crossposted on Ambivalent Mumblings

Ian Welsh recently wrote an interesting post at the blog The Agonist which draws attention to a study that found that many people with a strong moral code will go to the extreme in order to accomplish a goal that they believe will benefit society. In the study, for instance, the researchers found that people with a strong sense of morals might cheat on an exam if it will help the normally moral person achieve their goal of becoming a doctor or something else beneficial to society.

In his post, Ian mentions that there is also the plain and simple fact that we all have slightly different moral codes.

The problem with this study is that it takes something that is a variable, the question of "what is moral" and assumes it. If a "moral" person doesn't see cheating, for example, as immoral, then to them it isn't. Morality is intensely malleable depending on circumstances, culture and upbringing. If you know that gays are bad, or abortion is murder, or that your nation is the best and worth killing for, then there is no immorality in shunning gays, killing abortionists (based on the thinking that if someone is murdering hundreds it is moral to kill to stop them) or in obeying orders to kill in wartime (which boils down to murder, when you get right down to it).

The more certain you are of your moral code, the easier it is to justify doing what others might consider immoral acts in pursuit of what, for you, is the true morality.

Ian's conclusions are most definitely thought provoking and I'm not sure if I agree with all of them, but they could shine a little light on the recent elections here in Virginia. Why? Because I've heard many people argue that they believe the 2007 elections were extremely negative and were far worse than anything they've seen before. When you have one candidate who in the course of running for the House of Delegates broke a clean campaign pledge during his primary and falsely accused his opponent in the general election of profiting off the War in Iraq and condoning torture, I'd say people have a valid argument here.

As much as the general public might believe negative campaigns are at least slightly immoral, however, the actual study's results would suggest that some candidates might view running an extremely negative campaign merely as an acceptable method to use in order to obtain the moral job of serving in public office. And as Ian might put it, "If a moral person doesn't see" breaking a clean campaign pledge, falsely accusing someone of condoning torture and profiting off a war, "as immoral, then to them it isn't."

I suppose what I'm really getting at is; Even though you might have to discuss some negative topics during a campaign, especially if you want to defeat an incumbent, is there any valid reasoning behind running a predominately negative campaign or blatantly breaking a campaign pledge?