Asklemmy

Too often this option is presented by people who are deliberately manipulating you and causing you to think that you only have the two choices which each benefit them and neither you. Always consider who is offering this choice and why. The true lesser evil here is whatever you have to do to get out of the situation where this choice is being presented to you.

It's a manipulative fallacy. Humanity has the total ability to control its destiny within what's physically possible. People presenting two options and demanding a choice of one discount every possibly out of an infinite set of possibilities except those two.

See: horse image

Depends how evil the lesser evil is. There is a point where even the less bad choice is so bad I refuse to choose at all, even if it means a worse outcome overall.

In politics for example I might vote for a party close to the centre, despite being far left myself, if it is the only tactically sound choice to prevent a fascist from being elected, but I wouldn't vote for a fascist to prevent an even worse fascist.

Its a large component of my morality. Being basically a subcomponent of ethic of least harm. I mean armchair idealized morality is great but this life don't always give you a good option.

Depends on your meta-ethical framework. If you're a consequentialist, then you should always choose the option that leads to less evil being done. Same if you're a utilitarian.

If you hold to a Kantian value-based framework, like the action itself holds the primary moral goodness or evil in its own nature, then choose the action that itself is less evil.

There are many other frameworks. It also depends on what you think happens in the case of something like voting. Some people see participation in any sense as a sort of tacit agreement or endorsement of the system as a whole. So by casting any vote, even one of protest, you are legitimizing the system as a whole.

Others see voting as a mere means to an end, and thus, is justified if the outcome is better than not voting would be. Some see it as purely neutral, like a tool that can be used for good or bad.

Still, others see it as an inherently good thing, and view abstaining from the act of voting as a moral wrong, because it is a willing act of self-sabotage of the moral interests of the greater good, or sometimes as a violation of the social contract.

There are many other positions and considerations. Basically...it's complicated.

Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos

It’s highly context dependent.

In medicine, you face this question all the time. Will a surgery do more harm than good. Can I just leave that person suffering, or should I roll the dice with this surgery? It’s a proper dilemma to ponder. How about this medication that improves the patient’s quality of life in one area, but causes some side effects that are less horrifying than the underlying condition. Sounds like a win, but is it really?

In various technical contexts, you often find yourself comparing two bad options and pick the one that is “less bad”. Neither of them are evil, good, great or even acceptable. They’re both bad, and you have to pick one so that the machine can work for a while longer until you get the real spare parts and fix it properly. For example, you may end up running a water pump at lower speed for the time being. It wears down the bearing, moves less water, consumes too much energy etc, but it’s still better than shutting the pump down for two weeks.

Not choosing is also a choice. It may or may not be the right or wrong choice.

If there really are only harmful options, for sure choose the least harm. But you have to make sure that you're not ignoring an option which involves no harm.

It's a farce.

There are never only two choices. It is impossible to actually construct a real world situation where in there are only two choices. Even in an elementary school, given a test with only on question on it and it only has two answers, you can eat the test, scribble on it, punch the computer screen, walk out, etc.

Even in prison with guards pointing guns at you and putting you in a position to do either A or B you have options.

However, the concept of lesser evil is a shallow abstraction of the real world experience of pragmatism. Amongst all of your options, what course of action leads to the most desirable outcomes?

This is a real thing. We do it all the time. People in positions of grave responsibility have to do it with consequences and constraints that are absolutely gutting. Let's say the war has already started, well, now you have to make decisions about how to avoid losing the most strategically important objectives, even if that means people dying. In fact, the strategies employed in war force decision makers into these sorts of choices as a matter of course - an opponent knows you don't want to make certain sacrifices and will therefore create pressures that trade off those sacrifices with strategic objectives. Sometimes it's not even that they believe you'll give up the strategic objectives but the delay you have when choosing will give them an advantage, or the emotional and psychological toll of being put in such situations repeatedly over a long campaign can create substantial advantages.

Lesser evil is rhetorical sophistry or mildly useful thought experiments when exploring the consequences of ethical frameworks in academia.

I mean, if you truly have no other choice, what else can you do? Can it even be considered evil at that point or just "still painful"? If I have to chop off my/someone's gangrenous leg to ensure survival, is that evil or just, you know, not ideal? It's important not to get too lost in semantics...

pick the guy who is easier to fight

A friend of mine puts it this way: "I don't vote for who's turn it is to lead the KKK either."

It's a great way to lose an election.

Thats how it is in our grayscale world

I could do it once. When the "lesser evil" decides their whole strategy is being the lesser evil and blackmail me with "if you don't vote us the big evil will come" then I grow tired and issue a big fuck you to the "lesser evil".

Its usually used by more evil evildoers trying to paint themselves as less evil than their (real or made up) opposition, while advocating for evil. I think its a desparation move by villains who got found out.

Back in the day, ex-slave Frederick Douglas had to choose between supporting a Presidential candidate who was for immediate abolition of slavery or helping a wishy-washy liberal who wouldn't come out in favor of abolition. Douglas chose to support the liberal because Douglas thought the liberal had a better chance of winning the election. Douglas had to weight the odds and decided that it was better to have a President who might listen to the abolition cause than it was to be 'moral' and lose the election.

The concept of the "lesser evil" operates as a manipulative technique, much like the neoliberal slogan "there is no alternative" (TINA). In both cases, the spectrum of alternatives is artificially narrowed to create the illusion of fewer choices than actually exist. For example, while the United States has roughly fifteen multi-state political parties, the lesser evil strategy deliberately implies there are only two.

Do not compare evils, lest you be tempted to cleave with the least of them!

--Victor Saltzpyre

(A raw line probably inspired by somebody else lol)