King Henry VIII of England (1491-1547) allowed his loved ones to choose how he should end their lives: it probably gave him a clear conscience every time. As for the prisoners, faced with this possibility, it was a matter of choosing the lesser of evils.
On the other hand, some have invoked this limited choice as a defense to justify the atrocities of which they were accused and subsequently convicted. Adolf Eichmann, for example, one of the Nazi executioners, claimed that he had no choice but to obey orders or be executed. Stanley Milgram’s experiment, conducted in 1963 at Yale University, demonstrated that, for a large majority of us, we would have done the same, placed in similar circumstances. Where is the collective thinking in these cases?
Let’s get back to the torturers: pushing their victims into these closed situations, they manage quite well with their critical sense and their morality, occupied as they are with their untimely searches for a possible plot. This is why some might call them psychopaths.
In the prisoner’s dilemma, stated in 1950 by Albert W. Tucker, in Princeton, there is also a question of this acquiescence between one of the two evils presented, this time, by a judge. The two virtual brigands are placed by the lawyer before this binary compound, that is to say summarized in two elements, and therefore to choose between one of the two evils, and this, in two words on their part.
The same goes for those who suffer from some kind of addiction, putting forward this argument: “It’s stronger than me, it’s this… or nothing!” In the short term, they choose the immediate benefit, however, in the long term, the alienating addiction subtly sets in. Between the emptiness felt and the fact of clinging to a person or a substance or another object, hell, the confinement persists more and more.
We could relate these different situations listed here to Pavlov’s (1849-1936) experiments on conditioned reflexes. The intercepted animal will be limited to resisting its hunger or eating. In the latter case, training will then follow, in which there is undoubtedly manipulation on the part of the experimenter.
On a personal level, it is better not to have to live such an eventuality. We then remain locked in our inner world and therefore cut off from the rest of the world: we will have to choose between two evils. Any decent person must enlarge such a reality, either by himself or with the help of someone else, when possible.
Because beyond the two evils there exists another world, that of freedom.
Closer to home and currently, Vladimir Putin has to choose between, on the one hand, stopping his war in Ukraine, thereby renouncing his obsessive quest for power, and, on the other hand, dangerously facing the accusation of war crimes. What do you think his decision will be?
Even closer to home, on a personal level with his impact on the community, what choice of evils will Donald Trump offer himself, once elected or not?