Democratic voting and the mixed-motivation problem
1. What do we do when we vote? A standard assumption is that voters express their interests or personal preferences. Voters act as if they are answering the question: 'which outcome would suit you best?' Indeed this is often taken to be one of the arguments in favour of democracy, for otherwise how would rulers know the interests of the people? (For the purpose of this discussion I will not distinguish interests and preferences: to do so would add further complications to a story which, as we will see, is complex enough.) But it has also been argued that voters can, should, or at least sometimes do, express their opinion of where the common good lies. They can also vote, then, as if they are answering the question 'which outcome is preferable on moral grounds?' Thus Mill claimed that [The citizen's] vote is not a thing in which he has an option; it has no more to do with his personal wishes than the verdict of a juryman. It is strictly a matter of duty; he is bound to give it according to his best and most conscientious opinion of the public good. ([4], p. 299) Again, the idea that voters are attempting to answer a moral question can also be used as an argument for democracy: provided each member of the electorate has a better than even chance of holding the correct opinion, democratic voting in any large electorate is very likely to lead to the correct