Friday 12 September 2008

When is it wrong to vote?

An interesting question given we have an election not too far away. At EconLog Bryan Caplan points us to a paper by philosopher Jason Brennan who defends a very Caplanian answer to this question in his new paper "Polluting the Polls: When Citizens Should Not Vote",
Irresponsible individual voters ought to abstain rather than vote badly. This thesis may seem anti-democratic. Yet it is really a claim about voter responsibility and how voters can fail to meet this responsibility. On my view, voters are not obligated to vote, but if they do vote, they owe it to others and themselves to be adequately rational, unbiased, just, and informed about their political beliefs. Similarly, most of us think we are not obligated to become parents, but if we are to be parents, we ought to be responsible, good parents. We are not obligated to become surgeons, but if we do become surgeons, we ought to be responsible, good surgeons. We are not obligated to drive, but if we do drive, we ought to be responsible drivers. The same goes for voting.

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