A Voter's Method?

[BurgessLau]

Objectivists live in an archipelago of semi-free republics around the world. We face many common problems. One underlies the debate over Bush vs. Kerry:

What method should a rational person use to vote for one politician rather than another?

Why is having a method important? Because any conclusion reached without a method -- implicit or explicit -- cannot be objective, that is, cannot have a logical relationship to reality. Reaching conclusions without methods is intuitionism, not objectivity.

Ayn Rand characterizes methods as products of consciousness, products that "designate systematic courses of action devised by men for the purpose of achieving certain goals." She notes that a method may be purely psychological (as in a method of memorizing a password) or a mixture of psychological and physical actions (as in a method of drilling for oil).

(For Ayn Rand's brief comments on method, see: _Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology_, 2nd ed., pp. 35-36 and 304-305. The password example is mine; the oil-drilling example comes from Ayn Rand.)

For example, for anyone who has selected a candidate in the upcoming U. S. presidential election: What general method led you to your decision?

If your method has, say three main steps, how, in particular, did you decide where to start? The candidates' philosophies, your highest personal value, the effect of a candidate on the country overall for the next generation, or what?

In conclusion, what I am asking for is a process abstract enough to apply to any election.

If that is not possible, then why not?

[argive99]

Burgess, this is an excellent question. I too am searching for a method of reaching a conclusion about voting for this year's elections. I have nothing to offer right now as for a conceptual methodology. All I can say is that after reading Jack Wakeland's posts, I feel that a measuring standard is neccessary. But it needs to be a reasonable standard given the culture. For example, comparing Bush (or Kerry) to what an Objectivist would do is unrealistic. Perhaps making a list of the best possible situations for the major political issues; ie taxation, regulation, legal, civil/personal rights, military, etc and then assess which candidate offers the better alternative on each; and then possibly make a weighted average.

Its alot of work, but this is a war time election. Alot is at stake.

[Charles]

In order for your method to be rational, it must take into account the specifics of the election in question. What is difficult is taking into account the factors when either choice is far from perfect, as are all minority parties. The fact that many objectivists disagree over the US election 2004 demonstrates this; either that, or they haven't made their choice on rational grounds.

I am British, and personally I am having great difficultly choosing who to vote for, if at all. I am thinking there is a lot to be said for voting on local issues when general policy is so similar/transparent.

An important question though.

[BurgessLau]

"I am thinking there is a lot to be said for voting on local issues when general policy is so similar/transparent."

This raises an important point for discussion. Should the method for selecting a politician (or "ballot measure," a proposed law, we call it here in Oregon, USA) be any different for a local election than it is for a regional or national election?

In my limited thinking, so far, I don't see any essential difference. Can you suggest one?

Remember, I am asking for a general method, one applicable to a wide range of elections not just to a particular election at a particular time.

Thanks for your comments. Discussion and debate among rational people does advance participants' knowledge.

P. S. -- Have you ever noticed that asking people for the method they used in their thinking to reach a certain conclusion puts a damper on discussion? I first learned that when my then six year old son began asking me "How do you do that?" questions.

[MisterSwig]

What method should a rational person use to vote for one politician rather than another?

I suggest asking yourself the following questions:

1. What would be an ideal government?

2. In our present situation, what is the ideal path to the ideal government?

3. Which candidate represents the biggest step forward or the smallest step backward on the ideal path to the ideal government?

That is about as abstract a method as I can come up with.

[BurgessLau]

I suggest asking yourself the following questions:

1. What would be an ideal government?

2. In our present situation, what is the ideal path to the ideal government?

3. Which candidate represents the biggest step forward or the smallest step backward on the ideal path to the ideal government?

That is about as abstract a method as I can come up with.

I see two big benefits of your concise, crow-friendly, and hierarchical method. First, with step 1, it is rooted in philosophy (the politics branch). Second, it moves successively from philosophy (step 1) to strategy (step 2) to tactics (step 3) -- a natural progression of zooming-in on the particulars of one election, while retaining a wider context.

Thank you.

[BurgessLau]

I suggest asking yourself the following questions:

1. What would be an ideal government?

2. In our present situation, what is the ideal path to the ideal government?

3. Which candidate represents the biggest step forward or the smallest step backward on the ideal path to the ideal government?

On further consideration of your excellent suggestion, I would add one element to my earlier summary of your zoom-in (general to specific) method: philosophical, IDEOLOGICAL, strategic, tactical.

Your step 1 invokes the appropriate principle from philosophy (that is, the science that applies to everyone, everywhere, and at all times).

In step 2, your context-setting phrase, "In our present situation," invokes ideology (philosophy applied to a milieu) as a context. Your step 2 main point asks for strategy, which is a general plan for changing one's milieu politically and socially.

Your step 3 invokes tactics (strategy applied to a particular situation).

In summary, a decision to vote for X or Y must fit the tactics resting on a strategy appropriate to an ideology derived from one's philosophy.

Again, thank you for your insight. I suspect it will be valuable to me far beyond the question of voting. It is a method that zooms in on a problem while retaining context at successive levels of specialization. My mnemonic metaphor for the procedure is an archer's target of successively smaller circles.

[MisterSwig]

Again, thank you for your insight. I suspect it will be valuable to me far beyond the question of voting. It is a method that zooms in on a problem while retaining context at successive levels of specialization. My mnemonic metaphor for the procedure is an archer's target of successively smaller circles.

You're welcome. I'm glad you found it useful.

[Yes]

A voter's method:

List those issues that you think are most important to YOU.

List also your position regarding such issues.

Then go down the list and find out which candidate is most compatible to those issues most important to you.

Do this for each and every candidate who is running on your hometown ballot this fall.

[BurgessLau]

A voter's method:

List those issues that you think are most important to YOU.

List also your position regarding such issues.

Then go down the list and find out which candidate is most compatible to those issues most important to you.

Do this for each and every candidate who is running on your hometown ballot this fall.

I am not sure I understand. Could you give me an example list for one political position -- for example, your list for the election of the president of the U. S., if you are a U. S. citizen?

[MisterSwig]

List those issues that you think are most important to YOU.

How do you know which issues are important in any given election? And how do you know which issues are most important to you?

Do you have a standard for judging the importance of particular issues?

[Zeus]

I don't know if this will help at all, since it's not new information to students of Objectivism or Objectivists. There's an article by Ayn Rand in "The Objectivist Newsletter" of March 1964, titled, "How to Judge a Political Candidate."

She says that one can only judge a candidate by his commitment to the protection of individual freedom. In the article, she contrasts Gov. Rockefeller and Sen. Goldwater, who were then competing for the Republican party's presidential nomination.

[Yes]

I don't know if this will help at all, since it's not new information to students of Objectivism or Objectivists.  There's an article by Ayn Rand in "The Objectivist Newsletter" of March 1964, titled, "How to Judge a Political Candidate."

She says that one can only judge a candidate by his commitment to the protection of individual freedom.  In the article, she contrasts Gov. Rockefeller and Sen. Goldwater, who were then competing for the Republican party's presidential nomination.

Hopefully, this answers Swig's, BurgessLau's, and others' questions.

Judging a candidate by his commitment to the protection of individual freedom is the highest standard, in my opinion.

[MinorityOfOne]

Hopefully, this answers Swig's, BurgessLau's, and others' questions.

Judging a candidate by his commitment to the protection of individual freedom is the highest standard, in my opinion.

When dealing with a presidential candidate, I don't think you can consider just the platform. Even putting aside the dishonesty which is often involved in campaign promises, you have to be more conceptual about it: you're electing the person for years, not weeks. Because of that, I think the commitment part is key, and that's part of why I think I'll be voting (very reluctantly) for Bush. Bush, at least, is committed to *some* aspects of individual freedom. Kerry isn't committed to anything.

[Yes]

When dealing with a presidential candidate, I don't think you can consider just the platform.

Why not? The platform is what the candidate is trying to promote.

  Even putting aside the dishonesty which is often involved in campaign promises, you have to be more conceptual about it: you're electing the person for years, not weeks.  Because of that, I think the commitment part is key.....

So you admit you think a candidate should be committed to a platform.

What we have been discussing is "by what standard?"

The commitment to individual rights is the highest standard. To that, one has to consider not only the platform, but also, specifically in the case of Bush, his past performance as President.

[MinorityOfOne]

So you admit you think a candidate should be committed to a platform.

What we have been discussing is "by what standard?"

The commitment to individual rights is the highest standard.  To that, one has to consider not only the platform, but also, specifically in the case of Bush, his  past performance as President.

That's why I said the emphasis has to be on the commitment to principles. During an electoral season, the focus tends to be on a few particular issues. Even, as I said before, putting aside whether the candidates can be trusted re: their stated positions on those issues, those issues will not be the only ones which will come up during their period in office. In fact, often, they won't even be the major ones. New situations will arise, new proposals will be pushed forth, new issues will come to the forefront. If you look only at the concretes in a platform, you're missing out on a lot of important factors that should be taken into account.

A candidate can't be expected to know every issue that could possibly arise, much less to set forth positions on them. Nor can you do some "cost/benefit analysis" on them, since you don't know what they are. That's why I think that evaluation of candidates has to be at the level of principles rather than particulars. Though I think Dr. Peikoff is wrong about Bush, his approach is right.

Since Peikoff hasn't really publicly explained the DIM theory in detail, here's a more simplified way to look at it. There are two issues involved, in essence. How good are a candidate's principles, and how committed is he to them?

What makes this election difficult to think about, for me, is that it's in many respects quite different from other elections. Generally, there's not that much difference in how committed to their principles the candidates are, and the issue really comes down to *what* their principles are. But in this election, we have a guy who is at least somewhat committed to a mixed bag of principles running against a guy who hardly has ANY principles. So there are two factors to weigh against each other: the quality of the principles, and the commitment to them. I'm not sure by what standard they ought to be weighed, which is why I do find Peikoff's argument interesting. (And I'm sure he has more ideas about this, since it'll be the topic of his book.)

If anyone here took Peikoff's course and has any insights, or just has any insights, I'd love to hear them.

[BurgessLau]

First, thanks to Jack Wakeland, Robert Tracinski, and the pseudonymous "Mr. Swig" for your suggestions about a voter's method.

Following is my updated voter's method, compiled from memory of my various sources, to the extent that I agreed with them. It is not a recipe, but rather an initial listing of steps to take roughly in order from most general to most particular. The various terms have been explained earlier in this thread.

For the sake of simplicity, I have written this skeletal list as focusing on the 2004 U. S. Presidential election. With adaptation, it should apply to other offices and countries.

METHOD

1. Review the principles of my political philosophy as fundamental guides to political action.

2. Review the key elements of my current ideology as a diagnosis of my milieu.

3. Review the key elements of the Objectivist movement's strategic plan for improving my milieu.

4. Review the key elements of the Objectivist movement's tactical plan for the place and time in which I live.

5. Evaluate the stated and actual philosophy of the leading candidates.

6. Evaluate the psychology of the leading candidates.

7. Evaluate the moral character of the leading candidates -- honest or not?

8. Review the issues for which the candidates are seeking a "mandate" -- and will thus try hard to put into effect -- if elected.

8. Review the principles of political science that apply to the contested office -- for example, noting that in a free republic with a congressional system the two leading candidates necessarily reflect the basic principles and self-contradictions of the electorate and neither candidate will be perfect.

9. Review the nature -- the powers and limitations -- of the office, to see what damage or contributions the candidates might enact if they wanted to.

10. Using a formula unknown to me, and in full context of both my political goals and the circumstances today (including any supposedly overriding issue), somehow evaluate all I know about the candidates, and decide which will bring the most good or cause the least damage.

CONCLUSION

After reviewing this list, I realize that I do not know enough to make a decision with certainty or even probability. There are too many factors to consider without a formula. In some cases -- such as strategic and tactical plans -- they are missing altogether. In other cases, such as what is actually happening in the world today (particularly in Iraq), I have doubts about the validity of my sources of information.

This situation raises another question: Will making the wrong decision be worse than making no decision at all? The latter is always an option (1) when I don't have enough information to decide, (2) when no decision is required, or (3) when the differential effect of my decision either way is negligible.

I am in all three situations. I lack too much information (and I am unwilling to invest hundreds of more hours into this process); there is no necessity for me to act; and the effect of my single vote in a vast Electoral College system is negligible.

So, I am back where I started nine months ago: Seriously considering not voting for either candidate.

Objections? Fire away! I always learn something from discussion and debate, and this is a productive one.

[Colonel Rebel]

to me it is quite the simple question based on which is worse: is it God that rules over men, or is it the State? Granted, my vote ultimately comes down to foreign policy issues, but for those who are not as versed in foreign policy as I, i find that regarding philosophy matters, this is the choice. To me, i'd rather have "God" be in control of my life than the "State". This also brings metaphysical questions of which has more power (realisticaly speaking) over me.

Not voting, to me, would seem to take an approach that says "i'll go with whatever the electorate picks...thus a movement towards 'we' and not 'I'." That's my opinion...I could be wrong...

For me, it's a vote towards capitalism versus a vote towards socialism.

[Socionomer]

The reality seems to be that whatever rational methods Objectivists and objectivists are using to decide how to vote are leading them to different ends of the political spectrum. I have yet to hear of any "big" or "little" Os coming out for green or socialist party candidates but I suspect that it is just a matter of time for that too.

I get the sense that if Rand had lived earlier and made her philosophical contributions prior to the Civil War, we would have had Objectivist camps on the sides of both the North and the South. Both would have satisfied themselves that the methods used in making their choices were rational and both would have thus commenced to blowing each other's brains out (in a perfectly "rational" manner).

I think Ayn Rand used the best method. I don't know what it was, but it led her to decide NOT to vote. I think I'll follow her example until a worthy candidate comes along that deserves the support of a rational vote.

When we find Objectivists supporting candidates with such opposing views on almost ALL isues then how long will it be before such disparate results of supposed rational methodologies lead to more serious conflict between future Objectivists during more dire periods of great national upheaval (possibly even rivaling what occured during the Civil War)?

[BurgessLau]

    I think Ayn Rand used the best method.  I don't know what it was, but it led her to decide NOT to vote. 

What is your evidence for this conclusion -- that Ayn Rand chose not to vote?

Where did she say that?

[Socionomer]

Betsy mentioned it in post #88 in the "Peikof for Kerry" thread under the Current Events section. I also recall reading somewhere in "Letters of Ayn Rand" her mentioning the decision not to vote as a legitimate choice under certain circumstances. I do not assert that Ayn Rand never voted.

I fully support your attempt to develop a more reliable rational method for Objectivists to use in making their ultimate decision on who to vote for. But, I believe that whatever method we come up with will lead us to make the only proper choice on who to vote for; an Objectivist candidate. The problem is that Objectivists do not have a political party of their own, founded on the proper philosophical principles and premises.

Until Objectivists unite under a political party of their own, they will continue to remain politically divided as they grope around for "rational" reasons to choose between the poor choices we have available today. A frustrating state of affairs.

[BurgessLau]

Until Objectivists unite under a political party of their own, they will continue to remain politically divided as they grope around for "rational" reasons to choose between the poor choices we have available today.  A frustrating state of affairs.

Thanks for the leads.

Why do you put the word rational in quotes? Are you implying that one or the other side in a debate among Objectivists isn't rational?

If so, perhaps you should review the meaning of rationality. Rational does not mean correct. Rationality refers to a process, an action, not to a result. Two individuals can be fully rational and disagree because they start with different facts, make different assumptions, make an error in logic, or use different methods. Ignorance and errors are always pitfalls, on the short-term, even for fully rational people; and developing appropriate methods is a long process.

The term "objective" better labels the results of rationality. In other words, is the debated idea logically traceable back to sense-perception of objects in reality?

However, the terms rationality and objectivity are often used -- improperly, I think -- as synonyms, so one must ask the speaker what he means.

Tara Smith's audiotaped discussions of Rationality and Objectivity are a good place to start in thinking about these two related but distinct concepts.

P. S. -- You are right that the current voting situation is frustrating, at least for those who care about proper methods. Intuitionists don't feel frustration because they "go" with whatever pops out of their subconscious without cross-examination. In my experience, such people become angry when asked for their method.

[Socionomer]

I should have capitalized the word rational instead of using quotes since my intent was merely to add emphasis. My mistake. I merely desired to illustrate that even our best efforts to exercise our rational faculties in order to obtain the logical and objective results we desire can lead to situations where Objectivists are pitted against each other if they limit their choices solely to what exists under the political system as it exists today. There may come a time when such decisions have life or death consequences in future circumstances of extreme social discord or civil strife, like during the Civil War. I hope such events do not occur during my lifetime.

The ideal social construct may never be achievable even if Objectivists were to form their own party, and despite their most heroic efforts. But the ideal society IS impossible with the existing political parties. Objectivist votes and efforts divided between today's political parties are counterproductive, no matter how objectively such support was determined.

Objectivists living under regimes that forbid opposition parties and free speech don't have much of a choice. Those living in countries like the USA can challenge the political status quo. Unfortunately the choice has been not to.