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I agree with the arguments of Henry David Thoreau and of Lysander Spooner to the effect that voting is fundamentally an immoral act. To vote, above all else, is

by glenra 12y ago

I agree with the arguments of Henry David Thoreau and of Lysander Spooner to the effect that voting is fundamentally an immoral act. To vote, above all else, is to broadcast your own acceptance of the outcome and willingness to abide by it. So from a moral perspective, I should only vote if doing so has a sufficiently strong chance of averting some even greater evil. But setting morality aside and just assessing the expected value, I should want to vote more when the expected value is large, which is to say when I have BOTH (a) a decent chance of affecting the outcome, AND (b) some good reason to think my vote is much better informed than that of the average voter. If - case (a) - my vote is one of millions, I have no reason to expect it to CHANGE the result. If - case (b) - my vote isn't above average in terms of how well-informed I am and how carefully I've thought it through, I have no reason to think adding mine to the mix will IMPROVE the result, even if it DID change the outcome. For most people and most elections most of the time, neither (a) nor (b) applies; they should not vote. Your last paragraph suggests the use of Kant's categorical imperative, which not a great guide to action. To illustrate why: suppose our question at hand is "should I walk on the grass?" If I do, I will enjoy the feeling of grass between my toes, but if EVERYBODY walked on the grass, the grass would die and we would lose not just its usefulness and that nice feeling but also its beauty. So applying Kant says I shouldn't walk on the grass, right? But wait! There are more likely options in the world than EVERYBODY or NOBODY should walk on the grass; there's also the option that SOME people walk on the grass. If we test the rule "people SUFFICIENTLY LIKE ME should walk on the grass", that works fine when you universalize it! Then we get the prettiness for all AND the nice feelings for some and the grass survives. So to return to voting: not everybody should vote. SOME people should vote. Which ones? People who really ENJOY doing so, and people who have reason to think it will be a close race AND are especially well-informed or otherwise have reason to think their vote helps much more than average. I'm in neither of those categories, so I shouldn't vote.

snowwrestler 12y ago
Both Thoreau and Spooner are out of date in numerous ways. When they wrote on the subject of voting: - Slavery was legal. - Votes were cast publicly (hence the concerns about what is broadcast). The secret ballot was introduced into federal elections at the end of the 19th century, in part to address this concern. - Only a subset of Americans could actually vote. In addition to the disenfranchisement inherent in slavery, women were denied the vote, and many states had poll requirements like property ownership, taxes, literacy, etc. In addition, neither argued that people should not vote at all, but rather that a vote, by itself, is not sufficient to enforce morality, justify any given government action, or achieve justice. I agree with them on all of that. But the argument against complacency in voting is not the same thing as arguing in favor of never voting. In the end, you clearly don't want to vote, and that is fine with me--I don't think that anyone should be forced to vote! But that's not the argument you made to kick off this subthread. You didn't say "I don't think I should vote" or "I don't want to vote" or "I think voting would make me feel less rational." What you said is that "the vote changes nothing" and makes "the voter" less rational. That's a general argument about voting for any given person. I don't think you've proved that point, and I think you've stopped trying to. edit: copy edits
- glenra 12y ago
  That an individual vote changes nothing in the real world almost goes without saying - you can trivially compare the hypothetical world in which that person does vote to the one in which she doesn't. If and only if the outcome changes, marginal votes can be said to have "made a difference". The way it makes the voter less rational is that once you have voted for somebody you become emotionally invested in that candidate. If they lose, you now get to feel bad about their losing. if they win, you can either feel bad about their inevitable advocacy of bad policies and abandonment of election promises...or you can reconfigure your opinions so as to convince yourself that what they actually do is what ought to be done. Being personally invested in candidates makes people dumber. The fact that somebody voted for Obama makes it harder for them to see what a empty suit Obama has been as President; ditto for people who voted for Bush when he was in office. And neither the Bush voters nor the Obama voters can see how SIMILAR the two are. If you want to be able to assess politicians impartially, it's easier to do that if you didn't vote for them. When I cast a vote, I know for a fact that it won't change the outcome of the election but it will change ME. I should therefore only cast a vote if I want the change in myself that I expect that vote to cause.

by glenra 12y ago

snowwrestler 12y ago

Both Thoreau and Spooner are out of date in numerous ways. When they wrote on the subject of voting: - Slavery was legal. - Votes were cast publicly (hence the concerns about what is broadcast). The secret ballot was introduced into federal elections at the end of the 19th century, in part to address this concern. - Only a subset of Americans could actually vote. In addition to the disenfranchisement inherent in slavery, women were denied the vote, and many states had poll requirements like property ownership, taxes, literacy, etc. In addition, neither argued that people should not vote at all, but rather that a vote, by itself, is not sufficient to enforce morality, justify any given government action, or achieve justice. I agree with them on all of that. But the argument against complacency in voting is not the same thing as arguing in favor of never voting. In the end, you clearly don't want to vote, and that is fine with me--I don't think that anyone should be forced to vote! But that's not the argument you made to kick off this subthread. You didn't say "I don't think I should vote" or "I don't want to vote" or "I think voting would make me feel less rational." What you said is that "the vote changes nothing" and makes "the voter" less rational. That's a general argument about voting for any given person. I don't think you've proved that point, and I think you've stopped trying to. edit: copy edits

glenra 12y ago
That an individual vote changes nothing in the real world almost goes without saying - you can trivially compare the hypothetical world in which that person does vote to the one in which she doesn't. If and only if the outcome changes, marginal votes can be said to have "made a difference". The way it makes the voter less rational is that once you have voted for somebody you become emotionally invested in that candidate. If they lose, you now get to feel bad about their losing. if they win, you can either feel bad about their inevitable advocacy of bad policies and abandonment of election promises...or you can reconfigure your opinions so as to convince yourself that what they actually do is what ought to be done. Being personally invested in candidates makes people dumber. The fact that somebody voted for Obama makes it harder for them to see what a empty suit Obama has been as President; ditto for people who voted for Bush when he was in office. And neither the Bush voters nor the Obama voters can see how SIMILAR the two are. If you want to be able to assess politicians impartially, it's easier to do that if you didn't vote for them. When I cast a vote, I know for a fact that it won't change the outcome of the election but it will change ME. I should therefore only cast a vote if I want the change in myself that I expect that vote to cause.