Many, if not most, find vote markets morally objectionable (Sandel 2003, 99; cf.

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1 A novel proceduralist objection to vote markets Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, 1. Introduction Many, if not most, find vote markets morally objectionable (Sandel 2003, 99; cf. Hasen 2000, ). Objections to such markets that have been offered in the literature are quite diverse. First, rich people can better afford to buy votes, and poor people have a greater incentive to sell their votes (Downs 1957, 189). Hence, predictably markets in votes move the median voter in the direction of positions that favor the interests of the rich and, thus, bias political decisions in a way, which make them (more) distributively unjust (Archer and Wilson 2014, 3; Archer et. al. 2017; Hasen 2000, ; Satz 2010, 102; Tobin 1970, 269). Second, markets in votes undermine the autonomy of voters by making them ignore the full range of a party s policies, when they vote for it as part of a market transaction (Stokes 2007, 81, 96). Third, the cultural meaning of some goods, e.g., sex, organs and votes, are such that commodifying these goods debases them and thereby violates their cultural meanings, e.g., one can no longer express one s commitment to one s political community by voting (Karlan 1994, 1465; Sunstein 1994, 849). Fourth, voters have a duty to cast their vote on the candidate who they believe will promote the common good and not to see their vote as a means of personal enrichment (Mill 2005, 128; Sandel 2000, 118; Satz 2010, 103). Fifth, markets in votes are likely to have certain bad political effects, to wit, that people loose their interest in public affairs and their disposition to be motivated by the common good (Karlan 1999, 1714; Sunstein 1994, 849). 1 Call 1 As references indicate these five objections are not unrelated, e.g., Sunstein thinks that bad motivational consequences result from the degraded social meaning of voting, when vote markets exist. Also, the list is not exhaustive, but contains the most important objections in the literature (cf. Hasen 2000, ). 1

2 these five objections the plutocracy, the autonomy, the meaning, the republican, and the motivation objections, respectively, and call all of them together the standard objections. Recently, a number of theorists have found themselves unconvinced by the standard objections and argued in favor of vote markets (Block 2007; Brennan 2011; Freiman 2014). Some defenses are more qualified than others and some friends of vote markets favor them only on condition that they are extensively regulated and only in special circumstances (Kochin and Kochin 1998; Taylor 2017b; Freiman 2014, ). Sometimes defenses of markets in votes are presented as clearheaded rethinking of the prevailing orthodoxy (cf. Brennan 2011). In this article I offer a novel and sixth objection to vote markets, an objection to the effect that, in a wide range of cases, markets in votes are morally impermissible. One interesting feature of this objection is that it applies even under circumstances, where none of the standard objections applies. More specifically, I shall argue that electoral outcomes that result from vote buying lack authority in the following sense: citizens have no reason to comply with political decisions resulting from vote buying qua political decisions. 2 In short, vote buying undermines political obligation. It does so, because vote buying means that citizens do not select among the available objects of collective willing. Instead, they select among a broader range of options infused with objects of private willing and it is not fair that people are bound by such decisions, when they go against their interests or wills and would not have done so in the absence of vote buying. 3 2 They might have other reasons, e.g., that not complying will result in widespread civil unrest. 3 An objection, which is related to, but different from, my proceduralist objection to vote markets, derives from the fact that citizens are likely not to see themselves as bound by electoral outcomes resulting from the outcome of vote markets. I set aside 2

3 Section 2 clarifies four preliminary issues pertaining to the difference between different sorts of questions about the ethics of vote markets one might ask thereby clarifying the question I shall be asking. Section 3 provides an important background assumption to what follows later, to wit, that the positive arguments in favor of legalizing vote markets are weak. Section 4 introduces the proceduralist objection through three different vignettes and elaborates and supports the objection by considering, inter alia, variations of one of the three initial vignettes. Section 5 responds to six challenges to the proceduralist objection to vote markets. Section 6 concludes. My main contention is that while markets in votes are not wrongful per se, this should not make us loose sight of a more important message, to wit, that even under rather ideal circumstances i.e. circumstances where none of the standard objections applies there is a weighty proceduralist objection to vote markets. A fortiori, in the world, as we know it, there are additional objections, i.e., one or more of the five standard objections, to vote markets. If the near universal rejection of vote market represents prevailing orthodoxy, it can be rationalized. 2. Four preliminary clarifications Before I can address directly the specific question about the ethics of vote markets that I want to address, I need to pin it down by distinguishing it from other related questions about ethics of voting. The first distinction I need to draw is the distinction between the ethics of the collective act of legalizing vote markets, e.g., through a vote among members of parliament, and the ethics of individual acts of selling and buying votes. One might think very differently, ethically speaking, of these two items. Specifically, one might think that the latter is never morally wrong, e.g., because the this objection, because, even if forceful, it is a version of the well-rehearsed motivation objection. 3

4 expected harmful effects of any individual act of vote buying or selling is zero or close to zero, and at the same time think that the former collective act is seriously morally wrong, e.g., because such an act predictably severely harms the worst off. Central to an ethical assessment of individual vote market transactions is the wellknown question of the ethics of acts say, driving 10 miles in your car which are one out of a very great number of such acts, where each of these acts considered on its own has no or only unnoticeable harmful effects, but where all of these acts together has very harmful effects say, global warming (Parfit 1984, 67-86; Sinnott- Armstrong 2005). Fortunately, this complex issue is not pertinent to the ethical assessment of legalizing vote markets my issue in this article. The second distinction concerns the distinction between whether vote markets are pro tanto wrong or whether they are all things considered wrong. Saying the latter is a much more radical claim than the former and I would say a highly implausible one. Suppose an ill-willed libertarian has built a doomsday bomb and threatens to destroy the world if we do not legalize vote markets. Plausibly, it would be all things considered morally required to legalize markets in this case. 4 However, some people might still think that introducing vote markets would be in one way morally wrong. Jason Brennan thinks that he contradicts the folk theory of voting ethics (Brennan 2011, 135), when he denies that it is always wrong to buy or sell votes without specifying whether he means all things considered wrong or pro tanto wrong. 5 I suspect that the folk theory of voting probably has not been extended to apply to extreme cases such my case of the doomsday bomb-owning ill-willed 4 A similar case, mutatis mutandis, shows that individual acts of buying and selling votes are not always all things considered wrong. 5 Brennan does not offer any documentation for this claim about the folk theory of voting ethics. Hence, one cannot escape the feeling that he thinks that his theory is iconoclastic to an extent, which is not really merited by the facts (cf. Brennan 2011, 135). 4

5 libertarian. In any case, I find it more plausible that the folk theory of voting holds that even if market transactions regarding votes and legalizing vote markets are sometime morally permissible, all things considered, they are always pro tanto morally wrong, e.g., because of how they corrupt politics. However, we have to cautious even in attributing the last and weaker claim to the folk theory of ethics of voting. This is where my third distinction becomes relevant. We can distinguish between market transactions in votes, as we know them or as they could be under favorable though still not ideal circumstances, and market transactions in votes as they could ideally be. Call the former actual or approximately actual vote markets and the latter ideal vote markets. In his book, Brennan spends considerable time discussing ideal vote markets. For instance, he argues that vote buying would be morally permissible, when vote buyers say, altruistic billionaires using their fortunes to promote the common good buy votes asking sellers to vote in a way which they the buyers believe perhaps even rightly so is most likely to promote the common good, where the vote seller would otherwise have voted for a horrible party bent on acting against the common good. With some reservations, I agree with Brennan that such markets, or at least similar, transactions in votes might be neither all things considered, nor even pro tanto, wrong. 6 And I would say the same about collective acts of allowing vote markets, e.g., in cases where legislators know that all vote buyers will turn out to be altruistic billionaires promoting the common good. However, taking a stand on the ethics of ideal vote buying is not taking a stand on the ethics of (approximately) actual vote markets. Because, like Brennan, I have 6 One reservation derives from the fact that Brennan ties permissibility to promoting the common good of members of the political community. But surely the good of those who are not members of the relevant community count morally as well. 5

6 little inclination to think that voting is a type of act that has fundamental moral significance, I think the really interesting questions is, first, whether (approximately) actual acts of vote buying and selling votes are wrong and, second, whether in effect legalizing (approximately) actual vote buying and selling is wrong. One paradigm case of actual vote market transactions are cases, where sellers accept voting for someone they do not believe will promote the common good perhaps positively believe that they will act against the common good, and where they do so in order to gain a small private, monetary benefit. Also, actual vote markets are cases, where sellers offer money to help a candidate, whom they believe will promote their interests (even if, due to ideological biases, they might also in many cases believe that what promotes their interests also promotes the common good). 7 I shall set aside whether ideal vote markets should be permitted, but defend the claim that approximately actual and, a fortiori, actual vote markets are pro tanto wrong for the reasons stated in the proceduralist objection. The fourth distinction is one that I have already gestured at: the distinction between consequential and inconsequential markets transactions in votes, or acts of legalizing vote markets. For reasons already indicated, it is very likely that all individual market transactions in votes are inconsequential in the sense that even if that vote market transactions had not taken place, effectively the electoral outcome 7 Interestingly, Brennan seems committed to saying that such real world market transactions in votes are impermissible, because they violate his Principle 1: People who choose to vote must vote for candidates or policies they justifiably expect to promote the common good; otherwise, they must abstain (Brennan 2011, 135). I reject this principle. Suppose I believe that my vote will make no difference to the electoral outcome. However, I am offered $1 million for voting for some candidate, who I expect not to be inclined to promote the common good, which I will then donate to Oxfam. I think that it is morally permissible to sell my vote and donate the money to Oxfam. At this point, Brennan is insufficiently iconoclastic if his characterization of the folk theory of voting ethics is correct. 6

7 would have been the same. 8 Conversely, it is very likely that almost all individual acts of legalizing vote markets and many sets of acts of market transactions in votes result in significantly different political decisions being made. I cautiously say almost all in the previous sentence because perhaps in a few cases introducing highly regulated vote markets might be inconsequential. I do not think this qualification is very important for the assessment of the ethics of (approximately) actual acts of legalizing votes, however. In part because it is very difficult to design market regulations that make introducing vote markets electorally inconsequential, in part because few would be strongly interested in introducing inconsequential vote markets and, thus, that no (approximately) actual scheme of legalizing votes is likely to be inconsequential. Whether or not the consequences of (acts of legalizing) market transactions in votes are the only morally relevant feature of market transactions in votes, consequences surely are morally relevant. For certain theoretical purposes to wit, the purpose of identifying non-consequence based wrong-making features of market transactions in votes it might be relevant to focus on inconsequential market transactions in votes. However, for practical purposes it is much more relevant to focus on the ethics of consequential sets of acts of vote buying and selling and consequential collective acts of legalizing vote markets. But even theoretically speaking it strikes me as in one way more interesting to know whether consequential vote markets are wrongful than to know whether inconsequential ones are. 9 By way of analogy: it is more interesting, even theoretically speaking, to know if prostitution 8 Effectively here signifies that while the individual market transaction in votes might have moved on vote from one party to another that had no effect on which candidates were elected. 9 How does the folk theory of the ethics of voting assess inconsequential market transactions in votes? I suspect that people s strongly negative views about vote markets are premised on the assumption that they are consequential. Once people s attention is drawn to the possibility of inconsequential vote markets, I suspect people are not very confident about what to say of such markets. 7

8 that affects who has sex with whom is wrongful than to know whether, what we might call, inconsequential prostitution (inconsequential in one important respect at least) that does not is wrongful. To summarize: in this article, my main focus is on whether approximately actual consequential vote markets are pro tanto wrongful. 10 Some of the arguments I develop have implications for other questions regarding the ethics of vote markets that one might ask and I will notice those as we proceed. 3. The positive argument for legalizing vote markets is weak Before proceeding to answer my main question, I should like to put the discussion in a proper perspective by showing why the case in favor of legalizing vote markets is weak and, at any rate, weaker than allowing many other controversial markets. If I am right about the former claim, to argue successfully that there is an all things considered reason against vote markets, it suffices to identify a weak reason against vote markets. The first thing to note is that a vote or if you like, a paid electoral service 11 is a very different commodity from other goods. This is due to the fact that in essence 10 Some might object that in doing so, I make things too easy for myself, because, surely, it is much harder to show that there are any moral complaints to inconsequential vote markets. The reason for this focus is that defenders of vote markets who restrict their ambitions to defending inconsequential vote markets are too unambitious and cannot pretend to speak to the issue of (approximately) actual vote markets. Note also that I have already conceded that market transactions in votes are not non-instrumentally wrong. Hence, by focusing on consequential vote markets I do not make things to easy for me. 11 Brennan (2011, ) makes much out the difference he thinks there is between selling one s vote in a strict sense or being paid to vote for a particular candidate on a particular occasion. However, the arguments that he offers in favor of the latter apply to the former as well, e.g., if some voter would consistently vote against the common good why would it on Brennan s view be morally objectionable if some altruistic billionaire bought this person s right to vote? Brennan seems not to want to say that 8

9 a vote is a ticket to take part in a collective action, which results in collective rules that are binding for everyone. Hence, votes cannot plausibly be seen on a par with items that arguably fall under individual self- or world-ownership and, thus, where there might be some presumption that individuals are entitled to do with those items they posses as they like provided they do not violate the rights of others. One cannot defend vote markets in the way one can defend many other voluntary transactions between people, i.e., as capitalist acts between consenting adults, which are no one else s business and which for that reason they are not entitled to interfere with (Nozick 1974, 163). 12 Votes and how they are cast, by their very nature, are a matter of concern to others, because it is a ticket to determining the collective rules that we are all legally bound by. Accordingly, in the case of votes there is no presumption in favor of a rights-based argument for vote markets. Friends of legalizing prostitution can make a prima facie case for their view by appealing to the fact that the prostitute owns his or her own body and, thus, should be free to do with it what he or she wants to provided that he or she does not violate other people s rights. Friends of legalizing vote markets cannot similarly say that the voter owns her vote and, thus, should do with it whatever she wants provided that he or she does not violate other people s rights. 13 this would be permissible, but I fail to see what reasons he could offer for not doing so. 12 I am not implying that it is a good argument in other cases either. However, I am simply pointing to the fact that in the case of votes it seems not to apply at all. 13 Freiman (2014, ) makes the slightly different argument that since there is a presumption that voters should be free to cast their votes as they like, there is also the presumption that they enjoy a broader freedom to use their vote as they see fit. However, I do not see how this follows. If I offer you to help you with anything you would like to have done in your garden, you are at liberty to use the right you have so acquired to tell me to do any garden-related job that you would like to have done. However, one cannot derive from this liberty a presumption that you can also rent me out to your neighbor who also has things she want to have done to her garden and who is willing to pay you for that. 9

10 Second, the welfare related reasons in favor of legalizing vote markets are quite weak too. 14 That is, even in tight elections the price that a vote can fetch is likely to be quite moderate, e.g., around $20-40 in a US election where it is far from obvious who will win (Hasen 2000, 1329). Hence, voters who would prefer to sell their vote than to not doing so are likely to loose a very marginal economic benefit relative to a scenario where vote markets are legalized and, of course, they might retain their pleasure in voting if they like it, but to some slight degree prefer $20-40 to voting. One might retort that if many people want to sell their votes the aggregate loss of welfare resulting from not allowing vote markets might be big. However, if many people want to sell their votes the risks, e.g., of rent seeking, in legalizing vote buying are also correspondingly higher in a way, which might well more than outweigh the potential welfare gains. More specifically, if many voters want to sell their votes, it becomes much more likely that vote markets will change the electoral outcome in a way, which eventually will be harmful many people. 15 In any case the present 14 Freiman (2014, ) makes a welfare-based argument for the permissibility of vote markets. He then presents two possibilities, which he refers to as an objection and a worry about this argument that vote markets involve negative externalities and social costs. He responds that both might be true but that this does not justify a prohibition on vote markets after all, we allow, legally, people to persuade others to vote in a certain way or to vote on an uninformed basis even though this too might involve negative externalities and social costs. That is, however, an odd reply because the two possibilities were not introduced as reasons for prohibiting vote buying, but as reasons undermining the welfare-based argument for permitting vote buying. Hence, Freiman s reply, whatever its merits as a reply to other arguments, fails as a reply to the objection in question. 15 Taylor (2017b) thinks that vote markets can be regulated in a way that addresses this problem (cp. Freiman 2014, 765). First, the price of a vote could be based on the seller s income such that high-income vote sellers get a higher price for their vote and, thus, people have equal incentives to sell their votes. Second, vote buyers could be required to buy votes in packages consisting of proportionate numbers of high- and low-income voters (Taylor 2017b, 323). While a market in votes regulated in this way might avoid the plutocracy objection, it is also difficult to see that such a market would be of much interest to anyone. Taylor submits that allowing suitably regulated vote markets will make the poor better off than they would be if such a market were disallowed, for they would be able to sell their votes rather than simply having to give 10

11 response will not do because the relevant comparison for my question is not whether, for each individual voter, he or she would benefit from the option of her selling or buying votes being available rather than not holding the actions of others constant. Rather, the central question is whether voters on the whole would be better off welfare-wise with vote markets than without and, for reasons describes by James Stacey Taylor, in a range of cases a plausible answer to this question is negative (Taylor 2017a). Vote markets are very different from other markets, e.g., because greater demand will not result in greater supply over time. Hence, the overall message of the present section is that a pro tanto reason against legalizing vote markets need not be very strong to amount to an all things considered reason The proceduralist objection them away (Taylor 2017b, 327). Something similar is true of rich voters, of course. I suspect the reason Taylor does not mention this fact is that it is made in the context of addressing the plutocracy objection. Note, however, that Taylor himself exposes the flaw of inferring from the fact that individual acts of selling and buying of votes makes sellers and buyers better off that vote markets makes people better off, so it is not clear on what grounds he makes the relevant claim. 16 Admittedly, there are other arguments in favor of legalizing vote markets. Freiman appeals to the view that vote markets can increase the extent to which an electoral outcome reflects the intensity of citizens political preferences (Freiman 2014, 764) and the view that there are other electoral practices relevantly similar to vote buying, i.e. logrolling, that are legally permissible (Freiman 2014, 765; cp. Taylor 2016, ). The former argument might have some force if the comparison is with a one person-one vote system, but it has no force against a non-market-based scheme where each voter has several votes and might either cast one vote on each issue or cast several votes on matters that he or she feels strongly about and thus not vote on other matters (see Many Decisions in section 4). The latter argument is flawed. While it is immaterial whether the medium of vote buying is money or promises to vote in a particular way in return for a particular vote on another issue as in logrolling, for reasons that come out in the next section, I show why logrolling is relevantly different from vote buying (see Many Decisions in section 4). Others have defended this claim on other grounds that representatives have special obligations to those whom they represent (Thasher 2016). I do not believe representation is magical in this way actions that it would be morally impermissible for agents to pursue do not suddenly become morally permissible, when done by the representatives of these agents. 11

12 I now turn to an exposition of my novel, proceduralist objection to vote markets. I start with three cases of collective decision-making coupled with vote buying in a way which I submit is intuitively objectionable. These cases are meant to offer intuitive support for my proceduralist objection, which I will describe in more detail shortly. Consider first: Dinner: Alan, Bob and Charlie are on a camping trip together. There is only one fireplace and accordingly they must decide collectively what to cook for dinner. Alan and Bob both prefer fish for dinner, while Charlie prefers deer. They agree to vote on the matter such that each of them has one vote. Whichever proposal has a majority in favor is the one they settle for. David does not take part in the camping trip. He likes hunting, however. Accordingly, he likes the thought of Alan, Bob and Charlie having deer for dinner. He knows about their culinary preferences, however, and infers that it is unlikely that they will vote for deer for dinner. Hence, he calls Alan on his cellphone and offers Alan a small sum of money if he votes for deer. Alan has a slight preference for fish over deer, but he prefers the package of fish for dinner and a small sum of money, which he can then use to buy a computer game, over the package of deer for dinner and no money. Alan accepts the offer. Does Bob, who is quite fond of fish and not very happy with deer for dinner, have any cause for complaint? I think he has and I think he might put in terms like the following: We needed to decide collectively what to have for dinner, because that was a matter of common concern. Doing so in a fair way means that we should decide 12

13 the matter on a one-person-one-vote basis. It not a matter of common concern whether Alan has access to his desired computer game it does not fall within the scope of our relationship as a groups of friends being on a camping trip together (cp. Scheffler 2015, 32). Alan might not want to exercise his right to cast his vote, no problem. But he cannot exchange his exercise of that right for money and then expect the resulting collective decision to be a binding one. Had he voted for deer, because he preferred deer to fish I would have been bound by the outcome of the vote. But the very reason I am willing to abide by the outcome of a vote, which is decided in part on the basis of Alan s vote, is that I find it fair that we all three get an equal say in what we have for dinner. But if Alan trades that say away for some other good to obtain a certain enjoyment which is not of common concern either, he takes an opportunistic attitude towards voting, i.e., as an opportunity to benefit relative to a situation where the collective decision on the matter of common concern is the one he favors (cf. Quinn 1993, ). 17 I did not consent to Alan s being an equal partner in making a collective decision, which I would then be bound by, so that he could use this say to acquire private benefits for himself, not even if these benefits are more important for him than casting his vote based on his preference between the two options fish or deer for dinner which is what our vote is about. To see the point behind Bob s complaint let us distinguish between the narrow option set (fish for dinner; deer for dinner) and the wide option set which the three friends face if vote markets are introduced (voting for fish not being paid for so voting; voting for deer not be paid for so voting; voting for deer being paid for so voting). The matter of common concern is which of the two options in the narrow option set that should selected. When Alan asks himself which of the three options in 17 Of course, if Bob has also sold his vote too, this complaint would not sound very compelling. 13

14 the wide option set that he likes most, he is not addressing the matter of common concern, but something else. To put my point in Rousseauian terms (albeit in a way to which Rousseau would probably object): the will that emerges if everyone votes on the basis of which of the options in the narrow set they like the most is (or could be) the general will, whereas the will that emerges if enough vote on which of the options in the wide set is a mere sum of the will of all (Rousseau 1986, 72). 18 To provide further intuitive support for the fair procedure complaint consider the following case: Marital holiday: you and your partner need to decide where to go on holiday. Your top-ranking option is Paris. Your partner s top-ranking option is Rome. You decide to settle the matter by the following plural vote scheme. Each of you ranks your top-ten places. Each of your first top-ranking destinations get 10 points, each of our second-best, top-ranking destinations get 9 points etc. You decide ex ante to go to the place, which gets the highest number of points. David from Dinner, who is a true busybody, has an odd interest in where you and your partner are going on holiday, so he pays your partner a small amount of money for a different ranking of his or her 10 most favored destinations. The destination that gets most points is different from the one that would otherwise have done so and, notably, one that is lower on your ranking than the one that would have resulted without David paying your partner. 18 I write could be, because one might think Rousseau thought that further conditions must be met for a general will to emerge, to wit, that the selection among the options in the narrow set is made on a particular motivational basis. 14

15 I conjecture that most would not feel bounded by the resulting decision, once they learn about the background for their partner s ranking. Ask yourself if you would not issue a complaint to your partner along the following lines: The matter of common concern that we were to make a collective decision about was where to go on holiday. That, however, was not the decision you addressed. Rather, your decision was a different one, one in which you treated our having to make a collective decision as an opportunity for you to gain certain private advantages. While I consented to being bound by a decision made in a fair way even if the outcome of that procedure had been a holiday destination that from my perspective were even less attractive than the favored outcome on the procedure we followed I did not consent to being bound by a collective decision resulting from an opportunistic, self-seeking behavior of the sort you engaged in. 19 To bolster my case further consider the following third and last case: Doctors: A group of doctors need to decide whether to treat Ann or Beatrice since not both can be treated. There is no decisive medical reason for treating one rather than the other. However, a choice has to be made, since to benefit at all from medical treatment a patient must receive the full treatment and there are not enough resources to treat both Ann and Beatrice. For some reason doctors must decide upon who to treat by voting on who to treat. You are one of the doctors. You are approached anonymously by omnipresent David, who 19 It is not of the essence that your partner acts in a self-seeking way. Suppose that she immediately donates the sum she is paid for ranking the possible destinations in the way she ranks them to Oxfam. In this case you might still object, since whether or not accept the third party s offer and donate the money to Oxfam was not what was up for a collective decision. It could have been of course, if your wife had explained the situation to you and you had made a decision about how she should respond to the offer, in which case I suspect you would have felt bound by the collective decision regarding holiday destination even if she had sold her vote. 15

16 offers you some money if you vote for treating Ann rather than Beatrice as you initially had decided to do. Since there is no medical reason favoring treating Beatrice rather than Ann you accept the offer. As a result Beatrice dies. Suppose that Beatrice s parents approach you. They want to know, why their daughter was not treated. You tell them truly: I voted for treating Ann and that s why we did not treat Beatrice. Initially, I had decided to vote for treating Beatrice but then I received this monetary offer for voting in favor of Ann instead. Since there was no medical reason speaking against so voting and since I would benefit from accepting the offer, as would the vote buyer, I decided to enrich myself a bit by voting for Ann. Would you feel comfortable about offering this account to Beatrice s parents? If not, as I suspect not, perhaps that is because you think that Beatrice s parents have a valid complaint in this case about the way in which the decision about whom to treat was made. More specifically, they have a complaint against you, because you did not vote on which of the two options in the narrow set that you preferred. Rather, you voted on which of a broader set of options that you preferred. By so doing, the voting procedure was not fair. To try to articulate the wrongness of allowing vote markets behind these three cases I propose: The proceduralist objection: Suppose a group of people is to make a collectively binding decision about a certain matter of common concern defined as which of two or more options to select (the narrow set of options). For such a decision to be made in a fair way and, thus, to be one that is 16

17 binding for the members of the group, it must be made on the basis of a ranking of the different options in the narrow set. To the extent that introducing vote markets make members of the group choose on the basis of a ranking of the resulting wider set of options (as exemplified in the three cases above) i.e. instead of asking themselves which collective decision they prefer, they ask themselves which way of voting they prefer all things considered the decision is not made in a fair way and the obligation that its members have to comply with the decision is weakened, perhaps entirely defeated. But political justice requires that members are bound by their collective decision after all, that is why it is justified to punish them if they do not comply with the decision or to use force to make them comply with it if necessary and, thus, to the extent that vote markets undermine the fairness of the way in which political decisions are made, vote markets are unjust. Note that the proceduralist objection does not imply that introducing vote markets are unjust no matter what. If vote markets are legalized, but no one sells or buys votes political decisions are not made in an unfair way even if the law in one important respect would then not pose an obstacle to making political decisions in an unfair way. The proceduralist objection explains the wrongfulness of vote buying through the notions of fairness of collective decision-making and how the unfairness of decision-making undermines political obligation. This makes the objection different from the five standard objections present in the literature of vote buying, none of which pertains to the unfairness of collective decision-making significantly affected by vote buying and the result lack of authority on part of the resulting collective 17

18 decisions. One way to see this is that in all of my three cases above none of the features of vote markets that the five standard objections single out as objectionable need be present, though for the sake of simplicity I will only show this in the case of Dinner. First, we can assume that Alan, Bob, Charlie and David are equally well off in this case. It is not as if one of them has a stronger incentive to sell his or her vote, nor that David has greater wealth somehow putting him into a superior position when it comes to buying votes (the Plutocracy Objection). Second, the market transaction in question violates no one s autonomy. All parties know what they are doing and none of them are compelled by irresistible desires to act as they do, we can assume (the Autonomy Objection). Third, we can assume that this is their first camping trip together and, thus, it is not as if the voting procedure has a certain establish cultural meaning that is being violated (the Meaning Objection). Fourth, it need not be the case that the parties involved are not motivated by the common good as they see it. It could be the case that David reasonably believes that eating deer for dinner is for the common good of Alan, Bob, and Charlie, and it could be that Alan believes that it is for the common good that he gets to play computer games on rainy days, where they all have to stay in the tent (the Republican Objection). 20 Fifth, it could be the case that none of our friends becomes less concerned with matters of common concern as a result of Alan s vote sale (the Motivational Objection). Obviously, vote markets might be wrong for different reasons and my argument leaves it open for me to say that the standard objections all apply to typical cases of vote markets. However, what the present paragraph shows in the light of my discussion in the first part of this 20 Accordingly, on Brennan s account, unlike mine, there would be no objection to vote buying in this case. 18

19 section is that there is an important additional reason why vote buying is wrong, which so far has not received any attention in the literature. In the remainder of this section, I will test the force of the proceduralist objection to vote buying by applying it to the three initial cases, which motivated my statement of the proceduralist objection, by considering three different cases of vote markets, which seem not to be wrong. Consider first: Many Decisions: Alan, Bob, and Charlie have to agree on what to have for dinner. But they also have to make collectively binding decisions on a wide range of other issues, e.g., where to raise the tent and who should collect firewood. Each issue is decided by a majority vote, where each of them has one vote. Before they vote on all the matters, however, they logroll, e.g., Alan who does not care much about what to have for dinner though he prefers fish but strongly dislikes walking alone in the wood sells his dinner-vote in return for Charlie s firewood-vote, which Charlie is willing to sell, since he likes being on his own from time to time and, thus, does not mind very much collecting wood, but cares strongly about dinner. In this case there is a restricted markets for votes restricted because it is a market, where you can only exchanges votes for votes. Intuitively, however, it does not seem wrong for Alan, Bob and Charlie to trade votes in this way. This actually supports my proceduralist objection. For in this case, none of them uses his vote as an opportunity to gain advantages that does not pertain to matters of common concern. Rather, they trade votes in order to ensure that certain collective decisions is taken on the matters that they care most about, not in order to gain benefits that are not a matter of 19

20 common concern (cf. Hasen 2000, 1343). In the light of Many Decisions, it is natural to extend the proceduralist objection in such a way that the options in relevant narrow set consists of (means of achieving) different bundles of collective decisions. A second test would be to consider my account in the light of vote buying in relation to privately owned companies. Interestingly, in this context many forms of vote buying are legal: Buying votes? It may be illegal in politics, but in the corporate arena, it is a legitimate, if controversial, strategic tool In the absence of fraud, shareholders can legally choose to separate their ownership and control over the shares so that they can continue to enjoy the economic benefits of owning the shares while relinquishing the voting rights attached to them. 21 Assuming that the legality of buying votes from stockholders reflects a moral judgment to the effect that such vote buying is permissible and assuming that vote buying in my three cases above is impermissible, we might ask what makes a stockholder company and these cases different such that vote buying is morally permissible in the former, but not in the latter cases. One crucial difference between the two seems to be that the latter is an egalitarian enterprise in a way that the former is not. If you own more stock you have a greater say and if you own less stock and want a greater say, assuming that you have the money required, you can simply buy more stock. 22 And, if you can do that, why cannot you acquire a greater say too simply by buying the votes of other stockholders? However, all participants in the camping trip are supposed to have an 21 cf. (Hasen 2000, ) Interestingly, if management buys votes from stockholders, they must do so with the company s best interests in mind. 22 The political case is disanalogous in the sense that you cannot literally buy people and thereby acquire their right to vote. 20

21 equal say unlike the relation between stockholders their relation is an egalitarian relation. 23 Another crucial difference between a political community (which my three cases are supposed to be micro-versions of) and a stockholder company is that in the case of the latter, people are in it for the money (where money is a stand-in for maximizing one s self-interest), literally, whereas things are more complex in the former case. That is, it is not that, typically, people are uninterested in promoting their own self-interest or interested in doing so but only impartially so. However, typically people want to promote their interests on terms that are fair to others. In this sense, there is a matter of common concern, unlike in the stockholder case. To put this point in terms of my proceduralist objection: there is no expectation that people decide how to vote on stockholder meetings only on the basis of their ranking of the options that are included in the narrow set. 24 A third and final case to compare Dinner with is this: All Decisions Up For Sale: Many collectively binding decision needs to be made on the camping trip. On each issue Alan, Bob and Charlie can pay a certain amount of money for a decision being made and on each issue the decision, which has fetched the most money will be the binding collective decision. 25 Hence, if Bob cares strongly about what to have for dinner, he can spend all the money he spends on political purposes on the dinner issue. All three friends have equal amounts of money and while it is up to them to 23 I can leave open what exactly an equal say amounts to. Specifically, I can leave open whether one s say should weighted according to the strength of one s interests. 24 You might think that people should have such expectations, of course. For reasons of space, I cannot address this objection here. 25 The money spent on promote certain collective decisions belong to the community and the community can decide how to spend them after another round. 21

22 allocate their money between the present purposes and private purposse, e.g., buying computer games, they do have significant expenses in relation to private purposes as well. In a sense this an extreme version of a vote buying scheme so extreme that it does away with votes and, thus, vote markets altogether or, if you like, in this case votes simply is the amount of money spent in favor of collectively binding decisions (decision markets, as it were). This scheme realizes the ambition of vote buying schemes in a more direct way. In vote markets you buy votes and then spend your votes to try to influence political decisions. In the present scheme you do away with votes as an intermediary and spend money directly trying to influence political decisions. Second, political decisions are made individually and not bundled together in packages, e.g., the package offered by a candidate who has a certain political program that he or she promises to pursue. You can use your votes in a way that fits which issues you care most about. Presumably, this has the advantage that the decisions made will fit people s preferences better than if decisions were tied together in bundles. In some cases, you might even be able to make some better off without making anyone worse off compared to a one person-one vote scheme. In the light of this fact, one might ask if All for Sale is not a better way of making collectively binding decisions than Dinner or for that matter standard democratic ways of making decisions without vote markets. Obviously, to make collectively binding decisions in this way would be clearly unjust in a world of huge socioeconomic inequalities, where in all likelihood it would result in plutocracy. However, on my camping trip everyone has the same amount of money, so this objection does not apply to my case. 22

23 Still, one might have a different objection, to wit, that not all people care equally about private and common issues. Someone who cares a lot about private issues and someone who cares a lot about common issues might be worse off under All Decisions Up for Sale than someone who only cares about a particular common issue, e.g., what is served for dinner. All money that the former spends on promoting certain collectively binding decisions will be money that he or she spends on something that he or she cares little about, whereas all money that the latter spends in this way are money spent on what he or she cares most about. Someone who is more occupied with private matters might think that this disadvantages him or her in a way, which is unfair. In fact, I think the proceduralist objection accommodates this complaint. The relevant egalitarian political relation that people stand in extends only to matters of common concern and people should have an effectively equal say of those matters something which implies that people who care mostly about private matters should not be forced to forgo private satisfactions which are more important for them in order to influence collective decision which they too are bound by. 26 To put this point in terms of a well-known slogan: not everything that is private is political too. Of course, it is easy to see what one could do in All Decisions Up for Sale to avoid the present complaint: One could simply distribute a particular kind of currency equally among everyone that can only be used for the purpose of buying political decisions. However, in effect this would have turned the present case into a version of Many Decisions. 26 But suppose people are no different in this respect. Well, in that case there might be no objection on my view to the present scheme. But just as I do not think allowing vote markets is intrinsically wrong, I do not think that markets in political decisions is intrinsically wrong either. That being said, I also find it extremely likely that people s concerns are not identical, when it comes their focus on private versus public matters. 23

24 Hence, I conclude in the light of the range of cases that the proceduralist objection to vote markets provides a promising account of the wrongness of vote markets. It explains the wrongness of vote buying in cases like Dinner, Marital Holiday, and Doctors and it is consistent with vote buying of the sort that takes place in Many Decisions, in stockholder companies and (a suitably modified) All Decisions Up for Sale not being wrong. 5. Challenges In this section, I consider six challenges to the proceduralist objection to vote markets. First, some might think that my use of Dinner etc. is flawed, because what is really driving our intuition in all three cases is that David is not a citizen himself, but an outsider who will not be subjected to the relevant binding decisions himself. The descriptive part of the objection is undeniably true. However, my intuitions about the three cases are not different if the vote buyer had been one of the three insiders or citizens, as it were. Take Dinner and suppose that Charlie buys Alan s vote. Might not Bob find that he is under no obligation to feel bound by a collective decision that, in effect, is Charlie s unilateral decision? Who is, Bob might ask, Charlie to decide for all three of them what they are to have for dinner? True, through his purchase of Alan s vote he has a majority of votes, but why does that make him the boss? Second, some object to my use of Dinner (and, mutatis mutandis, Marital Holiday and Doctors) on the following ground (cp. Freiman 2014): (1) Selling and buying Alan s vote in the simple camping scenario is morally no different from a range of other scenarios where people votes for reason that 24