Consequences, Schmonsequences

Such scrupulousness in thinking about voting might reasonably be taken to be a sign of a mind with an unbalanced set of priorities. After all, you vote and you hope for the best outcome, right? Or the lesser of two evils. Your vote isn’t even going to make much of a difference anyway!

There’s certainly something to this. As far as public actions go, voting probably holds a fairly low position in terms of its importance in terms of the effect it has on the world around us. The way we treat our spouses or co-workers on a daily basis no doubt has a much greater impact both on ourselves and on the world around us.

I think this concern to avoid cooperating with evil may be a distinctly (or at least predominantly) Christian concern. Christians have always been suspicious of consequentialist ethics and have generally favored a more deontological approach. That is to say, rather than base our actions on the calculation of consequences, Christians have tended to advocate following the moral law and letting the consequences take care of themselves (or, more accurately, letting God take care of the consequences).

One consequence of consequentialism (if you’ll pardon the expression) is to call into question the distinction between acts of commission and acts of omission. In other words, if all we’re concerned about are consequences, or net utility, refraining from some action traditionally deemed evil might actually turn out to be blameworthy.

For example, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are usually justified on the grounds that they brought the war to an end, thus saving many lives and defeating Japanese imperialism. This is a clear-cut case of consequentialist reasoning. However, traditional just war theory is usually thought to forbid such actions because they involve the direct and intentional killing of civilians. So, depending on your ethical stance, the same action turns out to be either morally laudable (indeed, obligatory) or a heinous crime.

What is less frequently pointed out is that just war theory may depend on a robust sense of God’s providence. Notre Dame theologian Fr. Michael Baxter makes this point in the course of a discussion of Christian pacifism:

Most critics of pacifism contend that it is either unrealistic or irresponsible or both. But if one takes this strict understanding of just war theory, then it too can be criticized on similar grounds. Take, for example, the argument advanced by Finnis, Boyle, and Grisez in Nuclear Deterrence, Morality, and Realism…. They argue that deterrence strategy is immoral in that it entails a willingness to take innocent life, or if not, then it entails lying. But, the question arises, if we reject deterrence strategy, what are we supposed to do? Let the Soviet Union conquer the West? In the final chapter of the book, they provide an answer to such questions by offering some “concluding Christian thoughts” including a “profession of faith” in Jesus Christ whose life, death, and resurrection shows to humanity the path of righteousness and true freedom. This path requires Christians to pay many costs, and one of those costs in the context of the nuclear rivalry of the early 1980s is a sacrifice of the notion that the fate of Christianity depends on the future of the Christian West, which must not, they point out, be confused with the kingdom of God. Christians must, in other words, have faith in Divine Providence, which calls them to greater detachment from the Christian West. A similar emphasis on Divine Providence can be found in the encyclical Veritatis Splendor by Pope John Paul II, who argues that one should avoid evil no matter what the consequences, trusting that any and all consequences will be enveloped into God’s mysterious plan. This profound belief in Divine Providence is deeply rooted in Catholic tradition which holds that God is capable of bringing forth good from any kind of horrifying evil.

Christian ethicist Stanley Hauerwas likes to say that Christians have to get over the notion that it’s our job to make history come out right. That’s God’s job (and, in fact, the decisive victory has already been won in the cross of Christ). Our job is to be obedient to God’s command and leave the consequences up to him.

Of course, this flies in the face of our secular politics. Politicians do not generally (however much they may profess otherwise) take Providence into account when devising military strategy, say. To take God’s sovereignty over history seriously ends up looking like quite a radical stance. It means, at the very least, that we can never “do evil that good may result.”

I’m still not convinced that voting for President Bush or Senator Kerry counts as doing evil that good may come, but I think it’s definitely a position worth taking seriously.