The Colombian people have rejected a proposal of peace between their government and the rebels FARC, who have been engaged in warfare for the better part of a century. Whether or not this action can be said to have been of the greatest utility to that nation will not be discerned for many more years. But the vote itself indicates that it will not.
As I have written before, I believe the sole legitimate test of the desirability of an outcome is whether or not people do indeed desire it. This proposal of peace was put forth before all Colombias, who by all accounts fairly and democratically voted. The majority voted No. Although I may believe this to be an inferior outcome, sure to bring greater misery over a Yes, ultimately that is my judgement alone, and it may be flawed. Asking every Colombian whether or not they desire this outcome, and tallying the respective responses, is the only way to truly discern what the people desire, and thus we can believe that ultimately the most utilitarian outcome must have been brought about- or so the argument goes.
However, such a sophistic analysis neglects to account for the greater effect the outcome has on some over others. Although each outcome brings some amount of misery and some amount of pleasure to all, yet that utility and pleasure be not equally distributed. Imagine that in a sum of ten thousand men a vote is taken: 4,999 of the men are to be sold into slavery, while 5,001 are to each receive some small sum of money. If every one of those to be sold into slavery voted No, and every man to receive money voted Yes to such a proposition, the winning side would be that of the sum of money- yet no one could argue that the more utilitarian outcome was achieved: the small amount of happiness the men with the money will gain does not outweigh the crushing misery each of the men in slavery will endure, though there be more of the former men than the latter.
In Colombia, who stands most to gain and most to lose from a YES or a NO is much more difficult to divine. An approximation, however, can be derived by seeing which provinces of Colombia have seen the most losses, as a percentage of the population, from the ongoing conflict. These provinces are those most likely to be affected by a future of peace. These provinces overwhelmingly voted YES. Since the act failed by the narrowest of margins, 50.2% versus 49.8%, if the overall greater effect the war has had on certain populations was reflected in the result, it is clear YES would have been victorious.
Is there a better course of action that could have been taken, rather than a simple referendum? The government could have weighted the votes of civilians according to how much they stand to gain or lose from the passage of the deal. Such a mechanism would not only be inexact but impossible to put into place- how many more votes should a person who has lost three brothers in a conflict gain over a person who could potentially lose three brothers in a future conflict, to indicate just one particularly thorny dilemma?
However, just because the most obvious remedy for the problem at hand is impossible, does not mean we should discard the ultimate goal of the greatest true utility. Are there other mechanisms, more readily available to us, with the greater chance of selecting the correct outcome? Colombia is a republic, and one could have expected the representatives to override the popular will and take the proper, more utilitarian course of action. It is possible that the representatives, reflecting their constituency, would have still voted No. However, I would argue that having the republic rather than the people decide is more likely to represent the overall most utilitarian action, since representatives are morally obliged to consider the effect their votes has not only to themselves but to others. Of course, individual people also have this obligation, but it is not as directly enshrined in principle as it is among those whose duty is to the public and the good of the nation.
Regardless of whether or not Colombia’s road to “no” could have been averted by other means, it is clear that it is unlikely that the current path truly represents the more utilarian outcome, and it’s a sober reminder that the most democratic result is not always the most utilitarian.