Jason Brennan: The ethics of voting

Excerpt

When people rank the rights they have as Americans or as citizens of liberal democracies, the right to vote is usually near the top of the list. In a short, provocative, well-organized, and well-argued volume, philosopher Jason Brennan explains the conditions under which one has used that right ethically. He is particularly clear that he is not asking whether one has the right to vote, but whether it is right for someone to vote given certain constraints, and he quite effectively deals with some obvious objections to his controversial claims. Specifically, he argues that “citizens typically have no duty to vote,” “vote buying, selling, and trading are morally permissible,” and people do not merely have a responsibility for what “they believe promotes the common good” but “for what they justifiedly believe promotes the common good” (p. 4). By “justifiedly,” he means “with epistemic justification;” in short, the voter knows on the basis of valid theory and evidence that his or her favored policies will in fact promote the common good. If one is obliged to vote, then presumably one is obliged to vote in a way that will not actively make society worse (cf. p. 68). Brennan goes to great lengths to keep his argument accessible to non-specialists, and I expect that he will be called on regularly for commentary during election seasons. …