A distinct view held in voting is that if there are no acceptable candidates, one should abstain from voting. The argument is that one shouldn’t participate in a system that promotes evil. That is stacking the argument a little bit. To put it better, the argument is that one shouldn’t encourage grievous evil, and, by proxy, one does so when one votes for a man who supports an evil program. Of course moral theology has contemplated similar things.
There are some who would argue that unless there is no ready alternative, one should not procure heath services from a provider that performs abortions. These moralists – those who engage in moral theology – would argue that one is cooperating in evil, in some cases arguing that one is formally cooperating.* A common example would be for a person to receive a STD test from a Planned Parenthood Clinic. There is obviously nothing evil about receiving an STD test – ignoring for the moment how one acquires many STDs. Since almost any clinic can perform STD testing, moralists believe a person should do business with places that don’t otherwise engage in evil. A couple of caveats: there may be those readers who aren’t aware certain companies participate in evil or the reader may live where there aren’t ready alternatives. The first caveat falls under ignorance and therefore precludes formal cooperation. Ordinary diligence is generally all that is required in seeking to prevent ignorance. In other words, base your choices on what is commonly known.
The second caveat is where things get interesting. Take pharmacies. For all practical purposes and for most people in most places, there are no pharmacies that do not also sell condoms. Should one forgo taking his blood pressure medication over this? Certainly not. In case where there is a pharmacy that doesn’t sell these instruments of evil, one would clearly have an obligation to do business there, particularly because we are speaking of common products and common pricing. Now if that pharmacy was not in your benefit network, your obligation would be lessened. (BTW, for those parishes that do bulletin advertising, take at look at the pharmacies on there that sell condoms and the convenience stores that offer porn, etc.) But most people’s engagement with the pharmacist is relatively limited and there really aren’t ready alternatives.
Grocery stores are where we can have some good controversy. I do most of my grocery shopping (dollar-wise) 40 miles away at a 250,000 sq. ft. or so grocery store. Yes it is an employee owned company, but that is immaterial. The prices there are significantly lower than what they are at my local, Milwaukee-headquartered grocery store. Those prices in turn are cheaper than the convenience store. (If you look around, convenience stores many times have lower prices on milk and eggs though.) The mega-grocer sells inappropriate things. The supermarket also tends to sell inappropriate things. There are convenience store sized grocers that deliberately choose not to sell evil things. There are people who choose to only buy from small grocers. They do so for a variety of reasons. A significant reason is that they have a choice in what they support. If they need a certain product, the small grocer will buy it from a warehouse so the person can have it. Conversely if there is a product they don’t believe the grocer should be selling, the grocer will be more receptive to removing it. By the same token, I would have to organize a state-wide campaign to get a product removed from the mega-grocer.
There are some who would argue that things will never change unless you stop supporting the mega-grocer. Much like the bumper sticker argument of “If you don’t support abortion, don’t have one,” the retort is if I stop supporting the mega-grocer things won’t change at the mega-grocer. In fact the only thing that will change is that I will be worse off because I won’t be able to eat as well and I’ll be poorer. We could call this the monastic dilemma. One could choose to be in society taking the good with the bad and try to reform those things one is able to reform; or one can choose to cloister oneself off to the rest of the world and make a deliberately righteous society. In this coming election, if one chooses not to choose he has made a choice. One will feel the effects of the collective choice 4 years hence. If one has taken the monastic choice and rejected military service, largely isolated oneself from corporate America, has isolated himself from the public benefits of government, the choice to sit out is much easier. Given that the social institutions of the Church from the schools to the hospitals are heavily declining right now, I’m not sure the monastic choice is really choice for the common man.
* There are some who would argue that one is engaging in remote material participation in evil. The merits of the argument are dubious to me. To materially participate one must through his actions actually enable a particular instance. For example, does an office supply company materially participate in the evil of abortion by selling the abortuary paper? I would say no. At that level, the choice to conduct that business would seem to be a formal cooperation with evil though. Formal cooperation involves sharing the intention of the moral actor and is damnable to the same degree as the actor’s action.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In