Political ethics question

[The Dude]

The answer to your question is actually a lot more complex than one might think. You could actually make an entire college career out of studying the various ethical systems, and the implications of each.

Utilitarianism, Ethical Egoism, Kantian Ethics, Situational Ethics, Virtue Ethics, and several others would all tell you to vote using different frameworks. Ironically, it's fairly easy to shoot holes through any one of them - that is, each person needs to find some sort of a balance of two or more systems.

For example: *disclaimer at bottom of post*
Utilitarianism (the highest good for the highest number of people) might lead you to allow extreme medical testing on mentally handicapped people - after all, millions of people will benefit from the research. However, we all agree that we have certain individual rights that the needs of the many cannot outweigh.
Ethical Egoism (every individual acts in self-interest) might lead you to encourage harsh child labor overseas, because that's what benefits us, and it's highly unlikely we'll see any direct reprocussions from the act. However, we all agree that we ought to be at least somewhat concerned for the interest of foreign laborers (to what degree is highly debatable) - sacraficing at least part of our best interest for thiers.
Situational Ethics (the only thing intrinsically good in this world is love) can give a strong foundation of motive, but fails in many ways to provide any real practical framework for life. Welfare is a good example. People who subscribe to this system are on both sides of the fence - some in favor of keeping the system to help those in need, and some in favor of dumping it, saying it hurts them more in the long run that it helps, on average.

I could rattle off examples for each, but I think you guys get the idea. A great book that touches on all these systems (I say 'touches' because you will find books upon books that dive into every fathomable circumstance for any specific system) is Beyond Bumper Sticker Ethics by Steve Wilkens. That book covers all the depth the average person needs to get a good handle on things. This page provides a little more framework than I have, but I'm sure you can find better if you're willing to wade through the results of a google search for 'ethical sytems.'

Of all the philosophy I took in school, ethical systems was the only thing I felt was worthwile. And yet I have continued to study this outside of class. I highly recommend everyone to at least read a book similar to the one I listed, it is more than worthwile.

*** I have grossly simplified the implications of these systems, and anybody who subscribes to one of these would be able to argue my examples with decent success. I threw them up there very quickly (and sloppily) merely to give a grasp of the jist of each one.