What Justifies Electoral Voice? J. S. Mill on Voting

Mind 133 (532):1078-1099 (2024)
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Abstract

Mill advocates plural voting on instrumentalist grounds: the more competent are to have more votes. At the same time, he regards it as a ‘personal injustice’ to withhold from anyone ‘the ordinary privilege of having his voice reckoned in the disposal of affairs in which he has the same interest as other people’ (Mill 1861a, p. 469). But if electoral voice is justified by its contribution to good governance, why would it be an injustice to deny the vote to those whose use of it would disserve this end? I propose the dual justification view to resolve this tension. Mill holds that electoral voice is to be justified in two complementary ways: both as communicating a person’s interests and perspective in order that they be accommodated in policy deliberations, and as advancing a vision of the common good and influencing the policy of the legislature.

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References found in this work

Democracy and proportionality.Harry Brighouse & Marc Fleurbaey - 2008 - Journal of Political Philosophy 18 (2):137-155.
Polluting the Polls: When Citizens Should Not Vote.Jason Brennan - 2009 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 87 (4):535-549.
Democracy and equality.Steven Wall - 2007 - Philosophical Quarterly 57 (228):416–438.
The Supposed Right to a Democratic Say.Richard J. Arneson - 2009 - In Thomas Christiano & John Philip Christman (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Political Philosophy. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 195–212.

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