Why Not a Philosopher King and Other Objections to Epistocracy

In this paper, I will examine epistocracy as a form of limiting the political agency of some citizens (by removing their political rights) and offer an internal critique of it. I will argue that epistocracy runs into a number of logical and epistemic problems in trying to define who should be the members of an epistocratic polity. Furthermore, I will argue that the argument for epistocracy cannot ignore unjust background conditions. I will also suggest that some of the problems epistocracy attempts to correct can be solved in a more just way, while preserving democracy

Ethics of e-voting: an essay on requirements and values in Internet elections

In this paper, we investigate ethical issues involved in the development and implementation of Internet voting technology. From a phenomenological perspective, we describe how voting via the Internet mediates the relation between people and democracy. In this relation, trust plays a major role. The dynamics of trust in the relation between people and their world forms the basis for our analysis of the ethical issues involved. First, we consider established principles of voting, confirming the identity of our democracy, which function as expectations in current experiments with online voting in the Netherlands. We investigate whether and how Internet voting can meet these expectations and thereby earn trust, based on the experiments in the Netherlands. We identify major challenges, and provide a basis for ethical and political discussion on these issues, especially the changed relation between public and private. If we decide that we want to vote via the Internet, more practical matters come into play in the implementation of the technology. The choices involved here are discussed in relation to the mediating role of concrete voting technologies in the relation between citizen and state

When Extrinsic Incentives Displace Intrinsic Motivation: Designing Legal Carrots and Sticks to Confront the Challenge of Motivational Crowding-Out

The rise of “nudges” has inspired countless efforts to encourage individual choices that maximize personal and collective welfare, with a preference for less restrictive tools such as setting default options or reordering choice sets. As part of this trend, there has been renewed interest in the behavioral impacts of incentives – namely, rewards or penalties for shaping individual choices, including but not limited to financial incentives. Explicit incentives are pervasive in the law, including carrots offered by governments (for example, tax deductions for charitable contributions, rebates for recycling, sentence reductions for prisoners who complete drug rehabilitation programs, and incentives for criminal informants) and statutes or regulations that govern incentives offered by private parties (for example, workplace wellness programs, compensation for blood and organ donation, and pay-for-performance in executive compensation). But despite the intuitive appeal of incentives, legal commentators have expressed increasing alarm about a potential drawback: research in behavioral economics and psychology has come to show many ways in which the use of carrots and sticks may displace other motivations for good behavior, such as altruism, civic duty, or professionalism. In legal scholarship, prevailing views of motivational crowding-out – the process by which incentives can interfere with “intrinsic” motivations for behavior – suggest that this phenomenon is an irremediable response to incentive-based policies. This Article examines a large but neglected body of empirical and theoretical literature on motivational crowding-out to show that these beliefs may be misguided. Motivational crowding-out is in fact a catch-all term for a diverse set of cognitive and behavioral processes that range from long-term changes in preferences, to the impairment of self-determination, to a complex set of signals that incentives can send to people about their abilities, social environment, values, and employers. Far from being inevitable, motivational crowding-out is responsive to changes in the way we design incentive-based policies. That is, once we understand the mechanisms of crowding-out, we can modify the incentive architecture to either minimize or amplify crowding-out effects. Remedies, however, must be tailored to the diverse causes of crowding-out, and the law has not yet recognized this problem. In light of deep anxieties about motivational crowding-out throughout the law, this Article proposes a taxonomy of crowding-out processes and introduces “incentive architecture:” the deliberate structuring of incentives to address crowding-out effects

When Extrinsic Incentives Displace Intrinsic Motivation: Designing Legal Carrots and Sticks to Confront the Challenge of Motivational Crowding-Out

The rise of “nudges” has inspired countless efforts to encourage individual choices that maximize personal and collective welfare, with a preference for less restrictive tools such as setting default options or reordering choice sets. As part of this trend, there has been renewed interest in the behavioral impacts of incentives – namely, rewards or penalties for shaping individual choices, including but not limited to financial incentives. Explicit incentives are pervasive in the law, including carrots offered by governments (for example, tax deductions for charitable contributions, rebates for recycling, sentence reductions for prisoners who complete drug rehabilitation programs, and incentives for criminal informants) and statutes or regulations that govern incentives offered by private parties (for example, workplace wellness programs, compensation for blood and organ donation, and pay-for-performance in executive compensation). But despite the intuitive appeal of incentives, legal commentators have expressed increasing alarm about a potential drawback: research in behavioral economics and psychology has come to show many ways in which the use of carrots and sticks may displace other motivations for good behavior, such as altruism, civic duty, or professionalism. In legal scholarship, prevailing views of motivational crowding-out – the process by which incentives can interfere with “intrinsic” motivations for behavior – suggest that this phenomenon is an irremediable response to incentive-based policies. This Article examines a large but neglected body of empirical and theoretical literature on motivational crowding-out to show that these beliefs may be misguided. Motivational crowding-out is in fact a catch-all term for a diverse set of cognitive and behavioral processes that range from long-term changes in preferences, to the impairment of self-determination, to a complex set of signals that incentives can send to people about their abilities, social environment, values, and employers. Far from being inevitable, motivational crowding-out is responsive to changes in the way we design incentive-based policies. That is, once we understand the mechanisms of crowding-out, we can modify the incentive architecture to either minimize or amplify crowding-out effects. Remedies, however, must be tailored to the diverse causes of crowding-out, and the law has not yet recognized this problem. In light of deep anxieties about motivational crowding-out throughout the law, this Article proposes a taxonomy of crowding-out processes and introduces “incentive architecture:” the deliberate structuring of incentives to address crowding-out effects

Expressive political behaviour : foundations, scope and implications

A growing literature has focused attention on ‘expressive’ rather than ‘instrumental’ behaviour in political settings, particularly voting. A common criticism of the expressive idea is that it is ad hoc and lacks both predictive and normative bite. No clear definition of expressive behaviour has gained wide acceptance yet, and no detailed understanding of the range of foundations of specific expressive motivations has emerged. This article provides a foundational discussion and definition of expressive behaviour accounting for a range of factors. The content of expressive choice – distinguishing between identity-based, moral and social cases – is discussed and related to the specific theories of expressive choice in the literature. There is also a discussion of the normative and institutional implications of expressive behaviour

James Michael Curley Scrapbooks Volume 255

The James Michael Curley Scrapbook Collection consists of digitized microfilmed copies of notebooks kept by Curley from 1914-1937. These notebooks contain news clippings that were drawn primarily from Boston newspapers. Curley was born in Roxbury, MA in 1874. He served four terms as Mayor of Boston: 1914–1918, 1922–1926, 1930–1934 and 1946–1950. He also served as Governor of Massachusetts from 1935-1937. In addition to Curley’s political career, the scrapbooks also include clippings about his first wife Mrs. Mary Herlihy Curley (1884-1930) and their daughter Mary D. Curley (1909-1950). A selection of the notebooks were microfilmed in 1962. The microfilm can be found in the holdings of Dinand Library, Holy Cross’s main library. This volume includes news clippings from 1936.https://crossworks.holycross.edu/curley_scrapbooks/1234/thumbnail.jp

The Palmetto Standard- March 10, 1852

The collection consists of issues of the Palmetto Standard a weekly newspaper printed in Chester, S.C. from 1851 through 1853 before changing its name to the Chester Standard in 1854. This issue, scanned from microfilm, is from March 10, 1852 (volume III, number 10).https://digitalcommons.winthrop.edu/palmettostandard/1011/thumbnail.jp