The Ethics of Voting (New in Paper) [Paperback]

Jason Brennan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 9, 2012

Nothing is more integral to democracy than voting. Most people believe that every citizen has the civic duty or moral obligation to vote, that any sincere vote is morally acceptable, and that buying, selling, or trading votes is inherently wrong. In this provocative book, Jason Brennan challenges our fundamental assumptions about voting, revealing why it is not a duty for most citizens--in fact, he argues, many people owe it to the rest of us not to vote.

Bad choices at the polls can result in unjust laws, needless wars, and calamitous economic policies. Brennan shows why voters have duties to make informed decisions in the voting booth, to base their decisions on sound evidence for what will create the best possible policies, and to promote the common good rather than their own self-interest. They must vote well--or not vote at all. Brennan explains why voting is not necessarily the best way for citizens to exercise their civic duty, and why some citizens need to stay away from the polls to protect the democratic process from their uninformed, irrational, or immoral votes.

In a democracy, every citizen has the right to vote. This book reveals why sometimes it's best if they don't. In a new afterword, "How to Vote Well," Brennan provides a practical guidebook for making well-informed, well-reasoned choices at the polls.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The ethics of voting is undertheorized, and so any serious academic work on the matter is welcome. Brilliant works such as Brennan's most certainly are."

--Karl Lippert-Rasmussen, Perspectives on Politics.

[Brennan's] relentless focus on the problem of 'wrongful voting' pays off. . . . [His] argument lodges a serious objection to research in political science and behavioral economics suggesting that even lazy voters can use shortcuts to vote well. (Josh Rothman Boston Globe)

The real value of books such as this lies in their potential to raise the level of public debate. . . . Brennan's argument is detailed and searching, which means that it presents a challenge to anyone prepared to take it seriously. (Alan Haworth Philosopher's Magazine)

Brennan advances the extraordinarily provocative argument that the sine qua non of civic virtue is not political participation (especially not voting) but the moral duty to promote the common good. . . . Students will appreciate Brennan's highly instructive exercise in argumentation. He constructs cogent justifications for his conceptual framework, outlines reasons for rejecting contrary views, and meets plausible objections to his own formulation. (Choice)

From the Inside Flap

"Jason Brennan's surprising investigation of the ethics of voting grapples with some of the most entrenched dogmas in our political culture. His approach is open-minded, his writing crystal clear, and his argumentation of a high standard. His conclusions will shake some readers up, and our thinking about democracy will be better for the debates that are sure to ensue."--David Estlund, Brown University

"This is a fascinating book about a very important topic. Indeed, it is difficult to think of a topic more significant in democratic theory--and it is surprising that, until now, it has been so neglected. The Ethics of Voting abounds in interesting claims and good arguments with often surprising conclusions. Beautifully clear and eminently readable, it will be noticed."--Geoffrey Brennan, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

"Brennan's book is provocative in the best sense of the word--a fresh and challenging approach to important matters in political theory and political ethics. It is also a remarkably accessible book that manages to capture nuances and subtleties without unnecessary complication or jargon. In these respects, The Ethics of Voting is a model of how political philosophy should proceed."--Richard Dagger, University of Richmond

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (April 9, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691154449
• ISBN-13: 978-0691154442
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #451,992 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars ebook The Ethics of Voting March 23, 2013

By Janet Reynolds

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I didn't much like this book. For a start the use of the female third person pronoun all the time was just as annoying as the use of the male third person pronoun all the time! Surely some kind of "hermaphroditic pronoun is possible and preferable: (s)he or he/she.
When it came to the actual ethical discussion I thought it very simplistic, describing a life where choices about the day's activities are limited to TWO! Perhaps some people DO live in cloud-cuckoo land.

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Rediculous April 13, 2013

By stuart bugg

Format:Kindle Edition

If 51 senators are needed to vote to save the republic, every one of those votes are as vital as the last one cast. If you want to know what the chances are that your vote will be both deciding and the last one cast, read this book. You will wish you had spent the time more productively bashing your head against a wall.

8 of 35 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Low Quality of Argumentation August 20, 2012

By GB

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

On page 104, Brennan tries to tease apart the connection between having a PhD and having high quality epistemic credentials of the kind that would make one a good voter. He writes that "Many Ph.D.s are silly ideologues. They accept various political views not because of evidence but because they want to fit in with their peers or maintain their self-image. They are mired in foolish idees fixes. The writings of many Ph.D.s are little more than pretentious, obscurantist twaddle."

He then proceeds: "Academics and other educated people often are caught up in intellectual fads. They accept doctrines because they are popular or seem intriguing, not because there is good evidence in support of them."

After elaborating on this thought, in a brief moment of rare humility, he admits: "Presumably this applies to me too. Perhaps I should not vote."

I bought this book expecting the quality of work Princeton University Press usually produces, and the endorsement on the back by David Estlund about his quality of argumentation was also impressive.

It turns out, though, that Brennan was right in his brief moment of humility. All of these negative qualities do apply to his own book. The more I read it, the more I started to feel like I was talking to a representative from the tobacco industry (e.g., Malcolm Gladwell), who was being faddish, claiming a thesis only because it sounds sexy, and using a style of pretentious writing to obscure a massive lack of substance. What makes it so pretentious is that he routinely cites empirical research to give his work a sense of rigor that it actually massively lacks. A vast amount of the argumentation is the result of silly intuitions.... Set up against his criticism of others for lacking rigor, the result is pretty dismal.

For instance, on p.100, he criticizes Benjamin Barber for having failed to do a survey or any other empirical work to support his claims about what voters want. On the same page, he waters down his own analysis with two really simple-minded personal examples. In the first, he is at Mardi Gras and is being swept along by the crowd, each person equally stuck in collective movement. In the other example, when riding the bus in high school, a "punk rock kid" criticizes him for wearing "Gap just like everyone else." This second anecdote is then used to reveal something about how autonomy and authenticity.

When you think of the level of sophistication Charles Larmore has attained in his analysis of authenticity, and then read these strange examples, you just wonder ... how does Brennan so savagely criticize others (like Barber) for their lack of rigor and then exhibit such a lack of rigor in his own meditations?

Worse yet, this style of argumentation extends to the vast majority of the book, which treats of epistemic credentials in terms of correct decisions. Again and again, his thought experiments involve people who are great at giving us correct advice. Here too, Charles Larmore's work has shown how deeply misguided this whole focus on correct advice, or correct decision-making, tends to be.

I only mention Larmore in these contexts because it is shocking that they were colleagues, Larmore is even cited in the acknowledgments, and yet the book seems to be completely isolated from Larmore's work.

In short, Brennan's book occurs in a strange kind of bubble: it allows for convenient empirical citations, lampoons others for failing to be empirical at all, but then proceeds with isolated, esoteric intuition-mining from really bizarre personal examples.

Anyway, when I eventually did read the acknowledgments, I also saw that he presented some of this material at the libertarian Institute for Humane Studies. Then everything became quite clear ... it is no wonder the book started to read like a spokesperson for the tobacco industry. Just like Malcolm Gladwell, Brennan is a faddish intellectual who uses empirical work done by other people to lend an air of rigor to his worldview, mining supposedly commonsensical examples for guidance, even though most readers will question how commonsensical they really are.

In conclusion, I would just add that the main ideas of the book are not really worthy of a book-length treatment, and so perhaps all of these petty attacks on other scholars, as well as the endlessly bizarre thought-experiments, are actually just page-filler. Read more ›

0 of 28 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars False Assumptions November 1, 2012

By Mark E. Smith

Format:Paperback

The author assumes that our votes will be counted, will be counted accurately, and can influence government policy. This is not the case. Our votes do not have to be counted, are often counted inaccurately, and cannot influence public policy.

In Richard L. Hasen's book The Voting Wars: From Florida 2000 to the Next Election Meltdown we can find many documented incidents of votes going uncounted or being counted inaccurately. And in my own book Consent to Tyranny: Voting in the USA I explain why it cannot be ethical to vote in the elections of a government where the Constitution vested power in the hands of the government itself, rather than in the hands of the people. The intentions of voters may or may not be ethical, but the manner in which the Federalists who wrote the Constitution constructed our electoral system, most certainly was not. To the extent that voting perpetuates an unethical system, voting cannot be ethical.