Davis: Today's guest is Robert Talice, a professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University and the author of Sustaining Democracy, What We Owe to the Other Side. Dr. Talice writes about a problem at the heart of democracy, that we're supposed to fight for what we believe is just and simultaneously treat the people who disagree with us as our equals. Those two duties pull against each other constantly, and his work is about how we navigate that tension without abandoning either obligation. We're incredibly honored to have him on to discuss what we owe to our fellow citizens, why being right doesn't entitle us to power over those who are wrong, and why voting still matters even if your vote might not change the outcome. so in one of your books, Sustaining Democracy, What We Owe to the Other Side, you discussed the paradox of democracy, which is that on the one hand, democracy requires that we treat each other as citizens, as equal partners who have legitimate opinions that deserve to be heard. on the other hand, at the same time, we're supposed to fight for what we view as the furtherance of justice. And these two can contradict each other. would you mind expanding on that paradox? And also as a bonus, if you have a particular definition for justice, I would love to hear it.
Robert Talisse: Okay, good. So it seems to me that when we're thinking about democracy, we could be thinking about lots of different things. So let's start there. democracy, I would say argue in the book, is a moral proposal. It's the it's the claim not only that it's possible for us to live together peacefully in a relatively just so social order. But we can live together peacefully in a relatively just social order as equals. That's the important, I think, element of democracy. It's the proposal or the aspiration, we might say, for to create a self-governing society of equals. Now, one of the things that I think follows out of our equality is that we're gonna disagree. when, you know, when when I don't owe deference to you when I don't have to, you know, subordinate myself to you. I get to make up my own mind about things, for better or worse, right? Now, there are ways in which I am rationally better off if I, you know, make my mind up according to, you know, in certain ways rather than the other than others. You know, I shouldn't flip coins, I should look at evidence, I should read the newspapers, these kinds of things. But it's certainly not criminal among equals for people to arrive at their political views and views about almost anything in ways that are pretty reckless. And unless sh you're directly endangering another person, you know, recklessness is a you know, is allowed.
Davis: Right.
Robert Talisse: So one thing that falls out of our equality is that we're gonna disagree. That seems inevitable. another thing though that falls out of our equality is that when any one of us, individually or collectively, and sometimes in great numbers, seeks to direct the massive, inescapable, coercive power of the state in setting a policy, making a law, enforcing a rule. sanctioning non compliant others, right? Whenever we seek to enlist the massive power of the state. To exercise power
Davis: Mm-hmm.
Robert Talisse: Over our equals, we owe them something,
Davis: Right.
Robert Talisse: right? We don't just get to say, like parents get to say to their two-year-olds, because I said so. Right?
Davis: Exactly. Yeah.
Robert Talisse: Citizens owe things to one another when they are engaged in the activities of citizenship, many, not all, many of which are activities that play a role in directing the coercive power of the state. The exercise of force among equals is a morally tricky proposition, right? and so part of the democratic aspiration, part of the democratic ideal is the ideal that, well, if the state's power is directed by processes by which we each get an equal say, we each not only get a say, but a hearing,
Davis: Mm-hmm.
Robert Talisse: and we get equal input. Then when the state comes around and forces me to do what I otherwise don't want to do, I'm not being subordinated. I'm retaining my equal sta status because I had access to the reasons, the ideas. I had a chance to make my view popular, right? So on and so forth. So democracies, you know, a a tricky proposition in this way. We're supposed to stand up for justice. But we also have to respect the equality of our fellow citizens, especially when they disagree with us about what justice is. and so what I call in the book The Democrats' Dilemma is the sort of like, well, standing up for justice looks like, you know, it it directs me to try to shut down, ignore, marginalize the people who disagree with me about justice. So the directive to tr treat our fellow citizens as our equals can conflict with the directive to try to make the try to make the country a more just place. and it's tricky just to navigate that tension. because as I'm sure you're familiar with from just you know being politically active yourselves, you know, especially when you're talking to, you know, your You know, like your allies, you know, you say, Well, hold on a second. Maybe we need to hear from the other side. That is a really good way to to arouse suspicion among your allies that
Davis: Hmm.
Robert Talisse: you're not really on board, right? And you say, Well, look, being here's the the the the the bitter pill of democracy is that being right about justice. Being demonstrably right about justice doesn't mean that you'll get your way automatically. Doesn't mean that the people who are wrong get their votes taken away, right? Being wrong about justice doesn't disempower you. Right? This is the you know, democracy's democracy's tough. So that's the the dilemma, that's the tension. you know, maybe it rises to the level of a paradox, you know, it depends on. on what we mean by that word, but that's the tension. treating your fellow citizens as your equals doesn't always play well with your duty to stand up for justice. and this tension is made more difficult, I will say. because you know another sort of fact sort of brute fact about democracy So if you want to have an effective political voice, you have to join a group, right? you have to, you know, you wanna have a voice, you gotta join a choir, right? And part of what the Sustaining Democracy book is about is about how the dynamics, the the sort of psychological and social dynamics of like-minded groups can make us really bad. at satisfying our duties to those among our fellow citizens with whom we're not like minded. Does that make sense?
Mattias Gitron-Beer: Right, thank you. Thank you so much for that. And I liked how you touched on, touched a lot on morals. Specifically for me in society, I've been thinking a lot how different individuals of society derive our morals and something that I always come back to is religion. Specifically how religion is often overlooked in the political discourse realm. When two people argue politics, they can point to evidence, polls, laws. But when someone's position comes from faith, the usual tools, in my opinion, of argument don't really apply because there's such strong moral convictions and you can't really fact-check convictions. So my question to you, you know, as a philosopher, how do you, how are you able to have productive disagreement with someone whose reasons come from these religions, sometimes a place where argument can't reach?
Robert Talisse: Well good. So the first thing to say is is this is a deep, deep like problem, right?
Davis: Yeah.
Robert Talisse: Very generally the problem of sort of conviction. It doesn't even have to be religious conviction, by the way, right? Conviction, right? Moral conviction, right, in democratic politics is tricky. for some of the reasons, Mateus that you've pointed to. But let me just start with one sort of caveat kind of point. You know. Like there are lots of different phenomena that we are talking about when we talk about religion, right? certain versions of certain things that we recognize as religion are committed to the idea that the central tenets of the faith are demonstrable by reason. Right? That's
Davis: Mm.
Mattias Gitron-Beer: Right. Right.
Robert Talisse: yeah, that's what St. Thomas thought, right? St. Thomas thought, like, wait a minute, you wanna have a you wanna have a disagreement about theology? That's fine. Because I can win all those arguments, because I could demonstrate to you that there's a God. Right? He has
Mattias Gitron-Beer: Right.
Davis: Right.
Robert Talisse: he's got five arguments for right for for for for God's existence. so if you don't like one, he's got four others, you know, right? so some versions of of religion are committed to the rational demonstration of the truth of their normative and theological commitments, others aren't. And in fact, others sort of think that the virtue of the religious believer lies in sustaining the commitment in the absence of rational demonstration
Davis: Yeah.
Robert Talisse: of his truth, right? You know, believing because it's absurd is what the the stance of the truly faithful person is supposed to be. So there are all kinds of issues lurking here. Here's one thing, though, that I would say. You know, And it's not, again, let me just emphasize the problem that we're pointing to under this sort of broad rubic rubric of religion and politics is not unique to religion. So let me give a a different kind of example. so there's a a very popular normative, let's say very popular moral theory that you might be familiar with. Named utilitarianism. utilitarianism is the moral view that says that the right thing to do for anybody, including groups of people, institutions, the right thing to do is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain across the entire segment of the population that's going to be affected by what you do. Right? So Maximize pleasure, minimize pain, that's always the right thing to do. That's what the rightness of an action consists in. Right? Okay. no, no, if there are all kinds of things to say about utilitarianism, it thinks that the only thing that matters when we're morally assessing an action is what is what it produces, it's its consequences, like principles and motives seem to come into the story much later. But imagine somebody who says, perhaps plausibly, right? Hi. Mateus, I'm a utilitarian and I've done the calculations. It turns out that if we gave to that small number of people in the country who have PhDs in philosophy extra votes on election day, We'd make better decisions. We'd be we'd make wiser choices as a society if we gave this small group of people disproportionately large political input, political say, political deciding power. Now you might say, Well, well, tell me more, you know, you might you there are all kinds of things you might say, but you might also say this. It's like Okay, I think utilitarianism is false. Now what?
Mattias Gitron-Beer: Right, that's true.
Robert Talisse: That's a util that's a utilitarian argument for weighted voting, what they sometimes call weighted or plural voting. I I think utilitarianism is false. Now what happens? You haven't given me a reason to adopt this voting scheme because you've just said, well, my moral doctrine, utilitarianism, recommends it. So I don't need
Davis: Right.
Robert Talisse: to be utilitarian. That looks to me structurally the very same problem as the religion problem, right? So here's the upshot. We could talk a lot about this. This is a very, very deep question. So I'm glad you raised it. But here's the upshot. and and it strikes me that our one of the ways in which our current political discourse suffers is that I think we, as a polity, as a as an electorate, as a country of sort of lost sight. Of what strikes me as a deep and crucial point about the project of democracy. It's like, yeah, your job as a citizen is not to think strictly from your point of view about ultimate things, right? The deep truths about morality and existence, and figure out what policies, what politics would best align with your deepest. Commitments. Because remember, going back to the very first thing I said, right? And and to get to Davis's question about what justice is, right? Right.
Davis: Hmm. I was hoping for an answer.
Robert Talisse: Yeah, yeah, good, good, good. So, you know, it it comes as news to people when I say this as a sort of political philosopher. Maybe this won't be news to you. I hope it's not. It strikes me as something that shouldn't be news. You know, The question of how things ought to be politically. Is not simply the question of what does my best view about justice say? How about how things ought to be. The question of politics is always the question of what can I force other people to do in the name of making the world the way I think it should be? That's the question, right? Right? Because politics is always about exercises of power over people. When we're Democrats, But when we're believers in democracy, and I'm I'm not talking about Bill Clinton or Barack Obama.
Davis: Yeah.
Robert Talisse: When we're believers in democracy, we are committed to the idea of one another's equality. And as we started at the at the beginning, yeah, like that puts a lot of constraints, right, on how I can treat people, even if they're wrong, right? Being wrong doesn't mean I get that the fact that you're wrong doesn't mean I'm your boss, right? Doesn't mean you're my underling. Right. The fact that you're wrong doesn't mean I get to push you around now. Right? So the question of democracy, the question of justice in a democracy is always a slightly more complicated question, given what I think ultimately, fundamentally, the world should be like. What can I impose on my fellow citizens in the name of making the world more like that? And that's just different from the question I think we're much more accustomed to asking ourselves, which I think is the wrong question. How should the world be? Like, there are lots of ways the world should be that I don't get to force other people to make it. Right? So
Mattias Gitron-Beer: Right.
Robert Talisse: so That that's ultimately where I think, going back now to Mattatis' point, right, the religion and politics question, just like this weird utilitarian guy who thinks it's smart, you know, people with PhDs and by the way, I was chair of a philosophy department for a decade of my life. You don't want them to be in charge of things, trust me, right? But putting that aside, right, the idea that my doctrine, theological, religious, metaphysical, you know, moral doctrine. Tells me something about how the world would look if everything were just right. Okay, that's nice. You can't, as a democratic citizen, just graft off of that image, that account, your political views, because your political views are always views about exercising coercive power over others who are your equals and Back to the first point again, their equality means that they're not going to share your religious doctrine. They might be wrong to not share it, but they're not going to share it. They're not, and not everybody's going to be a utilitarian if that's your, you know, if that's your doctrine. So the idea is how do I justify the exercise of coercive power over my fellow citizens, despite the fact that they don't agree with me about the about life's big qu biggest questions? So there's a muddling through aspect of this. I think the the kind of problem of religion and politics that Mateus is pointing to involves an an error of that sort. It's not we're not we're not just trying to make the world right. We're trying to make the world the best we can make it, given the fact that there are people around here who are my equals and we disagree about how the world should be. Does that make sense?
Mattias Gitron-Beer: Yeah, it
Davis: Yeah.
Mattias Gitron-Beer: makes a lot of sense. And in that same vein Do you think having a metacognition in that mode of thinking, do you think that could promote good nationalism?
Robert Talisse: Yeah, I think so. You know I think that a a lot of political dysfunction of the kind that we're familiar with, we could talk about what we mean by that, but I think a lot of the political dysfunction that we're facing as a country, I think owes ultimately to us having sort of lost sight of the idea that citizenship is a special role. Right? that when we are acting in the role of citizen, by which I mean you know, political advocacy all the way up through voting and donating money and right, when we're doing the stuff that goes into playing our you know, playing our role in deciding for er you know in in making collective decisions, you know, that's a special role that we are taking on. And it comes with special responsibilities. Right? So, you know Maybe you're familiar with this. If not, maybe some of the people who might be listening to us might not be familiar with the idea of a role responsibility, right? There are some things that we owe to one another just because we're people, right? Not to unduly, you know, yeah, I don't go around torturing people for fun or kicking babies or whatever, right? Don't
Davis: Right.
Robert Talisse: do that, right? But then there are other kinds of responsibilities I have to others in virtue of the role that I occupy. Occupy with respect to them, right?
Davis: Mm-hmm.
Robert Talisse: I'm a professor. You know, right? There are certain ways in which I owe to students a kind of impartiality or even-handedness or fairness that I might not owe to just people on the street, right? Right. you might say an umpire in a in a you know in a football match, you know, owes something, right, to the players that are just different, like maybe. You know, maybe he hates the Argentina team. Maybe he thinks they're a bunch of jerks. That can't but he's got a responsibility to not perform as an umpire on the basis of those attitudes that he might have. Right? So we've got responsibilities that are shaped by and have their sources in the roles that we play. Citizen is one of those roles, right? Where I don't have to like you. I don't have to think that you're right. I have to think that if you get your way, the world becomes less just. But, and there might be all kinds of reasons why, on the basis of the things I've just said, like that's why I don't like you, right? I think you're really wrong about politics. That might be why I don't like you. That can't that I don't like you can't be a reason for me in my role as citizen, right? That's a special kind of role. We're familiar with this, by the way, just to give one other example. I don't know if have either of you ever been on a jury?
Davis: I've not been on a jury. I've been observing some court cases now. We're actually both doing law internships separately.
Mattias Gitron-Beer: Yeah, we're both heavily involved in the criminal justice system.
Robert Talisse: Okay. Now jurors are real that's a really interesting, right, sort of role that comes with a lot of very unique responsibilities, right? Now, maybe in your observing of juries, especially if you've been looking at juries in criminal trials, you're familiar with cases in which something gets presented to the jury. As evidence. It is contested. The judge makes a ruling. The jurors must disregard that that thing you just heard, you have to disregard that.
Mattias Gitron-Beer: Right, I don't think it's ever actually disregarded.
Robert Talisse: No, no, no, right, right. That's a good different question though, right? Gotta disregard that. Now, note, like, okay, but what if the thing I was just told to disregard was the piece of evidence that pushed me past the reasonable doubt standard? Right? Now I'm like, well, okay, I I I believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the guy did it. But the bit of evidence
Davis: But you have responsibility.
Robert Talisse: that got me there, I can't weigh, right? The j when the juror is doing his or her job, right? You're right, Mateus say, well, do they really do the job or not? When they're doing his or her job, they have to say, I'm convinced he did it, I can't convict though. Right? Or imagine like a real egregious kind of case like this, right? Where you know, especially in criminal trials, there are like pretty strict rules of evidence that you're familiar with, right? Like the The witness, the the police officer, the law enforcement witnesses, we got a we got a confession. And then later it's not like no, it was under duress, right? You didn't memise him. You know? Now all of a sudden it's like, the guy said he did it. I believe that I believed that he did it. I the confession seems to me to be like he really did it, right? But I can't convict because of the way that the burden of proof is is is sh is structured. Now, no, that's just like now me as a juror can't convict, despite the fact that I'm convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused did the job, did the thing that he's accused of. So we've got this idea of like, well, no, there are special roles. Maybe in the civic sphere, this is where we find these in in really clear cases of these. We've got a s I'm I'm now occupying a special role, juror. And my job, no matter what, prosecuting attor attorneys are are are fast and loose with this in their remarks to juries, right? When they say things like, a trial is a truth-finding process. Yes and no, right? The truth that the jury is not after, right? The jury's not after the truth about whether the accused did the thing they're accused of. The jury's trying to figure out the truth as to whether the state has proven it beyond a reasonable doubt. Different truth. Right? Just a wholly different kind of question. The juror is somebody who is not being asked simply to exercise their judgment about whether the accused is guilty. The juror is somebody who has to exercise their judgment about whether, by way of a certain kind of very well regimented process called a criminal trial, whether the state has proved that guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It's a different kind of thing.
Mattias Gitron-Beer: That's a big burden too beyond a reasonable doubt. a huge burden.
Robert Talisse: It's a huge burden. And I think that citizenship as such is a lot more, right, like the office of a juror. We say, your quest the question is the question you're asking yourself as a citizen is not how do we make the world as best we can make it. It's how do we make the world as best we can make it, given that all political powers, coercive power exercised among my equals and exercised over them. It's
Davis: But
Robert Talisse: a different kind of question.
Davis: also thinking about the job of a defense attorney, potentially knowing that the client did it and still having to defend them to the best of your ability.
Robert Talisse: yeah, right. And you know, b this destru I mean, we can I'm sure the three of us can talk a long time about
Davis: Yeah.
Robert Talisse: problems with our criminal justice system. but It is a pretty impress I mean, if it if we could get it to if we can get it to work better than it's currently
Davis: Right.
Robert Talisse: working, it's a really impressive sort of theoretical proposition, right? The state's gonna punish you, right? It's gotta meet the burden because we're equals. Right? This is also why in a criminal trial, it's not me bringing, you know, bringing Davis. It's the state of Tennessee against Davis, right? Right? It's it's it's it's a political entity doing the prosecuting, the state, and not just i individual citizens. that was just a very long way of saying. I think that the religion and politics question gets a lot of the its its fuel from overlooking the fact that citizenship is a an office. Much like a a jury, a juror's office, the office of being a juror is. Does that make sense?
Davis: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We hear a lot about voting and you just went into a lot of different responsibilities that we have as citizens. I guess my question is, I'm turning eighteen soon. I'm gonna be able to vote. Do you think voting is actually one of the most r important responsibilities you have, or is there some other greater responsibility you have as a I guess young democratic citizen? what do you think? Is one of the most impactful things I could do to contribute to our democratic society.
Robert Talisse: Well that's great. this is a a very good question. so let me say one very quick thing. You know, there's a lot of people in my line of work, you know, I'm a political philosopher. It's not uncommon among people in my line of work to argue things like voting is irrational. Right? Why? I mean you you could probably discern how these arguments
Davis: I you can see here now.
Robert Talisse: go, right? What you gotta do to to meet the responsibilities of being a good voter. It's like you gotta like put a lot of time and effort. You gotta like it costs it costs time and attention to be informed, right? But the chances of you being a decisive right, the chances of you deciding w what happens is so minuscule.
Davis: I don't think an election has ever come down to one vote.
Robert Talisse: It just seems like a waste of your it's like a it's an irrational allocation of your resources. Right. you know you're just a drop in the ocean, right? Especially in a federal election. and so the idea that you're that, you know, whether you vote here's another way to put it, Davis, whether you vote or not on the next election or w the first election after you turn 18, whether you vote or not, the result is going to be the same. So why vote? Right? Now. Two things. Surely there are ways of contributing civically to your society that are in a certain obvious sense of the word impactful, more impactful than casting a vote, right? Teaching somebody to read is probably the most impactful thing. One human being can do for another human being, it seems to me, right?
Mattias Gitron-Beer: I agree.
Robert Talisse: So you'd like, well, instead of like, you know, reading the New York Times and you know, watching the the news and following what's going on on C-SPAN, I'm gonna volunteer at an adult learning program that teaches adults who are, you know, functionally illiterate. I'm gonna teach them how to really read. I'm gonna do that. That would be like a major, major like positive contribution to your society, right? To volunteer to teach people to read, to feed people, right? I mean, there's all kinds of ways in which you're like, well, look, I can make such a higher, like such more greater impact, right? If I just forgot about voting and just like did these very local things,
Davis: Mm-hmm.
Robert Talisse: because you know, once you know how to read, you can kind of teach somebody else how to read. Right, right. So,
Davis: Yeah.
Robert Talisse: good. So, There are all kinds of things that you could do, and I think you should do some of them, right? I don't think there's enough hours in the day or years in a life for us, any of us to do all of them, but some of them you should do. but here's the thing. I think voting is one of the things that you have an obligation to do, despite the fact that your vote is not gonna determine the outcome of any election. And here's the reason why. let me just two kind of sometimes it seems to me. That there are certain kinds of actions that certain kinds of ways of contributing to a collective activity that could be obligatory, even if your contribution doesn't really make a difference. Let me just give like a real like like down home example. so you know, like you guys are in New York, am I right about that? Yeah, I used to I I I'm from New Jersey, if you couldn't tell from my voice. so, you know, every once in a while, you know, you're you're out and some and it's winter and somebody's stuck in the snow and you know, there's a bunch of people who are trying to help the guy get the car out of the snow, and you're an able bodied, you know, eighteen, seventeen, whatever year old guy, you know, maybe your little extra effort is not gonna like change whether the guy gets out of the the snowbank or not. But if somebody comes along if somebody's helping to push the car and says, hey man, can you help us out? And you say, No, you'll do it. You you got you there's five
Davis: Yeah.
Robert Talisse: of you. The sixth guy isn't gonna make the difference, right? If the five of you can't do it, this I'm not gonna be it, right? That looks to me like it may like if you were to do that, I'd just say you're a jerk, right? Like you should, like You'd be like, well, even if you're just like, I like, okay, it's a collective effort. I'm not gonna be the guy who makes the difference, but it might still be the case that I've got an obligation and some sort of minor I ought to contribute, right? So I think elections are kind of like in elections in a certain respect are kind of like that. It's a collective effort to make a good political decision among people. Who've got some disagreements about exactly like what direction we ought to push the car in or whatever, right? Doesn't matter. I still I think that, you know, sometimes contributing to a collective effort, even if your contribution is not going to be decisive, might still be obligatory. Here's the second thing. Despite the fact that your individual vote will not decide the outcome. That there are elections held regularly with high or decent participation
Davis: Mm-hmm.
Robert Talisse: is a surprisingly effective anti corruption mechanism. Right.
Davis: Yeah.
Robert Talisse: That so your votes like you you're like the guy who's gonna win the election is gonna win the election whether you stay in bed or not, right? But each one of us makes a little contribution to the overall voter turnout. And I think that, well, data show that, yeah, regular elections with decent turnout, that's highly correlated with or that that looks like it's a good bulwark against certain pretty prominent forms of political corruption. Is knowing that there is a knowing that there is a significant portion of the population that turns out Regardless of how the vote goes, that looks like it's a it's a surprisingly effective way of keeping elected officials on their toes. Right? And this is why like low voter turnout, I think, is just you know, low voter turnout is is correlated with corruption. So you want to say, look, I'll turn out for election day. Not because my vote is going to make the decision. It's not gonna like the guy's gonna win, my guy's gonna win by one, right? One vote, it's gonna be mine. No, you're not gonna make it, you're not gonna decide the outcome, but you are gonna play a role in in preserving a political institution that looks like it's highly correlated with certain forces of anti-corruption. How does that sound to you?
Davis: Interesting. I do think it is an obligation to vote and I plan on voting as soon as I can.
Robert Talisse: Can I ask you a question about that? 'Cause th I'm I'm I'm I'm really curious.
Davis: Sure. Go ahead.
Robert Talisse: I'm I'm really, really curious. Do you think the do you think that voting is an obligation? W a I agree with you. We're voting
Davis: Okay.
Robert Talisse: is an obligation, but Is there something amiss? What if I vote on the basis of a coin flip?
Davis: So maybe the obligation is like do diligence and research before voting.
Robert Talisse: Right, conscientious voting or responsible voting or something like that looks like it's the obligation,
Davis: Okay.
Robert Talisse: right? Not simply the voting, right? It's the voting on
Davis: Cool. Yeah.
Robert Talisse: the basis of, right. This is why you might say, like, you know, selling your vote, right? What if I just like, you know, walk out onto, you know, walk into the park over here when there's an election going on and just say to one of the candidates, I'll vote for you. Give me, you know, give me a thousand bucks, I'll vote for you. And the guy gives me a thousand, like, I voted. Right? But it does look like I haven't satisfied the civic duty. Right? Well, looks like I might even have violated the civic duty, but not merely not satisfied it. So it looks like it's sort of conscientious or responsible voting is the obligation. Does that sound right?
Mattias Gitron-Beer: Yeah, and I actually have a follow up question for you on that. Do you think, Because obviously the electoral college system that's currently in place, the swing states are the most important here for the decision of who becomes president. I was wondering, do you think individuals who live in swing states have more of a civic duty to vote than individuals maybe in, New York that's historically a very democratic state?
Robert Talisse: You know, I I wouldn't put it that way. I understand the thought and you know, I'm I'm tempted by it that the the duty to vote is even more pressing in swing states, right? That the person in Pennsylvania or Ohio who sat home but had they voted would have voted for Kamala Harris, right? I think that that person that person did something bad, it seems to me, in a way that somebody in New Jersey with the same voting profile, maybe didn't, right? Like they should have gone out. If that was their judgment, they should have gone out and done that. but I like just as a a tendency as a philosopher, you know, disentangling the duties about voting, the responsibilities of voting from the out Of the election seems to me to be always a smart move
Davis: Hmm.
Robert Talisse: because there are all these people in the world who say the thing we started at this segment saying, like, you're it's irrational to vote because you're never going to change the outcome. Like, yeah, well, but the value of voting and the rationality of voting and the responsibility to vote have more to do with playing my role in upholding a set of social processes that look like They're really important if we're going to avoid certain forms of political corruption. Right. So th that's what I'd want to say. Say, y you know, like even in New York, right? Let's say, you know, you're living in Manhattan, you're just a the s the the the standard Manhattanite, you know, you vote Dem all the way, right? You're a Lib Progressive, you know, whatever, right? You've got the voting profile of of Manhattanites. you know, maybe the voting profile of the guys in Williamsburg. I know, whatever it is,
Davis: Yes.
Robert Talisse: right, right? Like Lib, you know, right? and so, you know, like the liberal can like the New York is going to the Democratic candidate. Why do I have to get out of bed? Like I don't think that that person is off the hook for voting, even if it's not only clear that they're not going to be the deciding vote. But it's also clear to them that the very outcome that they, if they were to cast a vote, would aim to bring about is gonna come about anyway. Right? The Democratic candidate's gonna take the state. I want the Democratic candidate to take the state. That's gonna happen whether I get out of bed or not. Why don't I just stay in bed? Like because voter turnout matters, not because of the outcome of the particular decision or the outcome of the election, but because a a viable, lively electorate is a really good way of dealing with tendencies of political corruption.
Davis: I agree with you. Just to play devil's advocate here, someone make the argument that just as your one vote isn't gonna sway the election, whether or not a hundred thousand people voted for a Republican and a hundred thousand people are voted for a Democrat, and let's say, or let's get let's give one side 200,000 just that it doesn't matter. what's the difference between three thousand? three hundred thousand people voting and three hundred and one thousand people voting.
Robert Talisse: Right. Good, good. So like what what what is the what is the anti-corruption effect of the fact that I showed up and cast a vote, right?
Davis: Yeah.
Robert Talisse: Good. I think that that's a really good point. here's really what I would say. we're gonna take the the the the the two arguments I began with, the one about the guy with the car stuck in the snow and then the anti-corruption thing, and just consider them in the opposite direction, right? So we've got this social event, this occasion in November, where it's made not very difficult for me. I don't have to build the polling station, right? I don't have to staff the the the room. I don't have to like all that's taken care of for me. Right? So that everything is done to make it easy. Now I happen to think it should be easier, but that's a different issue. Right? Everything is done to make it accessible for me to participate in this political occasion that we know when significant numbers of people participate in that thing, that's highly correlated with certain forms of anti-corruption. That sounds to me now like the guy with his car stuck in the snow. And you say, there's five of you. What's a sixth guy gonna do? Right? It's like, no, it's right here. It's it's right there, right? You just have to show up and give a just give a push when we say heat, go, right? That's all you gotta do. Maybe you're not gonna make the difference. Maybe the five guys are gonna be able to do it eventually. Maybe like you're just like a a the cog on which nothing's turning in this. Maybe, but to just walk away when it's just right there, right?
Davis: Right.
Robert Talisse: Looks to me like it's blameworthy. That's what I would wanna say now about the you know, what's what's three hundred thousand in one versus three hundred thousand for the anti-corruption effect of a regular election? Well, maybe minuscule, but that
Davis: Fair account.
Robert Talisse: it's there, right? Looks to me like it's it's a collective activity. I'm a college professor, so you know, and and I the undergraduate class I taught in the fall, you know, that that met the day after our last presidential election was filled with some very dejected young people. Who did not like the outcome? An astounding number of them said to me that they didn't vote because they thought she was definitely gonna win. It just looks to me like Yeah, you you let us all down. You're like the person who's just like, you guys will get the car out. What am I gonna add?
Mattias Gitron-Beer: If too many people think like that, then the tables are gonna turn.
Robert Talisse: that might that might be a a big part of the explanation as to where where we got. You know what what how that election shook out, right? A lot of certainly look like that's what happened with Hillary, with Hillary Clinton. Right? All the polls were like, Yeah, I don't know if you're if you're were paying attention when this happened, but the New York Times like two days before election day was like, In ninety-nine point eight percent of our models, Hillary Clinton wins in a landslide. And it depressed the vote. Not in New York and other kinds of places, but in lots of places, people are just like, well, why should I get up and go out? Like, you know, I like what's gonna happen. Me getting up and going and voting isn't gonna isn't gonna bring that about. It's gonna happen anyway. Like that's the I think that's the the other problem that we get when we tie our duty to vote too tightly to the outcomes of elections rather than to playing my role to support a general social process that looks like it's correlated with anti corruption.
Davis: Yeah, that's a really interesting stance. It was great talking to you. We really appreciate you coming on.
Robert Talisse: Great. Well, it's good to talk to you guys.
Robert Talisse: Okay, good. So it seems to me that when we're thinking about democracy, we could be thinking about lots of different things. So let's start there. democracy, I would say argue in the book, is a moral proposal. It's the it's the claim not only that it's possible for us to live together peacefully in a relatively just so social order. But we can live together peacefully in a relatively just social order as equals. That's the important, I think, element of democracy. It's the proposal or the aspiration, we might say, for to create a self-governing society of equals. Now, one of the things that I think follows out of our equality is that we're gonna disagree. when, you know, when when I don't owe deference to you when I don't have to, you know, subordinate myself to you. I get to make up my own mind about things, for better or worse, right? Now, there are ways in which I am rationally better off if I, you know, make my mind up according to, you know, in certain ways rather than the other than others. You know, I shouldn't flip coins, I should look at evidence, I should read the newspapers, these kinds of things. But it's certainly not criminal among equals for people to arrive at their political views and views about almost anything in ways that are pretty reckless. And unless sh you're directly endangering another person, you know, recklessness is a you know, is allowed.
Davis: Right.
Robert Talisse: So one thing that falls out of our equality is that we're gonna disagree. That seems inevitable. another thing though that falls out of our equality is that when any one of us, individually or collectively, and sometimes in great numbers, seeks to direct the massive, inescapable, coercive power of the state in setting a policy, making a law, enforcing a rule. sanctioning non compliant others, right? Whenever we seek to enlist the massive power of the state. To exercise power
Davis: Mm-hmm.
Robert Talisse: Over our equals, we owe them something,
Davis: Right.
Robert Talisse: right? We don't just get to say, like parents get to say to their two-year-olds, because I said so. Right?
Davis: Exactly. Yeah.
Robert Talisse: Citizens owe things to one another when they are engaged in the activities of citizenship, many, not all, many of which are activities that play a role in directing the coercive power of the state. The exercise of force among equals is a morally tricky proposition, right? and so part of the democratic aspiration, part of the democratic ideal is the ideal that, well, if the state's power is directed by processes by which we each get an equal say, we each not only get a say, but a hearing,
Davis: Mm-hmm.
Robert Talisse: and we get equal input. Then when the state comes around and forces me to do what I otherwise don't want to do, I'm not being subordinated. I'm retaining my equal sta status because I had access to the reasons, the ideas. I had a chance to make my view popular, right? So on and so forth. So democracies, you know, a a tricky proposition in this way. We're supposed to stand up for justice. But we also have to respect the equality of our fellow citizens, especially when they disagree with us about what justice is. and so what I call in the book The Democrats' Dilemma is the sort of like, well, standing up for justice looks like, you know, it it directs me to try to shut down, ignore, marginalize the people who disagree with me about justice. So the directive to tr treat our fellow citizens as our equals can conflict with the directive to try to make the try to make the country a more just place. and it's tricky just to navigate that tension. because as I'm sure you're familiar with from just you know being politically active yourselves, you know, especially when you're talking to, you know, your You know, like your allies, you know, you say, Well, hold on a second. Maybe we need to hear from the other side. That is a really good way to to arouse suspicion among your allies that
Davis: Hmm.
Robert Talisse: you're not really on board, right? And you say, Well, look, being here's the the the the the bitter pill of democracy is that being right about justice. Being demonstrably right about justice doesn't mean that you'll get your way automatically. Doesn't mean that the people who are wrong get their votes taken away, right? Being wrong about justice doesn't disempower you. Right? This is the you know, democracy's democracy's tough. So that's the the dilemma, that's the tension. you know, maybe it rises to the level of a paradox, you know, it depends on. on what we mean by that word, but that's the tension. treating your fellow citizens as your equals doesn't always play well with your duty to stand up for justice. and this tension is made more difficult, I will say. because you know another sort of fact sort of brute fact about democracy So if you want to have an effective political voice, you have to join a group, right? you have to, you know, you wanna have a voice, you gotta join a choir, right? And part of what the Sustaining Democracy book is about is about how the dynamics, the the sort of psychological and social dynamics of like-minded groups can make us really bad. at satisfying our duties to those among our fellow citizens with whom we're not like minded. Does that make sense?
Mattias Gitron-Beer: Right, thank you. Thank you so much for that. And I liked how you touched on, touched a lot on morals. Specifically for me in society, I've been thinking a lot how different individuals of society derive our morals and something that I always come back to is religion. Specifically how religion is often overlooked in the political discourse realm. When two people argue politics, they can point to evidence, polls, laws. But when someone's position comes from faith, the usual tools, in my opinion, of argument don't really apply because there's such strong moral convictions and you can't really fact-check convictions. So my question to you, you know, as a philosopher, how do you, how are you able to have productive disagreement with someone whose reasons come from these religions, sometimes a place where argument can't reach?
Robert Talisse: Well good. So the first thing to say is is this is a deep, deep like problem, right?
Davis: Yeah.
Robert Talisse: Very generally the problem of sort of conviction. It doesn't even have to be religious conviction, by the way, right? Conviction, right? Moral conviction, right, in democratic politics is tricky. for some of the reasons, Mateus that you've pointed to. But let me just start with one sort of caveat kind of point. You know. Like there are lots of different phenomena that we are talking about when we talk about religion, right? certain versions of certain things that we recognize as religion are committed to the idea that the central tenets of the faith are demonstrable by reason. Right? That's
Davis: Mm.
Mattias Gitron-Beer: Right. Right.
Robert Talisse: yeah, that's what St. Thomas thought, right? St. Thomas thought, like, wait a minute, you wanna have a you wanna have a disagreement about theology? That's fine. Because I can win all those arguments, because I could demonstrate to you that there's a God. Right? He has
Mattias Gitron-Beer: Right.
Davis: Right.
Robert Talisse: he's got five arguments for right for for for for God's existence. so if you don't like one, he's got four others, you know, right? so some versions of of religion are committed to the rational demonstration of the truth of their normative and theological commitments, others aren't. And in fact, others sort of think that the virtue of the religious believer lies in sustaining the commitment in the absence of rational demonstration
Davis: Yeah.
Robert Talisse: of his truth, right? You know, believing because it's absurd is what the the stance of the truly faithful person is supposed to be. So there are all kinds of issues lurking here. Here's one thing, though, that I would say. You know, And it's not, again, let me just emphasize the problem that we're pointing to under this sort of broad rubic rubric of religion and politics is not unique to religion. So let me give a a different kind of example. so there's a a very popular normative, let's say very popular moral theory that you might be familiar with. Named utilitarianism. utilitarianism is the moral view that says that the right thing to do for anybody, including groups of people, institutions, the right thing to do is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain across the entire segment of the population that's going to be affected by what you do. Right? So Maximize pleasure, minimize pain, that's always the right thing to do. That's what the rightness of an action consists in. Right? Okay. no, no, if there are all kinds of things to say about utilitarianism, it thinks that the only thing that matters when we're morally assessing an action is what is what it produces, it's its consequences, like principles and motives seem to come into the story much later. But imagine somebody who says, perhaps plausibly, right? Hi. Mateus, I'm a utilitarian and I've done the calculations. It turns out that if we gave to that small number of people in the country who have PhDs in philosophy extra votes on election day, We'd make better decisions. We'd be we'd make wiser choices as a society if we gave this small group of people disproportionately large political input, political say, political deciding power. Now you might say, Well, well, tell me more, you know, you might you there are all kinds of things you might say, but you might also say this. It's like Okay, I think utilitarianism is false. Now what?
Mattias Gitron-Beer: Right, that's true.
Robert Talisse: That's a util that's a utilitarian argument for weighted voting, what they sometimes call weighted or plural voting. I I think utilitarianism is false. Now what happens? You haven't given me a reason to adopt this voting scheme because you've just said, well, my moral doctrine, utilitarianism, recommends it. So I don't need
Davis: Right.
Robert Talisse: to be utilitarian. That looks to me structurally the very same problem as the religion problem, right? So here's the upshot. We could talk a lot about this. This is a very, very deep question. So I'm glad you raised it. But here's the upshot. and and it strikes me that our one of the ways in which our current political discourse suffers is that I think we, as a polity, as a as an electorate, as a country of sort of lost sight. Of what strikes me as a deep and crucial point about the project of democracy. It's like, yeah, your job as a citizen is not to think strictly from your point of view about ultimate things, right? The deep truths about morality and existence, and figure out what policies, what politics would best align with your deepest. Commitments. Because remember, going back to the very first thing I said, right? And and to get to Davis's question about what justice is, right? Right.
Davis: Hmm. I was hoping for an answer.
Robert Talisse: Yeah, yeah, good, good, good. So, you know, it it comes as news to people when I say this as a sort of political philosopher. Maybe this won't be news to you. I hope it's not. It strikes me as something that shouldn't be news. You know, The question of how things ought to be politically. Is not simply the question of what does my best view about justice say? How about how things ought to be. The question of politics is always the question of what can I force other people to do in the name of making the world the way I think it should be? That's the question, right? Right? Because politics is always about exercises of power over people. When we're Democrats, But when we're believers in democracy, and I'm I'm not talking about Bill Clinton or Barack Obama.
Davis: Yeah.
Robert Talisse: When we're believers in democracy, we are committed to the idea of one another's equality. And as we started at the at the beginning, yeah, like that puts a lot of constraints, right, on how I can treat people, even if they're wrong, right? Being wrong doesn't mean I get that the fact that you're wrong doesn't mean I'm your boss, right? Doesn't mean you're my underling. Right. The fact that you're wrong doesn't mean I get to push you around now. Right? So the question of democracy, the question of justice in a democracy is always a slightly more complicated question, given what I think ultimately, fundamentally, the world should be like. What can I impose on my fellow citizens in the name of making the world more like that? And that's just different from the question I think we're much more accustomed to asking ourselves, which I think is the wrong question. How should the world be? Like, there are lots of ways the world should be that I don't get to force other people to make it. Right? So
Mattias Gitron-Beer: Right.
Robert Talisse: so That that's ultimately where I think, going back now to Mattatis' point, right, the religion and politics question, just like this weird utilitarian guy who thinks it's smart, you know, people with PhDs and by the way, I was chair of a philosophy department for a decade of my life. You don't want them to be in charge of things, trust me, right? But putting that aside, right, the idea that my doctrine, theological, religious, metaphysical, you know, moral doctrine. Tells me something about how the world would look if everything were just right. Okay, that's nice. You can't, as a democratic citizen, just graft off of that image, that account, your political views, because your political views are always views about exercising coercive power over others who are your equals and Back to the first point again, their equality means that they're not going to share your religious doctrine. They might be wrong to not share it, but they're not going to share it. They're not, and not everybody's going to be a utilitarian if that's your, you know, if that's your doctrine. So the idea is how do I justify the exercise of coercive power over my fellow citizens, despite the fact that they don't agree with me about the about life's big qu biggest questions? So there's a muddling through aspect of this. I think the the kind of problem of religion and politics that Mateus is pointing to involves an an error of that sort. It's not we're not we're not just trying to make the world right. We're trying to make the world the best we can make it, given the fact that there are people around here who are my equals and we disagree about how the world should be. Does that make sense?
Mattias Gitron-Beer: Yeah, it
Davis: Yeah.
Mattias Gitron-Beer: makes a lot of sense. And in that same vein Do you think having a metacognition in that mode of thinking, do you think that could promote good nationalism?
Robert Talisse: Yeah, I think so. You know I think that a a lot of political dysfunction of the kind that we're familiar with, we could talk about what we mean by that, but I think a lot of the political dysfunction that we're facing as a country, I think owes ultimately to us having sort of lost sight of the idea that citizenship is a special role. Right? that when we are acting in the role of citizen, by which I mean you know, political advocacy all the way up through voting and donating money and right, when we're doing the stuff that goes into playing our you know, playing our role in deciding for er you know in in making collective decisions, you know, that's a special role that we are taking on. And it comes with special responsibilities. Right? So, you know Maybe you're familiar with this. If not, maybe some of the people who might be listening to us might not be familiar with the idea of a role responsibility, right? There are some things that we owe to one another just because we're people, right? Not to unduly, you know, yeah, I don't go around torturing people for fun or kicking babies or whatever, right? Don't
Davis: Right.
Robert Talisse: do that, right? But then there are other kinds of responsibilities I have to others in virtue of the role that I occupy. Occupy with respect to them, right?
Davis: Mm-hmm.
Robert Talisse: I'm a professor. You know, right? There are certain ways in which I owe to students a kind of impartiality or even-handedness or fairness that I might not owe to just people on the street, right? Right. you might say an umpire in a in a you know in a football match, you know, owes something, right, to the players that are just different, like maybe. You know, maybe he hates the Argentina team. Maybe he thinks they're a bunch of jerks. That can't but he's got a responsibility to not perform as an umpire on the basis of those attitudes that he might have. Right? So we've got responsibilities that are shaped by and have their sources in the roles that we play. Citizen is one of those roles, right? Where I don't have to like you. I don't have to think that you're right. I have to think that if you get your way, the world becomes less just. But, and there might be all kinds of reasons why, on the basis of the things I've just said, like that's why I don't like you, right? I think you're really wrong about politics. That might be why I don't like you. That can't that I don't like you can't be a reason for me in my role as citizen, right? That's a special kind of role. We're familiar with this, by the way, just to give one other example. I don't know if have either of you ever been on a jury?
Davis: I've not been on a jury. I've been observing some court cases now. We're actually both doing law internships separately.
Mattias Gitron-Beer: Yeah, we're both heavily involved in the criminal justice system.
Robert Talisse: Okay. Now jurors are real that's a really interesting, right, sort of role that comes with a lot of very unique responsibilities, right? Now, maybe in your observing of juries, especially if you've been looking at juries in criminal trials, you're familiar with cases in which something gets presented to the jury. As evidence. It is contested. The judge makes a ruling. The jurors must disregard that that thing you just heard, you have to disregard that.
Mattias Gitron-Beer: Right, I don't think it's ever actually disregarded.
Robert Talisse: No, no, no, right, right. That's a good different question though, right? Gotta disregard that. Now, note, like, okay, but what if the thing I was just told to disregard was the piece of evidence that pushed me past the reasonable doubt standard? Right? Now I'm like, well, okay, I I I believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the guy did it. But the bit of evidence
Davis: But you have responsibility.
Robert Talisse: that got me there, I can't weigh, right? The j when the juror is doing his or her job, right? You're right, Mateus say, well, do they really do the job or not? When they're doing his or her job, they have to say, I'm convinced he did it, I can't convict though. Right? Or imagine like a real egregious kind of case like this, right? Where you know, especially in criminal trials, there are like pretty strict rules of evidence that you're familiar with, right? Like the The witness, the the police officer, the law enforcement witnesses, we got a we got a confession. And then later it's not like no, it was under duress, right? You didn't memise him. You know? Now all of a sudden it's like, the guy said he did it. I believe that I believed that he did it. I the confession seems to me to be like he really did it, right? But I can't convict because of the way that the burden of proof is is is sh is structured. Now, no, that's just like now me as a juror can't convict, despite the fact that I'm convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused did the job, did the thing that he's accused of. So we've got this idea of like, well, no, there are special roles. Maybe in the civic sphere, this is where we find these in in really clear cases of these. We've got a s I'm I'm now occupying a special role, juror. And my job, no matter what, prosecuting attor attorneys are are are fast and loose with this in their remarks to juries, right? When they say things like, a trial is a truth-finding process. Yes and no, right? The truth that the jury is not after, right? The jury's not after the truth about whether the accused did the thing they're accused of. The jury's trying to figure out the truth as to whether the state has proven it beyond a reasonable doubt. Different truth. Right? Just a wholly different kind of question. The juror is somebody who is not being asked simply to exercise their judgment about whether the accused is guilty. The juror is somebody who has to exercise their judgment about whether, by way of a certain kind of very well regimented process called a criminal trial, whether the state has proved that guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It's a different kind of thing.
Mattias Gitron-Beer: That's a big burden too beyond a reasonable doubt. a huge burden.
Robert Talisse: It's a huge burden. And I think that citizenship as such is a lot more, right, like the office of a juror. We say, your quest the question is the question you're asking yourself as a citizen is not how do we make the world as best we can make it. It's how do we make the world as best we can make it, given that all political powers, coercive power exercised among my equals and exercised over them. It's
Davis: But
Robert Talisse: a different kind of question.
Davis: also thinking about the job of a defense attorney, potentially knowing that the client did it and still having to defend them to the best of your ability.
Robert Talisse: yeah, right. And you know, b this destru I mean, we can I'm sure the three of us can talk a long time about
Davis: Yeah.
Robert Talisse: problems with our criminal justice system. but It is a pretty impress I mean, if it if we could get it to if we can get it to work better than it's currently
Davis: Right.
Robert Talisse: working, it's a really impressive sort of theoretical proposition, right? The state's gonna punish you, right? It's gotta meet the burden because we're equals. Right? This is also why in a criminal trial, it's not me bringing, you know, bringing Davis. It's the state of Tennessee against Davis, right? Right? It's it's it's it's a political entity doing the prosecuting, the state, and not just i individual citizens. that was just a very long way of saying. I think that the religion and politics question gets a lot of the its its fuel from overlooking the fact that citizenship is a an office. Much like a a jury, a juror's office, the office of being a juror is. Does that make sense?
Davis: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We hear a lot about voting and you just went into a lot of different responsibilities that we have as citizens. I guess my question is, I'm turning eighteen soon. I'm gonna be able to vote. Do you think voting is actually one of the most r important responsibilities you have, or is there some other greater responsibility you have as a I guess young democratic citizen? what do you think? Is one of the most impactful things I could do to contribute to our democratic society.
Robert Talisse: Well that's great. this is a a very good question. so let me say one very quick thing. You know, there's a lot of people in my line of work, you know, I'm a political philosopher. It's not uncommon among people in my line of work to argue things like voting is irrational. Right? Why? I mean you you could probably discern how these arguments
Davis: I you can see here now.
Robert Talisse: go, right? What you gotta do to to meet the responsibilities of being a good voter. It's like you gotta like put a lot of time and effort. You gotta like it costs it costs time and attention to be informed, right? But the chances of you being a decisive right, the chances of you deciding w what happens is so minuscule.
Davis: I don't think an election has ever come down to one vote.
Robert Talisse: It just seems like a waste of your it's like a it's an irrational allocation of your resources. Right. you know you're just a drop in the ocean, right? Especially in a federal election. and so the idea that you're that, you know, whether you vote here's another way to put it, Davis, whether you vote or not on the next election or w the first election after you turn 18, whether you vote or not, the result is going to be the same. So why vote? Right? Now. Two things. Surely there are ways of contributing civically to your society that are in a certain obvious sense of the word impactful, more impactful than casting a vote, right? Teaching somebody to read is probably the most impactful thing. One human being can do for another human being, it seems to me, right?
Mattias Gitron-Beer: I agree.
Robert Talisse: So you'd like, well, instead of like, you know, reading the New York Times and you know, watching the the news and following what's going on on C-SPAN, I'm gonna volunteer at an adult learning program that teaches adults who are, you know, functionally illiterate. I'm gonna teach them how to really read. I'm gonna do that. That would be like a major, major like positive contribution to your society, right? To volunteer to teach people to read, to feed people, right? I mean, there's all kinds of ways in which you're like, well, look, I can make such a higher, like such more greater impact, right? If I just forgot about voting and just like did these very local things,
Davis: Mm-hmm.
Robert Talisse: because you know, once you know how to read, you can kind of teach somebody else how to read. Right, right. So,
Davis: Yeah.
Robert Talisse: good. So, There are all kinds of things that you could do, and I think you should do some of them, right? I don't think there's enough hours in the day or years in a life for us, any of us to do all of them, but some of them you should do. but here's the thing. I think voting is one of the things that you have an obligation to do, despite the fact that your vote is not gonna determine the outcome of any election. And here's the reason why. let me just two kind of sometimes it seems to me. That there are certain kinds of actions that certain kinds of ways of contributing to a collective activity that could be obligatory, even if your contribution doesn't really make a difference. Let me just give like a real like like down home example. so you know, like you guys are in New York, am I right about that? Yeah, I used to I I I'm from New Jersey, if you couldn't tell from my voice. so, you know, every once in a while, you know, you're you're out and some and it's winter and somebody's stuck in the snow and you know, there's a bunch of people who are trying to help the guy get the car out of the snow, and you're an able bodied, you know, eighteen, seventeen, whatever year old guy, you know, maybe your little extra effort is not gonna like change whether the guy gets out of the the snowbank or not. But if somebody comes along if somebody's helping to push the car and says, hey man, can you help us out? And you say, No, you'll do it. You you got you there's five
Davis: Yeah.
Robert Talisse: of you. The sixth guy isn't gonna make the difference, right? If the five of you can't do it, this I'm not gonna be it, right? That looks to me like it may like if you were to do that, I'd just say you're a jerk, right? Like you should, like You'd be like, well, even if you're just like, I like, okay, it's a collective effort. I'm not gonna be the guy who makes the difference, but it might still be the case that I've got an obligation and some sort of minor I ought to contribute, right? So I think elections are kind of like in elections in a certain respect are kind of like that. It's a collective effort to make a good political decision among people. Who've got some disagreements about exactly like what direction we ought to push the car in or whatever, right? Doesn't matter. I still I think that, you know, sometimes contributing to a collective effort, even if your contribution is not going to be decisive, might still be obligatory. Here's the second thing. Despite the fact that your individual vote will not decide the outcome. That there are elections held regularly with high or decent participation
Davis: Mm-hmm.
Robert Talisse: is a surprisingly effective anti corruption mechanism. Right.
Davis: Yeah.
Robert Talisse: That so your votes like you you're like the guy who's gonna win the election is gonna win the election whether you stay in bed or not, right? But each one of us makes a little contribution to the overall voter turnout. And I think that, well, data show that, yeah, regular elections with decent turnout, that's highly correlated with or that that looks like it's a good bulwark against certain pretty prominent forms of political corruption. Is knowing that there is a knowing that there is a significant portion of the population that turns out Regardless of how the vote goes, that looks like it's a it's a surprisingly effective way of keeping elected officials on their toes. Right? And this is why like low voter turnout, I think, is just you know, low voter turnout is is correlated with corruption. So you want to say, look, I'll turn out for election day. Not because my vote is going to make the decision. It's not gonna like the guy's gonna win, my guy's gonna win by one, right? One vote, it's gonna be mine. No, you're not gonna make it, you're not gonna decide the outcome, but you are gonna play a role in in preserving a political institution that looks like it's highly correlated with certain forces of anti-corruption. How does that sound to you?
Davis: Interesting. I do think it is an obligation to vote and I plan on voting as soon as I can.
Robert Talisse: Can I ask you a question about that? 'Cause th I'm I'm I'm I'm really curious.
Davis: Sure. Go ahead.
Robert Talisse: I'm I'm really, really curious. Do you think the do you think that voting is an obligation? W a I agree with you. We're voting
Davis: Okay.
Robert Talisse: is an obligation, but Is there something amiss? What if I vote on the basis of a coin flip?
Davis: So maybe the obligation is like do diligence and research before voting.
Robert Talisse: Right, conscientious voting or responsible voting or something like that looks like it's the obligation,
Davis: Okay.
Robert Talisse: right? Not simply the voting, right? It's the voting on
Davis: Cool. Yeah.
Robert Talisse: the basis of, right. This is why you might say, like, you know, selling your vote, right? What if I just like, you know, walk out onto, you know, walk into the park over here when there's an election going on and just say to one of the candidates, I'll vote for you. Give me, you know, give me a thousand bucks, I'll vote for you. And the guy gives me a thousand, like, I voted. Right? But it does look like I haven't satisfied the civic duty. Right? Well, looks like I might even have violated the civic duty, but not merely not satisfied it. So it looks like it's sort of conscientious or responsible voting is the obligation. Does that sound right?
Mattias Gitron-Beer: Yeah, and I actually have a follow up question for you on that. Do you think, Because obviously the electoral college system that's currently in place, the swing states are the most important here for the decision of who becomes president. I was wondering, do you think individuals who live in swing states have more of a civic duty to vote than individuals maybe in, New York that's historically a very democratic state?
Robert Talisse: You know, I I wouldn't put it that way. I understand the thought and you know, I'm I'm tempted by it that the the duty to vote is even more pressing in swing states, right? That the person in Pennsylvania or Ohio who sat home but had they voted would have voted for Kamala Harris, right? I think that that person that person did something bad, it seems to me, in a way that somebody in New Jersey with the same voting profile, maybe didn't, right? Like they should have gone out. If that was their judgment, they should have gone out and done that. but I like just as a a tendency as a philosopher, you know, disentangling the duties about voting, the responsibilities of voting from the out Of the election seems to me to be always a smart move
Davis: Hmm.
Robert Talisse: because there are all these people in the world who say the thing we started at this segment saying, like, you're it's irrational to vote because you're never going to change the outcome. Like, yeah, well, but the value of voting and the rationality of voting and the responsibility to vote have more to do with playing my role in upholding a set of social processes that look like They're really important if we're going to avoid certain forms of political corruption. Right. So th that's what I'd want to say. Say, y you know, like even in New York, right? Let's say, you know, you're living in Manhattan, you're just a the s the the the standard Manhattanite, you know, you vote Dem all the way, right? You're a Lib Progressive, you know, whatever, right? You've got the voting profile of of Manhattanites. you know, maybe the voting profile of the guys in Williamsburg. I know, whatever it is,
Davis: Yes.
Robert Talisse: right, right? Like Lib, you know, right? and so, you know, like the liberal can like the New York is going to the Democratic candidate. Why do I have to get out of bed? Like I don't think that that person is off the hook for voting, even if it's not only clear that they're not going to be the deciding vote. But it's also clear to them that the very outcome that they, if they were to cast a vote, would aim to bring about is gonna come about anyway. Right? The Democratic candidate's gonna take the state. I want the Democratic candidate to take the state. That's gonna happen whether I get out of bed or not. Why don't I just stay in bed? Like because voter turnout matters, not because of the outcome of the particular decision or the outcome of the election, but because a a viable, lively electorate is a really good way of dealing with tendencies of political corruption.
Davis: I agree with you. Just to play devil's advocate here, someone make the argument that just as your one vote isn't gonna sway the election, whether or not a hundred thousand people voted for a Republican and a hundred thousand people are voted for a Democrat, and let's say, or let's get let's give one side 200,000 just that it doesn't matter. what's the difference between three thousand? three hundred thousand people voting and three hundred and one thousand people voting.
Robert Talisse: Right. Good, good. So like what what what is the what is the anti-corruption effect of the fact that I showed up and cast a vote, right?
Davis: Yeah.
Robert Talisse: Good. I think that that's a really good point. here's really what I would say. we're gonna take the the the the the two arguments I began with, the one about the guy with the car stuck in the snow and then the anti-corruption thing, and just consider them in the opposite direction, right? So we've got this social event, this occasion in November, where it's made not very difficult for me. I don't have to build the polling station, right? I don't have to staff the the the room. I don't have to like all that's taken care of for me. Right? So that everything is done to make it easy. Now I happen to think it should be easier, but that's a different issue. Right? Everything is done to make it accessible for me to participate in this political occasion that we know when significant numbers of people participate in that thing, that's highly correlated with certain forms of anti-corruption. That sounds to me now like the guy with his car stuck in the snow. And you say, there's five of you. What's a sixth guy gonna do? Right? It's like, no, it's right here. It's it's right there, right? You just have to show up and give a just give a push when we say heat, go, right? That's all you gotta do. Maybe you're not gonna make the difference. Maybe the five guys are gonna be able to do it eventually. Maybe like you're just like a a the cog on which nothing's turning in this. Maybe, but to just walk away when it's just right there, right?
Davis: Right.
Robert Talisse: Looks to me like it's blameworthy. That's what I would wanna say now about the you know, what's what's three hundred thousand in one versus three hundred thousand for the anti-corruption effect of a regular election? Well, maybe minuscule, but that
Davis: Fair account.
Robert Talisse: it's there, right? Looks to me like it's it's a collective activity. I'm a college professor, so you know, and and I the undergraduate class I taught in the fall, you know, that that met the day after our last presidential election was filled with some very dejected young people. Who did not like the outcome? An astounding number of them said to me that they didn't vote because they thought she was definitely gonna win. It just looks to me like Yeah, you you let us all down. You're like the person who's just like, you guys will get the car out. What am I gonna add?
Mattias Gitron-Beer: If too many people think like that, then the tables are gonna turn.
Robert Talisse: that might that might be a a big part of the explanation as to where where we got. You know what what how that election shook out, right? A lot of certainly look like that's what happened with Hillary, with Hillary Clinton. Right? All the polls were like, Yeah, I don't know if you're if you're were paying attention when this happened, but the New York Times like two days before election day was like, In ninety-nine point eight percent of our models, Hillary Clinton wins in a landslide. And it depressed the vote. Not in New York and other kinds of places, but in lots of places, people are just like, well, why should I get up and go out? Like, you know, I like what's gonna happen. Me getting up and going and voting isn't gonna isn't gonna bring that about. It's gonna happen anyway. Like that's the I think that's the the other problem that we get when we tie our duty to vote too tightly to the outcomes of elections rather than to playing my role to support a general social process that looks like it's correlated with anti corruption.
Davis: Yeah, that's a really interesting stance. It was great talking to you. We really appreciate you coming on.
Robert Talisse: Great. Well, it's good to talk to you guys.
