The Ethics of Voting by Jason Brennan

Author:Jason Brennan [Jason Brennan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2012-04-29T04:00:00+00:00

WHY NOT EDUCATE VOTERS INSTEAD?

Here is another objection: instead of recommending that bad voters abstain, I should advocate better education such that fewer people vote badly. The problem with this objection is the word “instead.” The alternative political proposal (that people should receive better education) does not conflict with my moral claim (that bad voters should abstain).

No doubt one way to improve democratic decision making is to improve citizen’s knowledge of relevant philosophical and social-scientific issues. If every citizen had a firm grasp of basic economics, basic political science, and basic sociology, they would vote better than they now do. Perhaps public high schools should spend more time teaching statistics and economics, even if this comes at the cost of learning trigonometry and some Shakespeare.32 (In the United States, most high school students get their ideas about economics through history texts, but unfortunately, because of peculiarities in the discipline of history, historians often hold false beliefs about economics.) All things being equal, educational reforms that improve citizens’ knowledge and make them better voters are a good thing, and I do not oppose them.

However, if people are not well educated and as a result are not in a position to vote well, then they should not vote. It might not be their fault that they cannot vote well. Perhaps citizens have a real complaint against their states for failing to provide them with the right kind of education in the K–12 system. If so, then good voters should take that into consideration when they vote. But bad voters should still abstain, rather than risk imposing bad governance on everyone.

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