2.14.2010

Priorities and Politics

When people talk about politics they prioritize. Humans have to prioritize because we are finite creatures who live in time and are not omnipotent. Priorities have an important role in political discussions, because politics is about what we ought to do and what we can reasonably do. Prioritizing moral issues does not necessarily entail the neglect of the other moral issues which are less important, as some suggest.

There are three things that play a role in our judgment of political priorities. These are, in no particular order, (1) the nature of the moral evil, (2) the quantity of the moral evil, (3) and the practicality of the stopping the moral evil. We must know what's wrong, the extent of what's wrong, and what we can reasonably do to stop it. If our political judgments lack these three features they will be obtuse and unpersuasive.

2 comments:

Henry Karlson said...

Your post is a straw man. I did not suggest prioritizing "necessarily" entails the neglect. I pointed out it should not be used as an excuse to neglect. There is a big difference.

Zach said...

You criticize others for neglect of other moral issues based on a paragraph of what they've written.

How are you not saying that prioritizing necessarily means neglect, when the only evidence you have of these persons moral concerns are a few sentences?