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Civic Virtue without Politics
Reflections on Jason Brennan's The Ethics of Voting
Originally published in Reason Papers
The 2012 U.S. presidential campaign was long on intervention and short on principle. No viable candidate stood for the U.S. Constitution. Friends of liberty were left wondering what to do: Should I vote for Ron Paul, even if he doesn’t stand a chance? Should I abstain from voting, because I don’t want to give legitimacy to a broken system?
The 2012 U.S. presidential campaign was long on intervention and short on principle. No viable candidate stood for the U.S. Constitution. Friends of liberty were left wondering what to do: Should I vote for Ron Paul, even if he doesn’t stand a chance? Should I abstain from voting, because I don’t want to give legitimacy to a broken system? Should I vote for the least awful candidate? Jason Brennan’s The Ethics of Voting addresses some of these questions. His book offers flashes of brilliance that can go far in advancing liberty, though a few problems detract from the book’s insight. Section 2 summarizes Brennan’s argument, Section 3 highlights the book’s strengths, Section 4 discusses weaknesses, and I offer a conclusion in Section 5.
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