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What do you think about the concept of lesser evil? (i.e. when faced with selecting from two immoral options, the less immoral one should be chosen.) (thelemmy.club)

submitted 1 month ago by Bidah@thelemmy.club to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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[–] Andrzej3K@hexbear.net 12 points 1 month ago

It's often used misleadingly. For example, in an election in a de facto two-party system, it's often said that you should vote for 'the lesser evil', but this presumes that your vote will decide the result of the election, which it clearly won't. Thinking e.g. "the Dems winning would be the lesser evil compared to the Republicans winning, and I'm voting third party (or spoiling or even abstaining)" is therefore entirely coherent imho.

I would like to see it used more to describe political situations outside of the West tbh. When we talk about x regime, it should always be 'compared to what'. But of course, no-one cares about 'lesser evils' in this context, which I think says a lot.