clear to me whether Mr. Donovan actually has an opinion about whether the act of voting is instrinsically moral or not. But since it deals with others or the community, it pertains either to particular justice or general justice, or both. Which is it? I doubt that moral theologians have talked about voting for more than several centuries, since mass democracy is relatively recent. As for the bishops... I'd have to see an actual statement or two in order to know what they are actually saying with respect to voting.
At least he did not use the saying "Politics as the art of the possible," to justify this position. The saying is usually understood as being applicable to legislators, or to the different branches/officers of government, who must compromise with one another, not to voters, who participate in politics only in so far as they choose those who are to serve in office, but no more.
People generally select candidates based solely on issues and what they promise to do in office (along with experience and reputation), rather than actual knowledge of their character. Is this the same as thinking that government should reflect the will of the people? Do people see voting as a delegation of authority, rather than selecting (or endorsing) someone who is qualified to rule?
Regarding the comment about consciences: Who is responsible for bad legislation? Those who have the power to enact legislation, the legislators. Not the voters. Who is responsible for getting bad people into office? Not those who refrain from voting (because their vote won't make a difference), or vote for a third-party candidate instead of the candidate from the other part of the duopoly. Rather, only those who vote for those bad candidates are responsible. (Mr. Donovan is not taking this position, that voters who "enable" bad candidates to take office because they do not vote for the competitor who is not so bad are somehow morally culpable of putting them in office, but a committed consequentialist would make this argument.)
Aristotle discusses who is qualified to rule in his Politics. I believe that he claims that the
is a question of justice. Although he does not explicitly say it belongs to that justice involved with distributions, I believe that distributive justice is involved because the good involved is common, namely that of rulilng the community, and this is to be apportioned to one, a few, or many. Who should rule, according to Aristotle? The virtuous -- only they have a just claim to hold office.
If this is the case, then isn't one bound in distributive justice to vote only for those who are qualified for office? To give office to someone who is not qualified (lacks virtue) is counter to distributive justice and facilitates a bad regime coming into existence. If it is intrinsically unjust to vote for someone who is not qualified for office, even if he is not as bad as another candidate, then even if we can bring about a "better" outcome by electing him, it is still wrong. ("The ends do not justify the means.") Aristotle's virtue is not just right belief (or having the right platform), or even the science of politics -- it is complete set of virtues, all of which are interconnected through reason.
If someone endorses the wrong positions, or defends the wrong ends, does that give us enough of an indication as to what his personal character is like? We would be mistaken to think that someone who is "sincere" in his beliefs cannot be vicious. But how do we evaluate a politician who rejects traditional morality as being binding on all and foundational to society, but does not appear to personally act against it?
If we are unable to become acquainted enough with a candidate to know his character because of the size of our polity, should we be voting for him? Rather, we should see if there is an intrinsic problem with the political economy because of its size. If the only candidates who can possibly win are those who lack virtue, or are merely the tools of the rich and powerful, then let us not pretend that we live in a polity or a republic -- we are living in an oligarchy, and our votes do not matter much to begin with.
(Would Aristotle explain that it is beneficial for the many in a polity to be able to select those who hold office because in this case the judgment of the many is better than the judgment of a few?)
If all we have is a knowledge of where a person stands on various issues, perhaps that might suffice, given the current circumstances, to warrant a vote. But it is definitely not ideal.
Participating in electoral politics in a bad regime will probably not change the bad regime, because all regimes seek their own preservation, and thus the system is set up accordingly . (Which is not to say that the virtuous man should disobey them.) If there is to be positive change, it must be accomplished through other means.
Notes:
As voters, is our concern with backing someone who is most likely to bring about the common good? Or do we need to focus on determining who is virtuous? What is the nature of our obligation to promote the common good relative to participating in elections?
Instead of expecting a definite plan of action, should we be satisfied that a candidate knows what goods to secure for the community? Should we trust the virtuous man to compromise in the right way, rather than the unknown man who promises to bring about the legislative changes you want?
A reminder that an atomistic community is no community at all:
This is obvious; for suppose distinct places, such as Corinth and Megara, to be brought together so that their walls touched, still they would not be one city, not even if the citizens had the right to intermarry, which is one of the rights peculiarly characteristic of states. Again, if men dwelt at a distance from one another, but not so far off as to have no intercourse, and there were laws among them that they should not wrong each other in their exchanges, neither would this be a state. Let us suppose that one man is a carpenter, another a husbandman, another a shoemaker, and so on, and that their number is ten thousand: nevertheless, if they have nothing in common but exchange, alliance, and the like, that would not constitute a state. Why is this? Surely not because they are at a distance from one another: for even supposing that such a community were to meet in one place, but that each man had a house of his own, which was in a manner his state, and that they made alliance with one another, but only against evil-doers; still an accurate thinker would not deem this to be a state, if their intercourse with one another was of the same character after as before their union. It is clear then that a state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange. These are conditions without which a state cannot exist; but all of them together do not constitute a state, which is a community of families and aggregations of families in well-being, for the sake of a perfect and self-sufficing life. Such a community can only be established among those who live in the same place and intermarry. Hence arise in cities family connections, brotherhoods, common sacrifices, amusements which draw men together. But these are created by friendship, for the will to live together is friendship. The end of the state is the good life, and these are the means towards it. And the state is the union of families and villages in a perfect and self-sufficing life, by which we mean a happy and honorable life. (Politics, III.3)
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