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Can Voting Make You a Bad Person?

photograph of line at voting place

We hear it all the time: Every voter has the civic duty to cast a ballot. If you disagree, you’re in a very small minority. Over 90% of Americans agree that voting is important for being a good citizen. Yet for most voters, there is simply no chance that their ballot will swing the race. If you don’t live in a swing state, it is hard to convince yourself that your vote even matters.

But this overlooks a crucial insight: The way you vote may be making you a worse person, and this is especially true when it seems like your vote doesn’t matter. Now, I’m not saying who you choose to vote makes you a bad person, but how  you arrived at that choice.

Let me explain. As a philosophy professor, my work focuses on how our actions shape our character. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle puts the point this way: When your habits are good, they can help you cultivate virtues like courage, wisdom, and generosity. But when your habits are bad, they will eventually make you a worse person – cowardly, foolish, and greedy, amongst other things.

What does this have to do with voting? How we vote becomes a habit. And as this ancient wisdom makes clear, when you do it poorly, shoddy voting can corrupt you. In particular, bad voting can make you intellectually irresponsible.

In many areas of your life, you have a duty to think well. If you’re a student, you should study for the test. If you’re a parent, you need to plan what your children will eat. Failing to attend to these obligations is careless, and when done repeatedly will increasingly make you intellectually irresponsible.

The same is true of voting. When casting a ballot, voters have a responsibility to think well. In 1963, John F. Kennedy observed that “ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all,” and the story is no different today. Uninformed voting is a danger not just to our country, but threatens to undermine democracy itself.

Are you acting responsibly when you cast a ballot? Almost certainly not. Voters display a shocking amount of political ignorance, struggling to identify even their own representatives. A 2022 Harvard study found that a third of voters cannot identify their U.S. senator and house representative.

Knowledge of state-level representatives is far worse. A 2018 study by Johns Hopkins discovered that only 28% knew their state representative, while just 19% knew their state senator. This data suggests that most of us are not responsible voters.

A confession is in order. I am in need of some ancient wisdom myself. I looked up the answers to all of these questions while writing this piece. Of course I have excuses. Just this semester, I moved states, had my first child, and started a new job. But we all have a lot to do. If I didn’t write this piece, would I have known my representatives by November 5th?

Why are you (and I) ignorant of basic political facts? Researchers have called this phenomenon rational ignorance. When you buy a new car, carefully considering your options will clearly benefit you. But because your vote won’t swing the race, large democratic elections can make us careless and irresponsible. It is rational for you to do something else, practically anything else, over becoming politically educated.

Ironically, emphasizing the duty to vote only makes this worse. Because there is a considerable social cost for not voting, you still feel the pressure to head to the polls, no matter how ignorant you might be, further entrenching bad voting habits. And once careless voting becomes a habit, other forms of intellectual irresponsibility can take hold as well. It will be easier to rationalize away your candidate’s flaws or overlook scandalous behavior.

So how should we vote? The remedy may seem obvious. To be a better voter, you need to become more politically informed. The philosopher John Stuart Mill agreed, advocating that the most educated should receive more votes, with college graduates receiving as many as 6 votes. While we might have concerns about giving some more votes than others, we can agree that the better informed make better voters.

But informed voting isn’t enough. Paradoxically, educated voters can be more biased, using their superior education to rationalize voting for politicians that cater to their private interests. Plato even predicted that democracies would be susceptible to electing tyrants. Without strong intellectual characters, citizens can be swayed by emotional appeals and inflated campaign promises. These tools can then be used by dictators to gain and consolidate power.

For this reason, you should strive to not only develop your mental library but your intellectual character. Memorizing a lot of facts is not the only ingredient of good thinking. Thinking well also requires open-mindedness, humility, and curiosity – traits that can correct for common political-reasoning flaws.

Open-mindedness can decrease polarization. When you are more willing to consider the viewpoint of others, you can better understand their perspective. Have a conversation with someone you disagree with, and commit to just listening

Intellectual humility can reveal blind spots. By recognizing your own weaknesses, you will also be more conscious of your biases and limitations. Take a political bias test to see what viewpoints you might be neglecting.

Curiosity can reveal things we’ve missed. If you are curious, then you are more open to learning surprising information, including evidence that runs contrary to your political opinions.

And finally, be patient. Forming new habits takes time, and political issues are quite complicated, so cut yourself some slack. Practice this ancient wisdom one election at a time, and pretty soon you will find yourself not only becoming a better voter, but a better person as well.

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Duties to Vaccinate, Duties to Inform

image of 2021 with vaccine vial and syringe representing two of the numbers

The news these days has been dominated by information about the development of a vaccine for COVID-19, something that has felt like the first really good bit of news pertaining to the pandemic since it started. While there is reason for optimism, however, it is not as though the deployment of a vaccine will end the pandemic overnight: in addition to logistical problems of production and distribution, recent research suggests that it may still be possible that vaccinated individuals could spread the disease, even if they themselves will not contract it. As such, it’s not as though we can all just throw our masks in the garbage and start going to music festivals the day the vaccines start to roll out. This is not to say that things won’t get better, but that it might take a while.

You would think that the development of a vaccine would be universally regarded as good news, and that pretty much everyone would want to get vaccinated. However, when surveyed, large portions of the US population have responded that they would be hesitant to receive a vaccine, or else would outright refuse it. These numbers have varied over the months: according to the PEW research center, in May 27% said they would “probably not” or “definitely not” get the vaccine, while that number increased to 49% in September, before going back down to 39% in November. It’s not clear whether these numbers will change as more information becomes available, however; similarly, when people actually start receiving the vaccine and seeing that it’s not dangerous one might expect these numbers to go down.

Reasons for current levels of skepticism vary: while much has been made about the wildest conspiracy theories floating around Facebook – Bill Gates is trying to mind control you, or something – it seems more likely that the majority of skeptics are driven more by concerns about making the best decisions given limited information, combined perhaps with a distrust of medical experts. The question then becomes how we can best communicate scientific information to those who are skeptical. Indeed, this is a problem that we have been facing since the pandemic started: first it was information regarding the need for social distancing, then for wearing masks, and now for getting vaccinated. While at no point have we found the magic solution, it is worth considering what our roles in this process should be.

I think we have a certain obligation in this regard: beyond getting the vaccine itself, we also ought to try to inform others as best we can.

Here’s why I think this. Part of the problem in communicating information to a lot of skeptical people is that it will be difficult to find sources of information that everyone finds trustworthy. To try to address this concern, former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton have stated that they would all receive the vaccine on camera to show that it is safe, with the goal of appealing to as politically diverse a population as possible. Given that a number of issues surrounding COVID-19 have become politicized, this seems like a good strategy: if those on one side of the political spectrum are less likely to trust someone from the other side, then having representatives of both sides together to present a unified message may help convince a larger audience.

(Other campaigns seem less promising: Trump, for instance, reportedly attempted to develop videos to be played on YouTube promoting the vaccine using only celebrities that were not critical of Trump or some of the causes that he does not support, such as having voted for Obama in the past or being in favor of gay rights. The number of people who met these criteria turned out to be very short.)

While trust can be affected by one’s general political position, there are additional divisions that may affect who one deems trustworthy. This can be seen in recent polls measuring Americans’ willingness to receive the vaccines that target more specific demographics. For instance, some have expressed concern that Black Americans may be particularly prone to skepticism regarding the vaccine, prompting members of various Black communities to attempt to communicate the importance of getting vaccinated. In an even more specific study, one recent poll reported that over half of New York City firefighters would refuse a vaccine. Here union leaders seem to be going in the wrong direction, stating that they would not require first respondents to be vaccinated, and that they would respect the decisions of their members.

We can see, then, that while major figures like former U.S. presidents may be seen as trustworthy sources, there is also a role for less prominent individuals to convey information to skeptical individuals. Given the importance of having as many people receive the vaccine as possible, the duty to try to inform others extends, I think, to pretty much everyone: while not everyone is a community leader, one may nevertheless be considered a trustworthy source of information by one’s friends and family, and may be able to communicate such information more effectively than former presidents or celebrities, given that one may share more values with those one is close to. When it comes to the COVID vaccine, then, one’s obligations may extend beyond just getting the vaccine oneself, and may include duties to help inform others.

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Under Discussion: Is It Rational to Be an Ignorant Voter?

photograph of people in voting booths

This piece is part of an Under Discussion series. To read more about this week’s topic and see more pieces from this series visit Under Discussion: Democracy’s Demands.

If you’re an American and of voting age, and allowed to vote, should you vote in the upcoming election? The answer seems like an obvious “yes.” There is, however, a bit of a puzzle when it comes to voting, especially in elections in very large democracies like that in the US: you ought to vote, even though the chance of your single vote is almost certainly not going to make any difference overall. That’s not a comment on you, it’s just math: there are a whole lot of people voting, and so really your one vote is not going to make an appreciable difference in the outcome. And it’s not as though voting is an easy process: it takes time, is an inconvenience, and, depending on where you live and who you are, can sometimes be a pretty miserable experience overall. So given that your one vote won’t make any difference anyway, why bother putting up with all that hassle?

You’ve no doubt heard this kind of reasoning before, perhaps from people you suspect were trying to justify their laziness. Of course, we might think that one has other reasons to vote, beyond just the chance of making a difference to the outcome of the election. For instance, one might think that not voting sets a bad precedent, which could lead to lots of other people not voting; or, perhaps one thinks that, regardless of the potency of a single vote, it is nevertheless one’s duty – perhaps a moral duty, or a duty that one has in virtue of being a citizen of democratic country – to vote. We might think, then, that even if one has some practical reasons not to vote – one’s vote won’t make any difference and it’s a pain to have to go through the process – then these factors are outweighed by other obligations one has.

There has been a lot of discussion about whether it is, in fact, rational in this practical sense to vote, despite one’s vote likely making no difference in the outcome. Here are two reasons why voting might in fact still be rational, regardless of any kinds of duties we might think we have: first, one might argue that it is still important how much a candidate wins or loses by. This might be because one’s vote can show that there is support for a candidate even if they lose, or make the winner more legitimate if they win by a larger margin. It might also be rational to vote in terms of the overall expected benefits of doing so. Here’s the argument: consider an election in which the stakes are high, such that if candidate A wins then there will be a lot of good outcomes for you, your community, and the people you care about, while if candidate B wins it will be very bad for all those people, instead. In this case, even if your vote has only a tiny chance of making a real difference, that chance is worth it given the potential benefits if your candidate wins.

Consider now a related problem. It seems that we not only want people to vote, but we also want those voters to be informed: we want people to know things about the history of the candidates, their stances on important issues, their policies and proposals should they take office, etc. But now we also have something of a similar puzzle to the one we just considered: it seems like you should be a well-informed voter, but given how small of a chance your vote has of making a difference, it might not seem worth it to take the time to become well-informed. After all, just as there is a practical cost in voting, there is a practical cost that comes along with being well-informed: you need to keep up with the news (something that is mentally taxing enough these days without the help of it being an election cycle), sort the good information from the bad, and do research about those aforementioned policies and proposals. What’s worse, it seems like much more work to gain all that knowledge than it is to just go and vote.

So like the worries about whether it is rational to vote, we have here a related worry about whether it is rational to become a well-informed voter. Again, the problem is that the costs in becoming informed may seem to outweigh the benefits: why should I spend so much time reading the news, doing research, etc., when chances are my vote really won’t make a difference and so it doesn’t matter how well-informed I am anyway? Whether this is the way people think about the issue or not, the outcome is the same: the problem of voter ignorance is a problem, with people typically lacking even the most basic knowledge of how their government works. While people will often take the time to go out and vote, then, the amount of effort it takes to become well-informed may then be seen by some as just too much work.

Here again we might appeal to other kinds of obligations: again, one might think that the duties of a democratic citizen are not only that one ought to vote, but that one also ought to be informed about who one is voting for. Or we might think that it would be morally irresponsible to not be well-informed, given the potential consequences of voting for the worse candidate. However, it might be more difficult to convince voters to become better informed, given the practical costs of doing so. It’s also not clear who gets to decide who’s really “well-informed” and who isn’t: one might think that they know all they need to already, even while knowing very little. While it is easy to tell whether one has done everything they need to when it comes to obligations to vote (e.g. whether they have, in fact, voted) it can be much less clear whether one has fulfilled one’s duties to be well-informed.

Due to these problems, instead of trying to convince someone to change by appealing to their duties, it is perhaps better to simply lower the costs of becoming well-informed. Websites that consolidate information that is useful to voters could be a step towards a solution to the problem (for example, sites like BallotReady). This is not to say that democratic citizens do not still have an obligation to be well-informed; rather, it is important to recognize that not all duties are as motivating, or easy to tell whether one has fulfilled them. In these cases, the best thing to do is perhaps to just make it easier for those duties to be fulfilled.

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Is the U.S. Becoming Less Democratic?

photograph of worn USA flag on pole with clouds behind

What does it mean to be a democracy and is the United States becoming less democratic in nature? With November rapidly approaching, the election has been marred by accusations of voter suppression, worries about Russian interference, claims that the entire election is rigged, and concern that this will be the most litigious election ever. Given this state of affairs, it seems like the democratic process is being undermined. However, the process of voting and democracy are not the same thing; the former is an instrument for enabling the latter. Does the problem go beyond one election?

American philosopher John Dewey understood democracy as a much broader phenomenon. While elections and the machinery of democracy matter, and while the vote of a majority is important, it is more important to consider how the will of a majority is formed or how the public can manifest the desires and preferences that matter to it. As he notes in Democracy and Education, “A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience” that when fully realized affects all modes of human association. In The Public and Its Problems, he explains, “From the standpoint of the individual, it consists in having a responsible share according to capacity in forming and directing the activities of the groups to which one belongs…From the standpoint of the groups, it demands liberation of the potentialities of members of a group in harmony with the interest and goods which are common.”

Essentially, democracy allows for individuals to provide input for the direction of the group while the group ensures that each individual within the group can realize their potential in keeping with common interests. It is a method for ensuring that conflicts within a society can be resolved in ways that promote growth and development, “it is the idea of community life itself.” Since these kinds of social interactions go beyond the scope of government, it stands to reason that democracy itself has a larger scope than how a government is selected.

For Dewey, in order for a political democracy to function properly it must allow for the interest of the public to be the supreme guide for government activity to enable the public to achieve its goals. To do this, however, a public must be able to identify itself and its aims. But, the public is prevented from doing this for reasons that are as relevant today (probably more so) as they were for Dewey. Rapid technological and social development means that we are simultaneously able to both affect distant locations, yet often lack a clear sense of the distant consequences of our actions. Lack of public awareness of these consequences means that we must rely on expert administrators.

But, during the age of fake news, COVID conspiracies, and the rise of QAnon, there is disagreement over basic facts. How can a democratic public perceive indirect consequences when they can’t agree on what is happening? One might expect the public to perceive a threat like COVID and assert what it wants, but without a common understanding, the government response has been confused, and significant segments of the public have demonstrated through protest and gathering that they simply aren’t concerned about the indirect consequences they may cause.

COVID-19 has been a global threat, it has caused (at least) almost 200,000 deaths, and it has created an economic crisis, yet many are unwilling to tolerate limited sacrifices such as wearing a mask and social distancing. Given that this has been the response to COVID, how will the public respond to the issue of climate change when the effects become more apparent? How will segments of the public respond when asked to make more significant sacrifices for a problem they may not believe is real?

It is also increasingly evident that tribalism is affecting the machinery of democracy. Partisanship has become an end in itself as a significant number of voters seem to believe that a platform does not matter, political norms (such as over Supreme Court nominations) do not matter, and the traditional stances taken by political parties do not really matter. This may lead to a situation where the Supreme Court, whose legitimacy has already been questioned, seems even less legitimate, just before a very litigious election.

Dewey believes that it is important to distinguish the machinery of democracy (elections, Congress, the Supreme Court) from democracy as a way of life. The form this machinery takes should respond to the needs of the public of the day and should be open to experimental revision. One might be tempted to believe that so long as this machinery can be maintained and revised where necessary there is no threat to democracy. However, Dewey suggests that since the machinery of democracy is merely an instrument for achieving what a democratic public wants, short of a unified public, it is futile to consider what machinery is appropriate. In other words, any potential reforms regarding mail-in voting, the Supreme Court, the Electoral College, and so on will not address the underlying issue without first addressing the fractured democratic public. If the public remains unable to find itself, the government will be less and less able to represent it and that makes the nation less democratic in the long run.

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Uninformed Public is Danger to Democracy

The economy continues to struggle, the educational system underperforms and tensions exist at just about every point on the international landscape. And there is a national presidential selection process underway. It seems, in such an environment, that citizens would feel compelled to get themselves fully up to date on news that matters. It also would stand to reason that the nation’s news media would feel an obligation to focus on news of substance.

Instead, too many citizens are woefully uninformed of the day’s significant events. A pandering media, primarily television, is content to post a lowest-common-denominator news agenda, featuring Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” release and extensive tributes to Prince.

Constitutional framer James Madison once famously wrote, “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance. And a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” Citizens who are unable or unwilling to arm themselves with civic knowledge diminish the nation’s ability to self-govern.

Technological advances have made it easier than ever for citizens to stay informed. The days of waiting for the evening television news to come on or the newspaper to get tossed on your doorstep are long gone. News is available constantly and from multiple sources.

A growing number of citizens, particularly millennials, now rely on social media for “news.” While that might seem like a convenient and timely way to stay informed, those people aren’t necessarily aware of anything more than what their friends had for lunch. Data from the Pew Research Center indicates that about two-thirds of Twitter and Facebook users say they get news from those social media sites. The two “news” categories of most interest among social media consumers, however, are sports and entertainment updates.

Sadly, only about a third of social media users follow an actual news organization or recognized journalist. Thus, the information these people get is likely to be only what friends have posted. Pew further reports that during this election season, only 18 percent of social media users have posted election information on a site. So, less than a fifth of the social media population is helping to determine the political agenda for the other 80 percent.

The lack of news literacy is consistent with an overall lack of civic literacy in our culture. A Newseum Institute survey last year found that a third of Americans failed to name a single right guaranteed in the First Amendment. Forty-three percent could not name freedom of speech as one of those rights.

A study released earlier this year by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni had more frightening results. In a national survey of college graduates, with a multiple-choice format, just 28 percent of respondents could name James Madison as father of the Constitution. That’s barely better than random chance out of four choices on the survey. Almost half didn’t know the term lengths for U.S. senators and representatives. And almost 10 percent identified Judith Sheindlin (Judge Judy) as being on the Supreme Court.

The blame for an under-informed citizenry can be shared widely. The curriculum creep into trendy subjects has infected too many high schools and colleges, diminishing the study of public affairs, civics, history and news literacy.

The television news industry has softened its news agenda to the point where serious news consumers find little substance. Television’s coverage of this presidential election cycle could prompt even the most determined news hounds to tune out. The Media Research Center tracked how the big three broadcast networks covered the Trump campaign in the early evening newscasts of March. The coverage overwhelmingly focused on protests at Trump campaign events, assault charges against a Trump campaign staffer and Trump’s attacks on Heidi Cruz. Missing from the coverage were Trump’s economic plans, national security vision or anything else with a policy dimension.

When the Constitutional Convention wrapped up in 1787, Benjamin Franklin emerged from the closed-door proceedings and was asked what kind of government had been formed. He replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Those citizens who, for whatever reasons, are determined to remain uninformed, make it harder to keep that republic intact. Our nation, suffering now from political confusion and ugly protests, sorely needs a renewed commitment to civic knowledge.