Satan's Razor

*In case you've never seen all of
Star Wars, read about Palpatine here.

     In regards to voting, Catholics are taught that there are some policies which we just cannot reconcile with the common good, and so we cannot in good conscience vote for a candidate who supports those policies.  The policy that probably comes to your mind first is abortion.  In general, the Democratic Party in the U.S. is supportive of legalized abortion.  The Republican Party, in general, opposes laws which permit abortion.  No matter what other policies these two parties support, abortion just cannot be ignored when it comes time to cast your ballot.  It seems that, as a Catholic who regards all fetuses as human individuals, the decision is a no-brainer:  The common good is drastically opposed to the Democratic Party simply by that one token.  Yet, there is a grave problem in concluding that, therefore, one must vote Republican.  This strikes me as utterly narrow-minded and reminds me of the Jedi Council rallying the clone army under Chancellor Palpatine.*  It’s a trap.

     There is a fallacy named the “false dichotomy” whose definition helps us to understand the conundrum of which I speak.  A false dichotomy is a presentation of two points of view as if they were the only options, whereas others are available.  For example, “If you’re not a conservative, you’re a liberal” is a false dichotomy.  This only begins to express the whole problem of choosing a Republican over a Democrat. 

Who would you vote for?
Sure Lex Luthor is a bad guy, but he's great compared to Galactus!

     By now, you might be thinking “he’s alluding to third party candidates, but he might as well just not vote.”  It is sad but true, that to vote for somebody who is neither a Republican nor a Democrat is probably to throw one’s ballot into a three percent margin.  It seems that third party voters might as well stay home on Election Day.  My point here, though, is not a pragmatic one.  It is a moral one.  Catholics are not Utilitarians by principle; the consequences of an action do not make it good.  In fact, the principle by which most conscientious voters operate is to “choose the lesser of two evils,” in which case many consequences of the action would still be bad, just not as bad as the alternative.  Cut your losses, so to speak.

     But less evil is still evil.  Also, voting for a third party who would very likely not succeed is not equivalent to staying home and refusing to vote.  That is, action is still action, regardless of your success.  Is it better to try for the best possible option and fail or to compromise and succeed in securing evil?  If you still do not see how Republicans could be so bad, compared to everything Democrats stand for, have you ever considered the accusations against Republicans made by Democrats?  Have you ever considered that they might be true, regardless of the source’s own problems?  You might be thinking, “Sure, the GOP has its problems, but they’re not nearly as messed up as the Liberals’.”  This may be true, but it leads me to my main point.

     Here, I will define a fallacy which is based on the false dichotomy.  It is called “Satan’s Razor” and it is the mechanism by which a false dichotomy is created between two evils so that one is made to look good in contrast to the other.  Consider, for example, Communist Russia vs. Nazi Germany, using condoms vs. spreading HIV, or Godzilla vs. King Kong.  It is an insidious and clever lie to say that, because one stance is so evil, you are morally obliged to support its opposite.  The “razor” trick is ubiquitous, driving arguments from education (either feed the system or go stupid) to environmentalism (either abuse nature or don’t touch it).  As soon as you decide to support one side against the other, you have fallen into the trap.

     The morally conscious person is thoughtful with his principles and careful in his decisions.  Evil is nothing more than a defect; a flaw in something otherwise good.  The world is not a duality, a struggle between good and evil.  It is altogether good yet defective.  Instead of trying to fix one defect by increasing another, step back and think about what is really good and choose that.  If your efforts at a solution fail, at least you know that you did not contribute to the problem.