Sept/Oct 2013
Neg: Infringement on Personal Liberty
foundationbriefs.com
Page 47 of 104
People’s self-interest, then, is unlikely to provide a justification for forcing them to vote, even though an important justification for democratic voting rights is that these are helpful, often necessary, to protect people. However, the difficulty with compulsory voting is more fundamental than that. To force people to vote, on
paternalist grounds, is to suppose that the election of one of the candidates predictably threatens them
with serious harms which they morally ought to avoid. But while democratic politicians pursue policies
whose costs and benefits are unequally distributed, it will be hard to construe those unequal costs and
benefits as constituting such harms – at least as long as we suppose that the candidates/political parties
Share with your friends: |
