Do Ethicists and Political Philosophers Vote More Often Than Other Professors?

ABSTRACT: If philosophical moral reflection improves moral behavior, one might expect ethics professors to behave morally better than socially similar non-ethicists. Under the assumption that forms of political engagement such as voting have moral worth, we looked at the rate at which a sample of professional ethicists-and political philosophers as a subgroup of ethicists-voted in eight years' worth of elections. We compared ethicists' and political philosophers' voting rates with the voting rates of three other groups: philosophers not specializing in ethics, political scientists, and a comparison group of professors specializing in neither philosophy nor political science. All groups voted at about the same rate, except for the political scientists, who voted about 10-15% more often. On the face of it, this finding conflicts with the expectation that ethicists will behave more responsibly than non-ethicists. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13164-009-0011-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

SUBMITTER: Schwitzgebel E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3339026 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature