Compulsory Voting

Fathom wrote: »

"More democratic?" Were these 2 approaches problematic when confounded by the “paradox of voting?” Marquis de Condorcet (1785) suggested that the possibilities for choosing rationally can be lost when individual preferences were aggregated into social preferences. To what extent were both approaches an Ecological Fallacy? Reasoning from one unit of analysis (individual) to another (society)?

In Brennan's case, he was not concerned with who people voted for, but why they voted. In his view, the vast majority of the electorate know next to noting about politics/economic/international affairs etc. Hence, having them vote when they don't know the full facts is like having a jury for a murder trial who never bothered to listen to the case evidence (his analogy). He has no problem with how people vote, as long as it is in their own interests. To give a recent example, why did people who availed of Obamacare vote for Trump? It most certainly was not in their interests to do so. Did they know, and do it anyway, or were they completely unaware they were voting against themselves?

de Condorcet's "paradox of voting" was not mentioned, however updated applications of that idea were touched upon. Regarding Ecological Fallacy, I guess it is always possible that statistics were interpreted incorrectly. Although, neither argument hinges on the use of statistics all that much.

Fathom wrote: »

If Brennan's jury analogy has merit, what does this say about the electorate with access to the facts?

Was Brennan's jury analogy problematic? Do juries really know the facts? What are facts? Are facts and their interpretations troublesome? In science we are told to be cautious of things called "facts." Rather the data "suggests."

Were juries influenced by other variables other than facts? Do some jury systems exhibit a double standard? Does wealth of the defendant make a difference: "Money talks, and OJ walks?"

To what extent do jury personalities affect fact interpretation and decision making? Do the number of high-authoritarian vs. low authoritarians in jury composition affect fact interpretations and outcomes?

Ref: Bray, R. M., & Noble, A. M. (1978). Authoritarianism and decisions of mock juries: Evidence of jury bias and group polarization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(12), 1424-1430.

Not so much facts, but evidence. The reasoning being that a government impacts the lives of everybody in the state and therefore voting should be treated seriously. We would not accept a half informed or disinterested jury in a trial that impacts the life of one person, so why would we accept the same from voters when their decisions can potentially impact the lives of millions?

ForestFire wrote: »

I think people should have to take and pass a questionnaire on the vote subject so show they have a basic understanding of what the vote is about, before their vote is registered.

As Fathom noted above, this would be problematic on a few fronts, but bias being a main one. I think we could reach a similar point through increased education in primary, secondary and third level. Possibly by introducing (in some form) the social sciences (political science, economics, sociology etc) into the school curriculum to make sure that all pupils have an understanding of it before they leave school. I would also make it a mandatory add on for doing apprenticeships. For example, alongside doing your four years training to be a carpenter, you also need to complete some modules in a social science discipline (say one or two a year). Also, in third level, all students of the *hard sciences will have some modules in the social sciences as part of their course. On the flip side, students of the social sciences will have to take a few hard science modules**.

I think that initiative might go someway towards getting more people interested in taking part in voting.

* Update Edit: Was told on another thread that hard sciences do have humanities modules in some Irish third level universities, so to some extent this has started to happen.

** Needed for areas of the social sciences where postmodernism is running rampant.

Fathom wrote: »

Derridean deconstruction?

I was thinking more the liberties taken with historical fact (Foucault) and the outright rejection of the sciences in humanities (taken by gender theorists for things like there being no biological difference between men and women etc) to push a theory. Moreover, I would find parts of the postmodern philosophy that advocate that there are "no truths" to be problematic. It's a laissez-faire of looking at the world, and as others have said before, it is an ultra-conservative position dressed up as progression. If society and/or the individual abandons the search for a real truth and instead embarks on the abstract and personal quests led by a "no truth" philosophy, this energy will be wasted down an intellectual cul-de-sac. Meanwhile, that energy that could be used towards trying to make cohesive social changes for the better, gain little traction due to unnecessary fragmentation. Hence, the societal status quo remains, and postmodernism helps this. Hence why it could be argued to be a form of conservatism.

I won't dismiss all of postmodernism btw, far from it. I do think some of it has merit. You mentioned "deconstruction", whilst it does interest me, I think the idea that texts can be open to interpretation of the reader is problematic. For example, can these two paragraphs be read as a fire safety document? :pac::D Jokes aside it is something I am on the fence about, there are certain occasions where meaning can be taken from text, but in others what you see is what you get. I think you can find meaning in just about anything if you look hard enough. That doesn't mean the meaning is valid though, the same as if you stare at a cloud on a sunny day for ages and it makes the shape of a cucumber, it is still a cloud shape and not a cloud shaped as a cucumber.

My own (conspiracy?) theory is that I think deconstruction has probably helped writers who write in an opaque fashion on purpose, knowing that countless people will "deconstruct" and find all sorts of great and mystical meaningings where there really was not any that was intended.

seagull wrote: »

Science students have a significantly heavier workload than arts students. We had to do a compulsory arts course as part of our science degree. I despised having to do it, and it took time away from what I wanted to study. In first year, I could out-debate a significant number of the arts students in their own subject. With regards making arts students do hard science subjects - half of them would never graduate if you introduced that policy.

I wouldn't agree there. Most would have done science in some shape or form in secondary school, so they would be able to manage. It would need to be handled the right way with introductory modules covering the basics. Having the one hard science module per semester would flesh out the course a bit more. Some universities in the UK already do something similar, so it definitely can work.

Fathom wrote:

North Korea has compulsory voting. Citizens were to vote for a single candidate from the district where they live. Abstaining from voting was considered treasonous with severe consequences.

Ref: The Economist, March 5, 2014.

Fathom wrote: »

There are a few corrupt nations with compulsory voting, no questions there. However, a few advanced democracies are in the picture too. It appears to work well in the democratic countries that do use it.

If a certain demographic, usually the wealthier in society form a large voting bloc, then a "class bias" occurs where policies will be more likely to favour their interests over other groups.