Yet More Political Justice

Happily, the Presidential election is now over, as you all no doubt know, with President Obama being re-elected for a second term. Another triumph of democracy for those who are a Democrat, and a disappointing failure of the people for those who are a Republican, this election is, if nothing else, an interesting example of democratic procedures in this country. Philosophically this election raises a few interesting questions, such as how far a candidate should go to win election and what are the influences on the election and are they balanced?

In regards to the first question, the main thing that concerns me is the accuracy of the information presented. With the advent of the Internet, there are many sites dedicated to discovering whether what politicians say is the truth or not. While these politicians could justify their position in any number of ways, the most effective would probably be that they are using whatever means they possess to win, and thus accomplish the greater good. The problem with this is that our electoral system places the responsibility for the objective assessment of what is the greater good on the people, and those people cannot make good decisions if the information they base those decisions on is false. Of all the philosophies we have studied, would any of them approve or justify this? The only ones that are really possible are utilitarianism and relativism, because both focus more on the individual perception of what is just.

The other question is whether the electoral process is adequately balanced, which is especially important in regards to Rawls’ theories. The position is theoretically open to all, but in practice is limited to only certain people and groups. For example, those who have money are much more likely to win. What is even worse than this, however, is the political parties who essentially limit the number of candidates and views. If one’s views do not line up with one of these, it is highly unlikely that one would obtain the popular support necessary to win the election. Thus, the political parties are a terrible feature that severely limits the effectiveness of our elections, mainly by vastly reducing possible interpretations of the good. Aside from the at, another great flaw of the political party system is that they do not necessarily even try to determine which candidate is best for the country, but instead settle for who they think can be elected, which is a terrible thing, for the country and its people. What do you all think?