Preference Intensity, Age-Weighted Votes, and the Democratic Empowerment of Young Citizens: A Reply to Kim Angell

Abstract In a recent paper, Kim Angell contends that we should increase young people’s voting power. He defends this contention with intuition-based arguments and the All-Affected Principle and All-Subjected Principle. His arguments are informed by a conception of political inclusion according to which people’s democratic enfranchisement should be proportional to the intensity of their preferences for the alternatives being considered. This view, however, is too exclusionary towards persons with low preference intensity—such as ascetics—and creates perverse incentives to adopt expensive tastes. Since this conception of political inclusion plays a pivotal role in Angell’s argument, its weaknesses invalidate his thesis.