I think that this is a great public forum topic: it relates to a current event that will educate students on some of the nuanc
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Lesson 4.2 Day 3
| 13NFL1-Compulsory Voting Page 17 of 163 www.victorybriefs.com argument is more compelling on this topic than a lot of other topics. But before we assess its merits and how to make it, let’s pause over the question of who the actor is. Most people just go ahead and assume that the government is the actor on any government- policy topic. But this is not so obvious. Let’s take a look at the exact words of the resolution Ina democracy, voting ought to be compulsory. Think about this as a sentence. Ina democracy is a prepositional phrase modifying the place where voting ought to be compulsory. Voting is the subject of the sentence and ought to be is a verb which tells us the way it would be best for voting to be, which is supplied by the word compulsory Importantly, nowhere in this does there appear an agent who is responsible for implementing the voting process. Consider how this would be different from a resolution that read A democracy ought to make voting compulsory. The difference here is between what philosophers call the “agential” use of ought and the non- agential” use. The most helpful analysis of this is contained in an essay by Stephen Finlay and Justin Snedegar. 5 They give examples of non-agential vs. agential sentences Non-agential: (1) It ought to be that every election is free and fair. (2) It ought to be that Larry wins the lottery vs. agential sentences (3) Bill ought to kiss Lucy. (4) Vince ought to stop driving drunk. Note that the resolution is an instance of the non-agential use of ought. Take a look at sentence (1) above. That could be equivalently reworded as Every election ought to be free and fair earlier in the article they talk about how “ought-to-be” is interchangeable here. This sentence has the same grammatical structure as the resolution. Here’s what Finlay and Snedegar have to say about non-agential uses of ought 5 Finlay, Stephen, and Justin Snedegar. "One Ought Too Many" PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH (2012) |