Short Reflection on the Irish Referendum

As the vote to repeal Ireland's constitutional ban on abortion comes to an end, a short reflection on right, wrong, and democracy is in order.

These posts capture what commonly trends across social media during any election or vote. That is, the celebration of the "will of the people" or "democracy in action." The premise appears to be that the will of the people or democracy in of itself is a good thing. This premise should be critically examined as well as a cause for concern, since not much thought is needed to recall when large groups of people willed tremendously evil things: chattel slavery in the southern states of America, Nazi Germany, twentieth century communism, etc. Numerous examples exist.

Then the important criteria that determines whether the "will of the people" is right or wrong, good or evil, is actually the object that is willed and not the amount of people that will it. The object being that outcome or end which is willed or aimed at by the group. This distinction allows for us to legitimately recognize historical cases where the minority were right or good, such as Socrates in his trial or the abolitionist movement in America. 

What does all of this have to do with the Irish referendum then?

First, no democratic vote answers the question of whether the object of legal abortion is good or evil. That is a question that can only be answered via a combination of philosophy, science, and logic.

Second, when the object of legal abortion is critically examined with the aforementioned methods it becomes abundantly clear that the Irish vote is a paradigmatic case of a large group of people willing a grave evil.