Does Moral Equality Imply a Duty to Vote?

ABSTRACT Sameer Bajaj and Thomas Christiano have provided a new case for a duty to vote grounded in moral equality, arguing that only voting promotes justice in a holistic way. Bajaj and Christiano contend that their argument overcomes what Jason Brennan has called the particularity problem – they allegedly show that voting is not merely one of many alternative ways to discharge some underlying moral duty, but rather that voting is special in some respect that makes it obligatory. We argue that Bajaj and Christiano have not established a duty to vote. We review various specifications of the duty to holistically promote justice and conclude that each of these specifications either yields implausible implications or allows that the duty can be met without voting. Lastly, their view does not adequately account for a moral division of labor, whereby some individuals specialize in activities other than voting and other individuals specialize in promoting political goods.