helena.handbasket on Nostr: I'm not telling you what to do, but when people tell me that Biden is so awful they ...

I'm not telling you what to do, but when people tell me that Biden is so awful they could never vote for him it kind of makes me think of the trolley problem. The point of that, I think, is that while pulling the level results in 1 death rather than 5, but you have to take an action and do something bad (kill one person) so that 5 people don't die. Again, I'm not actually telling you what to do, I'm not smart enough to do that, but I think both ideas are premised on the notion that only actions themselves can be moral or immoral while just allowing something to happen is value neutral or something, that inaction can't be immoral or something. Which strikes me as odd, the choice to not do something is still a choice you made.

I just mean not pulling the lever is also an act in that sense, it's the end point of a choice you made. The idea that chosing to pull the lever makes you responsible for the circumstances you didn't create while choosing not to pull the lever means you are no longer responsible for that choice seems silly.

I'm just saying that the argument against pulling the lever comes from Kant and he explicitly says that you have to tell a murderer who wants to kill your mother where she is, morally, because lying is always wrong in all cases.

Kant sucks so hard, I am not telling you what to do, but a vote for Biden is probably a vote for one dead person instead of 5 idk