Categorical imperative of voting
22 Oct 2025
We all hold opinions about how the state should conduct its affairs. It would be naive to assume that these opinions coincide: people differ in their values, and even when values are shared, judgements about how they should be realised may diverge.
To reconcile this diversity of views, democracy offers a deceptively simple mechanism. It asks each citizen1 to translate private judgement into public decision-making by casting a ballot to elect their representatives, who in turn deliberate and decide on their behalf.
Although democracy provides a procedural means of reconciling disagreement, the act of aggregation is far from straightforward. When citizens express their individual preferences by casting a ballot, no voting procedure can guarantee a perfectly fair translation of individual rankings into a collective will. This is Arrow's impossibility theorem,2 which shows that there is no rank-choice voting system that simultaneously satisfies certain seemingly reasonable conditions.3
Despite this impossibility, democratic elections must choose representatives one way or another, and therefore they inevitably distort preferences in some respect. Faced with these imperfections in the system, voters often act strategically: anticipating how others might vote, they adjust their own choices to avoid “wasting” a ballot or to prevent an undesirable outcome. This phenomenon, known as tactical or strategic voting, reflects the tension between genuine preference (whom one most wishes to see elected) and maximising the efficacy of one's vote (how best to influence the expected result). The resulting contradiction between voting from principle and voting for effect leads citizens to vote in ways that do not genuinely represent their convictions but instead reflect game-theoretical calculation. Consequently, electoral outcomes are often imperfect mirrors of the electorate's true preferences.
We can see the effects of strategic voting in real electoral systems. In the United States, where a predominantly two-party structure prevails, voters who do not find either major candidate satisfactory often resort to what is colloquially known as “choosing the lesser of two evils.” They vote for a candidate whom they do not genuinely endorse, but whom they judge to be less harmful. Against this, Hannah Arendt warned that “those who choose the lesser evil forget very quickly that they chose evil.”4 When confronted with third-party alternatives more closely aligned with their convictions, many voters dismiss these as futile, believing that a ballot for a minor party with little chance of success would be a “wasted” vote.
In the United Kingdom, even though voters have a wider range of political parties to choose from, a similar phenomenon emerges. Members of Parliament are elected through a first-past-the-post system, which can accommodate multiple parties and even independent candidates. Despite this, it rewards concentration of votes and encourages tactical voting. Citizens frequently vote for a candidate they regard as merely tolerable to prevent the election of one they strongly oppose, if they anticipate that their preferred party has little chance of success in their constituency.5
Against this, I advocate for what I call categorical imperative of voting, in the spirit of Kant's categorical imperative:6
The categorical imperative of voting directly excludes the logic of tactical voting. A voter who casts a ballot for a less preferred candidate to block another acts on a maxim that cannot be universalised without contradiction. The success of such a strategy depends precisely on others not adopting the same reasoning. Willed universally, it would produce a world in which every voter treats the ballot merely as a defensive tool to avert an undesired outcome rather than as an affirmative expression of political judgement. Citizens would be compelled to endorse candidates they themselves regard as unqualified or unjust, and genuine preferences would disappear from the collective result. Tactical voters do not will others to engage in the same behaviour; they thus rely on a form of moral exceptionalism, exempting themselves from the very standard they would wish others to follow. By contrast, voting sincerely according to one's genuine political judgement is a maxim that can coherently be willed as a law for all citizens, even if it risks personal disappointment in the outcome.
The same principle also rejects the logic of “lesser evil” voting, in which a voter, unable to endorse any candidate in good conscience, casts their ballot for the least objectionable option. Such reasoning cannot be universalised: if everyone voted for a candidate they themselves regarded as evil, the outcome would be the collective legitimation of evil itself, granting the victor a false mandate from the electorate.
How, then, should a citizen guided by the categorical imperative act in such a scenario? How should one vote when none of the available choices seems morally acceptable?
In this case, casting a blank ballot or a protest vote is a maxim that withstands the test of universality. If made universal, it would send a clear message of generalised public disapproval for all candidates. It would signal that none meets the basic threshold of acceptability that would be expected from a representative of the people. Refusing to vote for any of the candidates, then, is not a sign of political indifference or apathy; on the contrary, it is a principled act of civic morality, consistent with the duty to act only on reasons one can will for all.
The categorical imperative of voting also rules out other common approaches to electoral choice. For instance, some people engage in “self-interested voting”: supporting candidates solely because their policies promise personal advantage. Examples include voting for representatives who propose infrastructure projects in one’s own area, advocate tax reductions from which one would personally benefit, or plan welfare programmes for which one is eligible. If the fact that I stand to gain personally from a candidate's election is the only or primary reason to vote for them, and I would not vote for them otherwise, then my reasoning fails the test of universality.
Others practise “tribal voting,” adhering to a single party or candidate out of loyalty rather than considered judgement. Again, such behaviour doesn't pass the universality test of the categorical imperative of voting. By showing unquestionable allegiance to a political party, the voter surrenders their rational judgement to an external group — the party. A Kantian citizen must always sapere aude (dare to know)7 and use their own reason.
Many other common patterns of voting are likewise ruled out by the categorical imperative of voting, including voting for single-issue candidates; replicating the vote of a spouse, parent, or social group; or random voting.
Democracy demands more than participation. It demands integrity. The categorical imperative of voting calls each citizen to act not consequentially but deontologically; to vote from duty rather than from calculation, willing that the principle behind their choice could guide every voter alike.
Notes
1 Or, rather, each eligible citizen.
2 K.J. Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values (John Wiley & Sons, 1951).
3 Namely, no rank-order system can simultaneously satisfy unrestricted domain, Pareto efficiency (unanimity), independence of irrelevant alternatives, and non-dictatorship.
4 H. Arendt, “Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship.”
5 Some campaigns explicitly perform the strategic calculations for voters, identifying how best to cast a ballot in each constituency to block certain parties. Stop the Tories and Reform, for example, advises voters on how to vote tactically in their area to prevent these two parties from being elected.
6 “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law” (I. Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals).
7 I. Kant, An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?