Tully Borland begins his piece, “Why Alabamians Should Vote For Roy Moore,” with the following claim:
“I have a 14-year-old daughter. If I caught Roy Moore doing what was alleged, for starters I would kick him where it counts. That said, I don’t think it’s wrong to vote for Moore.”
Not only is it not wrong to vote for Moore, but Borland apparently believes that they ought to vote for Moore.
Borland and I have a few things in common. We are both philosophy professors. We are both professing Christians. We are both pro-life. And we are both realists about the character of politics and many politicians. However, even with this common ground, I strongly disagree with his claim that Alabamians ought to vote for Moore. The argument offered by Tully Borland for this view is deeply flawed.
First, he notes that older men marrying much younger women was common practice at the time in this part of the country. In fact, Borland contends that men who want to have large families will likely need to marry young women, for a couple of reasons. First, the woman will need to start having children at a fairly young age in order have a large family. Second, the man will need to have enough financially stability so that he can support the family. This will tend to require that he be older.
But is this true? A woman can have a large family even if she starts when she’s 21. Let's conservatively assume a child is born every 1.5 - 2 years. Our 21 year-old woman could give birth to quite a large number of children during her child-bearing years. So the claim that she needs to start as a teenager in order to have a large family is false. And a growing family can be supported on a husband’s income, even what he makes in his twenties. If we assume his income grows as the family grows, there will not be a problem. If he can't support his family, and he and his wife choose to live on one income, then it is at least unwise and perhaps even wrong to have a large family.
But consider the main point of Borland’s article, in which he assumes for the sake of argument that Moore is guilty:
“But let’s suppose the accusations are mostly true. Then from a conservative moral perspective, Moore is guilty of lying, trying to have pre-marital sexual relations with girls half his age, and pressuring them to do so without first determining that they reciprocate. There is no sugar-coating what he did. Moore was a dirt bag and is currently lying about his actions rather than confessing the truth and asking for forgiveness.”
Borland claims nevertheless that it is not wrong, and that it is perhaps morally obligatory, to vote for Moore. Let’s consider the reasons he gives for this conclusion.
First, he argues that one can maintain one’s integrity while voting for the lesser of two evils. If we never voted for a lesser evil we’d never vote for anyone. Given a Christian understanding of human nature, I agree with Borland. Human beings are flawed, fallible, and in Christian terms, sinful. We can maintain our integrity by voting for the lesser of two evils. But is this always the case? What could a Republican pro-life candidate do to disqualify him or her from office? Anything? Is anything or anyone beyond the pale?
Why think that Roy Moore is the lesser of two evils? According to Borland, it is because Moore’s opponent, Doug Jones, is either a “moral monster” or “moral ignoramus.” Jones is one of these because he supports unrestricted abortion. According to Borland, Jones either knows that killing infants in the womb is murder, and doesn’t care, or he doesn’t know. If he doesn't know, then his deeply flawed moral compass disqualifies him from being morally trustworthy enough to hold political office. Moreover, according to Borland it is not likely that Moore is still attempting to have sex with teenage girls. Jones, however, currently supports unrestricted abortion. So Moore’s transgressions in this area of life are in the past, but Jones’s remain today. Hence, Moore is the lesser of two evils.
The problem here is that Borland’s argument is an example of a logical fallacy, the fallacy of the false dilemma. There is at least one more option beyond Jones knows that abortion is murder and doesn’t care or Jones has a deeply flawed moral compass as his support of abortion indicates. This further possibility is that Jones is a morally decent human being, with a sufficiently functional moral compass, who is deeply mistaken about the moral status of the fetus.
I am pro-life because I think that the best philosophical arguments support the claim that the fetus possesses a right to life. However, there are intelligent people of good will with sound moral character who disagree. Some disagree on the basis of sophisticated and in many ways challenging philosophical arguments. I know many such people. And I’d rather have them in office than Roy Moore.
Finally, Borland makes the claim that politics is never pure. True enough. However, his more specific diagnosis is that the
“argument against voting for Moore (or Trump) rests on the mistaken view that in voting one is expressing one’s faith or moral convictions in their totality—identifying oneself with everything about a candidate.”
This is simply false. Perhaps people do identify with candidates in this way. I suspect some do. But a sound argument against voting for Moore (and Trump) does not rest on this. It rests on the belief that a person who has done the things that these men have done—which Borland grants in Moore’s case for the sake of argument—is not a morally decent person. And those who lack basic moral decency should not hold public office.
Borland believes that Moore will do less harm to the nation, if elected, than Jones, given their respective views about public policy. Because of this, he believes that there is nothing wrong (and much right) with voting for Moore. But the arguments he gives do not give sufficient support for this conclusion. If that is the reason, give the arguments related to policy. And if you think that Roy Moore being elected as Alabama's new senator will result in a change in abortion law, then you haven't been paying attention for the last 37 years.