Almost 40% of Canadians abstained in the election. Philosopher Jason Brennan’s book The Ethics of Voting (summarized in this paper) applauds their decision.
His argument is that although everyone has a political right to vote, they have a moral obligation not to vote badly. A bad vote is one that is not rationally justified. Votes based on emotion (eg: fear), immoral beliefs (eg: racism) and random selection are bad. Because bad votes cancel out good votes, they are harmful to society.
Brennan puts forward a number of metaphors:
- Voting is like surgery: surgeons have a moral obligation to be well-trained and to do their best, but we don’t hold it against them when they make honest mistakes.
- Bad voting is like pollution: although a single car does not have a big impact, we have an obligation to reduce emissions because of their collective harm.
- Voting is like friends choosing a restaurant: if one of them knows more about local restaurants, the others should abstain from offering unfounded opinions.
So if you’re in favour of universal voting, it is not enough to argue that people have a moral obligation to vote, they must also have a moral obligation to be rational and informed, which has a much higher opportunity cost: “there are myriad worthwhile life goals, which, due to time scarcity, are incompatible with becoming a levelheaded amateur social scientist”.
Brennan argues, “what contemporary democracies need most to preserve equality and liberty is not full, informed participation, but an electorate that retains a constitutional culture and remains vigilant enough that it will rise against any leader that tries to abuse their liberties.” The rest of the time, you should leave voting to the experts. Those 40% of voters said “I don’t see the difference between these parties, so I’ll let the rest of you decide on nuance”.