My point being, I feel that young adults, and children even more so, through their lack of experience, are more susceptible to manipulation than adults – although not much more, in some cases. I.e., “No more taxes” is probably as effective a campaign as “Free Barbies/iPods/whatever is on your wish list”.

But as we’ve seen, the people can only take so much before voting for the other guy. Maybe less so as kids.

So I’m not for lowering the voting age. But I’m all for self-actualization, at no matter what age. Also, as an optimist, I feel that if you give people – children and adults – more of a say in things, they should theoretically rise to the responsibility of exercising the power they have.

A few more thoughts:

Humans do not suddenly turn into sexual beings when they turn 18, as if they only grow genitalia on their birthday. This prudish, puritanical attitude needs to be changed, while at the same time stopping abuse, to make the world a better, more balanced place.

Seeing as alcohol is probably here to stay, even though it has been shown that alcohol abuse results in so much suffering and illness, adolescents should have the chance to gain experience with alcohol in a controlled manner, to avoid the binge drinking and abuse that is so prevalent.

And here’s another thought, possibly naive: I think that some of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the ‘war’ on drugs should be spent on improving society, especially for those who take drugs – then people wouldn’t want or need to take drugs.

>> Why, we can easily construct an infinite sequence of impossibilities – and so let us wallow in our impotence for all eternity!

We could easily leave things as they are because of the mathematical paradox, but we should remember that by not taking any action, we’re still taking a biased stance (and one we may not agree with, at that!).

Kaori: I’m not saying it’s meaningless, nor that children’s suffrage would not make a difference – quite the opposite, actually: it would likely change the dynamics of many things and would probably mean a lot to a lot of people.

Let’s rephrase the original question: given that a set of consequences to a given system has both good and bad points, would you personally prefer the set of consequences of the current system, or the one from a system where children can vote?

As far as I can tell, it’s a completely personal question, so we can’t debate if one’s opinion is more “right” than someone else’s. We might as well just vote on it based on gut feeling – after all, it’s 50/50 vote and the worst case is that we get the second best option.

Do I understand correctly that you are saying this argument is meaningless because there isn’t social or political pressure (from almost any quarter) for extending suffrage to children? That arguments of equal weight can be constructed on either side but ultimately won’t make a difference until enough people are passionate about the issue?

And these memories aren’t particularly happy. My wife and I both learned far more than we ever wanted to know, about the widespread human tendency to embrace ideology, call it logic, and abandon common sense and charity.

Neither the ideologues of the far-left nor those of the far-right have a monopoly on this brand of foolishness (and I will add religious ideologues and libertarians to this list), and yet for some reason, adherents of all these ideologies felt compelled to attend School Board meetings.

I showed this thread to my wife, and she remarked that a common call from educational ideologues (of all varieties) was to “replicate successful schools.” This is infeasible for two common-sense reasons, both of which are surprisingly difficult for ideologues to appreciate.

First, it’s by no means clear (except to ideologues) which schools are successful. Second, it is possible to replicate a school building, but in general it is not possible to replicate the school’s students, faculty, or neighborhood … and the latter are immensely more important than any physical building.

Parents (as contrasted with ideologues) exert continued pressure on School Districts to (1) increase diversity, (2) increase choice, and (3) increase investment. This common-sense parental advocacy works where political and religious ideologies fail, by creating a varied, vibrant educational ecology that is good for students and families … and which demands from the public considerable tolerance, foresight, and committed investment in the future.

Shouldn’t you wait a little before placing him in that catergory? There is still plenty of time for him to go wrong. In fact, I don’t see him achieving very much yet.

I pretty much agree that most of the arguments against granting children the vote are similar to the ones against female suffrage. However that doesn’t mean they are wrong (This time.)

In fact it seems reasonably likely that children and teenagers are dumber and more immature than adults. Of course, you are suggesting a test but I can’t say I am quite comfortable with the elitist implications. Do you agree that lack of maturity is a good reason for denial of the franschise, if proven?

“But why isn’t the driver’s-ed test or the citizenship test given to immigrants similarly elitist?”

The driver’s ed is a different case. Nobody disputes that elitism has a place in some situations, like the appointment of professors. It is just in voting we want equality.

As for the immigrants? That actually leads to a question. Don’t you agree that immigrants should be given the vote even if they are not citizens? And that this is more important than giving children it?

I submit we should extend your thesis as to impossibility of finding a single perfect answer to many questions to the very question of whether it is possible to find a single perfect answer to many or most questions. I say there are plenty of reasonable arguments to support both sides of a discussion on whether or not there are plenty of reasonable arguments to support all sides of a discussion.

Q.: Do you agree that the answer to the question “Should we let kids vote?” is “Perhaps yes. Perhaps not. Perhaps that question has no correct answer.” ?

A.: Perhaps yes. Perhaps not. Perhaps this question has no correct answer.

Why, we can easily construct an infinite sequence of impossibilities – and so let us wallow in our impotence for all eternity!

>>” If there’s never any grounds to favor any choice over any other one, if every possible tomato sauce is perfect in its own way, then why even get out of bed in the morning?”

I feel that in a lot of situations, the opposite is true: there are often plenty of reasonable arguments to support all sides of a discussion. Similarly, there are often many valid arguments against all sides. The important thing to take note is that “many perfect sauces” is not only different from “a single perfect sauce”, but also different from “all sauces are perfect”.

So should we let kids vote? It depends on who you ask. Perhaps yes. Perhaps not. Perhaps that question has no correct answer.

Following your lead in venturing off the OP, (and this may not be in either of our fields of expertise) isn’t it a bit of a myth that we get out of bed in the morning because of a reasoning process? I’m not sure it’s clear yet that the epiphenomena/qualia of observing and reasoning has any causal impact on our physical actions or even the cognitive path or conclusions that we reason to. A lot of the scientific insights I’ve read about seem to go in the nonintuitive direction (how we intuit things work cognitively is quite different from the empirical results).

I think this stuff is worth teasing out -although perhaps not by us or in this blog!

Prof. Israel summarizes these historical values in the following convenient list:

Radical Enlightenment conceived as a package of basic concepts and values may be summarized in eight cardinal points:

(1) adoption of philosophical (mathematical-historical) reason as the only and exclusive criterion of what is true;

(2) rejection of all supernatural agency, magic, disembodied spirits, and divine providence;

(3) equality of all mankind (racial and sexual);

(4) secular ‘universalism’ in ethics anchored in equality and chiefly stressing equity, justice, and charity;

(5) comprehensive toleration and freedom of thought based on independent critical thinking;

(6) personal liberty of lifestyle and sexual conduct between consenting adults;

(7) freedom of expression, political criticism, and the press, in the public sphere.

(8) democratic republicanism as the most legitimate form of politics.

When it comes to implementing these eight cardinal points and (necessarily) compromising among them … for example, when it comes time to implement systems for public education and health-care … well, that’s the messy arena in which principles, practicalities, and politics all are joined!

Leo: Is it “better” to spend time commenting on this blog, rather than (say) basket-weaving or committing bank robberies? How do you know? The answer doesn’t follow from the axioms of set theory! Yet somehow you seem to have made a choice. Societies also make choices—whether or not to go to war, commit genocide, fund theoretical computer science, etc. If there’s never any grounds to favor any choice over any other one, if every possible tomato sauce is perfect in its own way, then why even get out of bed in the morning? How do you know it’s “better” than laying in bed and starving?