Voting in Bad Faith

Res Publica 20 (3):281-294 (2014)
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Abstract

What is wrong with participating in a democratic decision-making process, and then doing something other than the outcome of the decision? It is often thought that collective decision-making entails being prima facie bound to the outcome of that decision, although little analysis has been done on why that is the case. Conventional perspectives are inadequate to explain its wrongness. I offer a new and more robust analysis on the nature of voting: voting when you will accept the outcome only if the decision goes your way is an act of bad faith: you are not taking part in a ‘process that decides what we will do’. This analysis sheds light on understanding the intrinsic nature of voting and what we are doing when we make decisions collectively

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Decision-theoretic paradoxes as voting paradoxes.Rachael Briggs - 2010 - Philosophical Review 119 (1):1-30.
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Joanne C. Lau
Virginia Tech

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