1. jstemwedel
  2. Ask a philosopher why you should vote

Ask a philosopher why you should vote

By jstemwedel on November 4, 2008.

... and, if that philosopher is Brian Weatherson, you'll get a detailed consideration of cost, benefits, and rational strategies like this one:

Voting is a lot like playing an n-player Prisoners Dilemma with the other people who (loosely speaking) share the values that underlie your vote. I'm taking values to be defined loosely enough here that it includes most people who vote the same way you do. You'd prefer that all of you vote to all of you not voting. Given turnout rates in the U.S., that's pretty much always the difference between winning and losing. But conditional on what the other people will almost certainly do, you'd prefer to not vote than to vote. And so would everyone else.

Of course, our electoral version of the game has more than one turn, which makes a difference to the winning strategy.

It's a lovely post. I encourage you to print it out and tuck it in your pocket before you head out to the polling place. It will provide you with something worthwhile to read as you stand in line, and it may even be good fodder for conversation with your fellow prisoners there.

Tags
Philosophy
Politics

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The most optimal way for a democracy to function is for only those people who are reasonably well informed to participate in the voting process (this is, historically, not the case).

The second most optimal way for a democracy to function is for everyone to vote, which goes with the assumption that people who will choose to vote on a non-rational basis will have a tendency to cancel each other out, and the result is that those people who are reasonably well informed will represent the swing (this is also, historically, not the case).

What doesn't work out too well (and which historically is often the case) is when a significant proportion of the voting public is voting on a non-rational basis *and* the rational voters are under-represented, which is exactly the sort of people to whom Weatherson's argument is compelling :)

Slightly off-topic, but I was really wondering about a philosopher's perspective on other measures on the ballots today...specifically the state of Washington's Initiative 1000, regarding right-to-die measures for terminally ill patients. I've tried to start a little discussion over at my place http://ambivalentacademic.blogspot.com/ but would really like to see it discussed in a more widely-read forum. Any thoughts?
Thanks!