Why Vote?

In traditional rational choice theory, what is rational for a person to do involves maximizing their expected utility. Here, utility can be defined in a number of ways. But, one simple way to understand it is to consider it another way of referring to well-being. Further, we can either think of well-being as referring to one’s reported values and preferences or those preferences belonging to some objective normative model of well-being. This latter sense refers to those set of preferences that can be said to be better for us to have independently of whether we actually prefer them. Regardless of which model we choose to adopt, RCT argues we ought to maximize those things we prefer.

This account will do for our purposes, but much more can be written about the many tenets of rational choice theory. Regarding voting, studies have often shown that voting, generally speaking, is not in our best interest, or often fails to maximize our preferences. A great deal of time and cognitive effort goes into deciding who we ought to vote for, and much of the time, the results fail to justify these efforts. Many of us could make better use of our time by choosing to volunteer, spend time with our families, catching up on work, and a many other things that might have a better chance of improving our lives than voting often fails to do.

So, why vote?

For an answer, we may have to go back all the way to ancient Athens. While Athens is regarded as the birthplace of democracy, not everyone in the city-state agreed with the form of government. First, take the following quote from Plato’s Republic:

“But the chief penalty is to be governed by someone worse if a man will not himself hold office and rule. - Book 1, The Republic”

Before reflecting on this quote, a few facts about Plato need to be known. It would be wrong, in some sense, to fully extend this sentiment to voting. Plato is well-known for being a critic of democratic forms of rule. Later in the Republic, Plato introduces the state of the ship allegory. In this allegory, there is a captain who is stronger than all of his shipmen, but is also slightly deaf and blind, with knowledge of sailing suited to these constraints. Accompanying the captain are shipmen who wish to have their turn on steering the ship despite lacking sufficient knowledge of how to navigate or even basic knowledge of where they want to go. Every individual shipmen prefers a different destination from the others. In order to gain control, they resort to all sorts of tricks to convince the captain to hand over the wheel. All the while, the person with all of requisite knowledge of navigation is the stargazer. The stargazer knows how to read the stars and determine the right route to direct the ship towards. Upon reciting this allegory, Plato asks his interlocutors: Of the characters mentioned, which of them would we prefer to have steer our ship? The obvious answer should be the stargazer.

This story is intended to serve as a sort of elevator pitch for Plato’s ideal city. Those who have the required knowledge to lead or at least take the time to educate themselves and to contemplate morality and the “good” deserve to lead. In other words, for Plato, philosophers ought lead as philosopher kings in a sort of aristocracy (others have referred to it as a sort of epistocracy - a government ran by those who are the most knowledgeable in all things statecraft).

The quote above is meant as a motivation for philosophers (or the philosophically minded) to participate in their government for fear of lesser knowing and considerate persons rising to power. Now, one might initially read Plato as being a little biased in claiming that philosophers are best suited to rule. But, we should merely recall what it means to be a philosopher. Quite literally, to be a philosopher is to be someone who loves wisdom and the pursuit of it. In this sense, it need not be someone who has a long beard or who came from a particular family. If you are someone who enjoys thinking about and providing answers to life’s most unnavigable questions, then you are most likely someone Plato would consider up to the task of ruling. All this is just to say, that one need not be a PhD in philosophy in order to be considered best suited for the executive office. One very well could be an economist who happens to think seriously about the right and wrong ways to govern.

We could go on. But, back to the issue at hand - why should we vote? Perhaps, we should stop thinking of voting as merely including the singular act of submitting our ballots. Much more is involved in determining where or to whom our votes ought to go. So, let’s rephrase the question: why should we be involved in politics at all?

Again, the studies regarding our efforts to be more involved in politics suggests that being more involved only makes things worse. How so? Well, it makes us more tribal. When the everyday citizen attempts to become more involved in politics like attending local city government meetings, by and large, we tend to treat it as if we were going to a game to root for our favorite side. But, this is only because of our approaches to getting involved. To be more involved is not intrinsically bad, nor does it necessarily lead us into being more tribal. Our epistemic commitments are what make the difference between tribalism and robust political involvement.

What do I mean by epistemic commitments? In philosophy, epistemology is the study of knowledge or how we come to know things. So, our epistemic commitments or attitudes can often determine how we learn or come to know our world. For example, if we are rationalists as Plato was, we may be skeptical of knowing the world through our experiences alone. For those Star Wars fans, you might recall Obi Wan-Kenobi telling a young Luke Skywalker during their training, “Your eyes can deceive, don’t trust them.” A rationalist would say something quite similar. Instead, we should resort to reason alone for truths that do not depend on our experiences. Most of the time these come down to mathematical truths or truths determined via logical deductions. On the other hand, there are empiricists who believe that we can only come by knowledge via our experiences. Then there is the global skeptic, who says that nothing can be truly known - not even that we ourselves (the thinking subject) exists. Finally, these commitments will influence how argue for a particular belief we have, and will form the very foundations for how we come believe one thing over another.

Now, in terms of voting, and politics more generally, we may want to avoid an extreme version of each position. We certainly want to comport our beliefs and political decisions to established principles of good reasoning. This can be understood as needing to provide good reasons for our actions. At the same time, we should recognize or keep a close eye on whether these decisions have any empirical consequences we would think unfavorable. Further, some degree of skepticism may be warranted depending on the circumstances. But, if we believe that nothing can be truly known, it makes making a decision (political or otherwise) rather difficult.

What does this have to do with our original question? Well, just how fruitful our actions into politics will be will depend a great deal on our epistemic and attitudinal approaches. If we, arguably, hold that truth cannot be known (epistemic commitment) and wish only to gain power (attitudinal), then we may become tribal by establishing a commitment to a political point-of-view that will gain us the most power. On the other hand, we believe that knowledge (especially moral knowledge) involves establishing eternal principles (epistemic) and that politics is about doing that best corresponds to the principles (attitudinal), then politics might be thought a more noble enterprise - going where the evidence and out principles steer us. Notice, however, that much hinges on our attitudes towards politics and the world more generally. The philosopher David Hume argued that reason is quite often a slave to our passions. In other words, reason often times is put in the service of satisfying our preferences and motivations. Thus, perhaps we should work harder on instilling the right sort of passions than over emphasizing our rational capacities.

So, again, why vote? Part of it might be to prevent those less qualified and noble from gaining power. But, this is hard when our only chances hardly make clear which candidate is the least qualified or the least noble. From this, it might be necessary for many of us to run for office, local or otherwise, ourselves. Or, at the very least, to become more involved in developing our knowledge of things that matter. How are to make a decision about which economic systems we ought to follow when many hardly know the sort of economic theories and arguments that are out there, let alone what they mean or say. All this paints a very grim picture of voting and the prospect of it proving beneficial both for the individual and for the community.

Citizenship is hard, and as John Locke and Jean Jacque Rousseau argue, we must always fight for it, or else lose it. So, I pose the question to you, dear reader: why do you vote and how do you vote? Why should we remain steadfast in our efforts to be so politically involved? Is it merely about self-preservation or the preservation of a certain way of life?