It’s election year. That means the news is abuzz with statistics, primaries, caucuses, candidates, political gaffs and every other sundry item related to the public disaster that is American political life. Tying nearly all of these issues together is an action that occurs every two years. In November, millions of American citizens will write on small slips of paper and cast their votes for the candidates they think will best serve our country (or at least slow its trip to oblivion faster than the others.) But beneath even this act lie a couple of unasked questions: should we vote at all? Why?
But of course we should vote, comes the immediate objection. America is a democracy; every citizen has the right vote, and it is right and good that every citizen who can exercise that right. This ensures that our democracy will run smoothly and that (most of the time) good candidates will be elected. Is this true? Not quite, argues Brown University professor of political philosophy Jason Brennan. In his book, The Ethics of Voting (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2011) Brennan argues that many of the common conceptions of the moral dimensions of voting and the nature of participatory democracy are either misplaced, wrong or dangerous. The book is provocative and may cause some controversy. Despite several points of disagreement between myself and Brennan, I believe the book is eminently worth reading by any citizen who would like to participate in the American Democratic system.
Brennan’s argument can be summarized briefly in the following propositional statements. First, that not every citizen has a duty to vote. Second, that if a citizen decides to vote, that citizen is morally obligated to vote well. By voting well, Brennan does not mean voting in any particular political direction. What he means is that a voter must have “epistemic moral justification”–they must have rational knowledge that is evidence that a candidate will contribute to the common good. For Brennan, this is a rigorous requirement that means many people who currently vote should be morally required to abstain.
In the first chapter, Brennan does an admirable job dismantling the arguments that a citizen of a democracy has the duty to vote. Arguments from beneficence, morality and the effectiveness of mass voter participation are carefully analyzed. (Space considerations prohibit me from offering detailed review of all of Brennan’s Points.) Chapters 2 and 3 lay out Brennan’s central claims of how a voter should vote in a democracy, with Chapter 2 showing that not everyone has a duty to vote and chapter 3 defining just what it means to “vote well”. The remaining chapters are expansions on Brennan’s central claims. Chapter 4 lays out the conditions for voter deference and abstinence, with Brennan forcefully arguing that voter deference (acknowledging expert opinion) and voter abstinence can be morally praiseworthy. Chapter 5 fleshes out Brennan’s particular idea of the common good, based in philosophically liberal western thought. Chapter 6 was my least favorite chapter, but also the most provocative chapter in the book. Brennan takes his argument about voter abstinence a step further, laying out a case for buying and selling votes as not inherently unethical. Chapter 7 uses current research in social science to analyze how “well” voters behave. Brennan’s answer may surprise, voters behave more rationally as the candidates are narrowed in an election and rather atrociously in the initial primaries.
Let me lay out a number of points where I am in agreement with Brennan. His central argument is one I find persuasive, at least from a moral point of view. As someone who is both politically conscious and cautious about making inexpert judgments, I found his advocacy of epistemic moral justification to be reasonable, if difficult. (A point that is acknowledged by Brennan himself.) His analysis of collective versus individual action is fascinating and will illuminate the counterintuitive workings of democracy. In short, Brennan argues that individual voter action is negligible when compared to the collective action of a voting block; this, ironically, makes it more rather than less likely that voters will behave rationally. His vision of the common good is one with which I am in philosophical accord, though there how it relates to his overall theory of voting ethics needs to be fleshed out.
This leads to my most significant problem with the book. Brennan argues, along with many libertarians, for an individualistic and rights-based conception of the common good. Unfortunately, his theory of epistemic moral justification does not require voters to abide by his definition of the common good. Voters, in Brennan’s moral schema, are perfectly free to vote according to their own conceptions of the common good, as long as they have rational epistemic justification for doing so. This means that I could reasonably vote for Hitler and be morally justified in doing so if my vision of the common good matched Hitler’s policies. This is an Achilles’ heel in Brennan’s overall point, and he would have done well to more vigorously defend a classical-liberal common good instead of just presenting it. (Barring that, he should have at least directed readers to other philosophical justifications of such, such as John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice.)
Brennan’s book is an important work of moral philosophy. The arguments are (generally) sound, the writing is lucid and accessible, and the points he makes important. As he acknowledges, however, the people most in need of these arguments (“irrational” voters, as he refers to them) are unlikely to pick up this book. If this review does anything, I hope it encourages anyone reading who has knee-jerk instincts around politics to know that their cynicism might not be groundless and that it just might be all right NOT to vote. The book challenged me as a citizen to think long and hard about not only who I vote for but why I vote and whether I even shall. Despite some reservations and a wish that certain arguments were more thoroughly defended, I can give this book the highest of recommendations.