re: "Expect vote buying to be 'rampant', warns Chuan" (BP, January 2, 2022)
Dear editor,
Their own acts proving such a self-perception false, do all of those Thai people who engage in vote buying, whether buying or selling, actually think themselves honest? Honest people neither buy nor sell votes.
Since the evidence from behavioural economist Dan Ariely and his colleagues (Mazar et al., "The Dishonesty of Honest People: A Theory of Self-Concept Maintenance", 2008, DOI: 10.1509/jmkr.45.6.633 ) is that being reminded of our own moral principles just before an act is done has a salutary effect on what is then done, it might be helpful to have every voter read aloud and sign a solemn vow just before entering the booth to cast their vote that they will not vote for any candidate from whom they have received cash within the last six months because to do so would be a dishonest act.
Or would they just act dishonestly both before and in the voting booth anyway, and then go to a temple to bribe the karmic bureaucracy to overlook their bad deed by buying some merit with a donation?
Note: the 2008 paper cited is not the 2012 paper "Signing at the beginning makes ethics salient and decreases dishonest self-reports in comparison to signing at the end" (Shu et al., DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1209746109) where Ariely and his team used flawed data, in fact data faked by others, to reach conclusions that are not warranted, as other researchers subsequently picked up on to thereby confirm that science works to openly correct its errors. No human institution can be free of error, which is why free, open debate and critical questioning of every received claim is a necessary condition for holding any opinion of worth on any and every topic.
Felix Qui
_______________________________
The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.
The text as edited was published in PostBag on January 7, 2023, under the title "Voting for cash" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2477209/local-sports-stars-
No comments:
Post a Comment
However strongly dissenting or concurring, politely worded comments are welcome.
Please note, however, that, due to Felix Qui's liability for them, comments must comply with Thai law, and are moderated accordingly.