The 2016 US election has many people thinking about third party candidates. Good news: philosophers and others have been sorting out the ethics and rationality of voting for awhile now. I talk about the philosophy of third party voting with Kurt Jaros below:
The Podcast
The Blog Post
I’ve written up some of my thoughts on third-party voting in the following post: “Voting Third Party: A Wasted Vote?“. Here’s an excerpt:
Is a third-party vote a wasted vote? People frequently claim — implicitly or explicitly — that it is. I will argue that it isn’t. Actually, voting third-party might be a solution to a long-standing problem.
1. The Two Party Problem
To begin, consider the two-party system. Ask yourself, “Is this the best system for nominating the greatest quantity of competent and viable candidates?” Obviously not. After all, the two-party system gives us only …well, two viable options! Think about it: the only system that can produce fewer viable candidates is a dictatorship. So any other (democratic) election system would be better than a two-party system.
Let’s call this unfortunate situation the two-party problem.
Obviously, a solution to the two-party problem requires… Continue reading →
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