The language of ethics can sometimes sound as arcane as the results of elections are confusing.
One of the sharpest questions for Catholic ethical frameworks, for example, is whether an 'is' can generate an 'ought'. In other words, is it legitimate to argue from a study of the nature of human beings and of the world to the ways in which human beings should behave? For example, may we conclude from the sexual and gender differentiation between women and men and the part that this plays in child rearing that marriage ought to be a stable relationship between a man and a woman?
In the Catholic moral tradition this kind of argumentation is generally accepted. Some other moral traditions claim that it is invalid, and that ethics must proceed differently.
I shall leave that question for the ethicists. But the election campaign and its results also raised sharp questions about the relationship between 'ises' and 'oughts' in the political sphere. They made it clear how fragmented is the political reality of Australia, and how those who orchestrated the campaigns simply worked within the confines of that fragmentation, and indeed jemmied the fault lines further apart.
The 'is' of political life revealed in the campaign was of one in which voters were generally self-engrossed, considering their own interests without any sense of the common good. Australia also appeared to be an abstraction. Quite different groups of voters in different states, and in different regions of the state, were each dominated by their own interests and resentments. As a result any campaign that presupposed a uniform Australia and a set of broad Australian goals seemed bound to fail.
As a result the pitch of both major parties addressed the reality of fragmentation. They played to strong local desires and resentments, focused on the attitudes of people in seats that were in play, ignored statements of vision or of general principle, and reduced leadership to the leaders' fellow feeling with whoever they were visiting. Any distinctively national policies were negative — against boat people and the unemployed.
This was understandable, because different groups share resentments, and can be united in directing them against the marginalised who are different from themselves. It was ironic justice that the result of the election marginalised both parties.
The presence of so many political agents in the parties and the focus on instant news by the media ensure that this 'is' of