We're All "Values Voters"

Although I couldn't disagree more when he claims that , "[Hillary Clinton and John McCain, t]he two front-runners for the 2008 presidential nominations are studies in contrasts," I like the main point of this editorial by George Will on the sloppily-used term "values voter".

An aggressively annoying new phrase in America's political lexicon is "values voters." It is used proudly by social conservatives, and carelessly by the media to denote such conservatives.

This phrase diminishes our understanding of politics. It also is arrogant on the part of social conservatives and insulting to everyone else because it implies that only social conservatives vote to advance their values, and everyone else votes to ... well, it is unclear what they supposedly think they are doing with their ballots.

...

It is odd that some conservatives are eager to promote the semantic vanity of the phrase "values voters." And it is odder still that the media are cooperating with those conservatives.

On the part of the leftist MSM, this usage both cedes the concept of morality to the religious and damns it as irrelevant. Most importantly, it implicitly assumes that morality cannot be discovered by means of reason.

While it was odd to see this mistake made both ways at once, most people make the mistake in one way or the other, depending on what part of their lives they are thinking about at the moment, and how well they implicitly grasp some form of rational morality.

Sexual mores, for example, are frequently ceded to religion, as sexuality is poorly understood by most people. Choosing a career is, in the main, regarded as "profane" -- amoral at best in traditional moralities. Whether to steal or be honest, on the other hand, can go either way. Some remain honest mainly because of religious taboos, while others realize (to varying degrees of sophistication) that stealing can have bad consequences, from getting caught -- or at least having to weave a web of lies to avoid getting caught -- all the way to psychological damage to one's sense of efficacy and self-worth.

In fact, neither those who feel that religion has a monopoly on morality or that morality is unimportant to one's life are correct. If morality is a guide to action, then its relevance lies in how it can improve one's (own) life.

But to see this relevance, one must ask what, exactly his own life is, and what he must do to live it properly.

Morality is no place for fairy-tales, nor is it merely the stuff of fairy tales.

-- CAV

P.S. On re-reading this, I noticed that I discussed the idea that morality is relevant only to some parts of life as if it is solely a problem of religious people. It is not. As George Will's essay says, many different value systems exist out there.

Almost all of these value systems are altruistic, or based upon service to others. As such, they make it impossible to live if they are followed consistently, which means that most people, religious or not, "cheat" on their own moral codes simply to live. The areas in which they "cheat" may indeed fall under their moral codes, yet they blank that fact out, or these areas may in fact not be covered. Or, after a lifetime of evading the consequences of a moral code they have taught themselves not to question, it could be that someone has developed evasion into such a habit that he is actually unable to think clearly about such issues without a great deal of effort.

If morality can be discovered by reason, then surely it is moral to think clearly about philosophical issues. For those who have crippled themselves instead, such are the wages of sin!