How To Vote Rationally

There are all sorts of ways you could decide who to vote for in elections - whether it's the upcoming presidential election in the U.S., or any other election you might vote in. You might vote based on:

• Whose policies you think will benefit you and your community the most

• Whose policies you think will benefit the worst off in society the most

• Whose personality you like most

• Who you think was the most convincing in debates

And so on. Heck, you could even flip a coin. But we think there’s a potentially more rational way to vote. 

The Theory in a Nutshell

A key aspect of rationality is what's called ‘instrumental rationality’ - which is about taking actions that effectively move you towards your desired ends. There are many theories of instrumental rationality, but we find this definition most compelling: an action of yours is instrumentally rational if (and only if) it takes you towards more of what you intrinsically value. 

Intrinsic values are the things you value for their own sake - you care about them even if getting them doesn't lead to anything else. Money isn’t something people value intrinsically, because its only value is what it can get you. Things that people value intrinsically often include: their own happiness, justice, fairness, and harm reduction (among lots of other things). If you want to find out what you value intrinsically, you can take our free Intrinsic Values Test.

So how does this relate to voting? Well, from this point of view, a rational vote is one that is for the candidate that will best bring about what you intrinsically value. 

Don’t People Do This Already?

You might wonder: Don’t lots of people already think about their values when they vote? Yes, usually not quite the way we’re suggesting. 

When people talk about values-based voting, they tend to mean finding candidates whom they perceive to ‘share their values’. For example, exit polling for the 2024 Republican Primaries found that ‘shares my values’ was the quality of a candidate that mattered most to voters in 67% of places polled (in the remaining 33% of places, it was the second-most important quality, behind ‘fights for people like me’). 

But the fact that someone appears to share your values does not entail that they will bring about more of what you value. Maybe they compromise too easily, are not a skilled leader, or lack follow-through. Maybe their focus is elsewhere, or they face political constraints.

There are numerous examples where a politician faces challenges putting their values into action. As an example, in 2007, Obama spoke about his desire to close the Guantánamo Bay prison in ways that explicitly invoked values. He said: “In the dark halls of Abu Ghraib and the detention cells of Guantánamo, we have compromised our most precious values.” Yet he faced numerous political obstacles and ultimately appeared to prioritize other issues over closing Guantánamo. The result was that, by the end of his second term, the prison was still open. While a candidate sharing your values is evidence that voting for them will help create more of what you intrinsically value, it's far from sufficient. 

So, if you want to vote in a way that is (instrumentally) rational, the most important thing is not whether a candidate shares your values; instead, it’s more fundamental to think more about whether they will bring about more of what you value. In other words, think about the impact they will have on what most fundamentally matters to you, rather than merely who they are or what they care about.

Of course, impact and personality are intertwined - someone with a disastrous personality might have a negative impact on the country, as a result of that personality. And the values someone has will inform their policy decisions (for your convenience, we’ve laid out the values that lots of different political worldviews have, in the tables at the end of this article). But we suggest when voting that you think about the impact that each candidate is likely to have on what you intrinsically value, all things considered.

How do you do this, step-by-step?

Here’s a step-by-step framework for how to do that, which you can apply to any election:

1) Start by thinking about your intrinsic values

The first thing to do is to get clear on your values. Fortunately, we can help you with this. We conducted two studies, collecting and statistically analyzing the intrinsic values of 500 people in the U.S., and the result is a classification system of intrinsic values (which you can see in the image below) and a free tool that can help you learn what your intrinsic values are.

Launch the Intrinsic Values Test

2) Then, investigate the empirical facts 

Once you’ve gotten clear on your intrinsic values,  it’s time to determine what you believe about the effects that the candidates will have. 

• Think carefully about the policy positions of the candidates, asking yourself “which of these policy positions would (if enacted) bring about more of the things I value intrinsically?”

• Make a list of all those that do. 

• Then, ask yourself which of those values-based policy positions are likely to be enacted. Remember that candidates very often fail to make good on their campaign promises, whether because of opposition they face, insincerity, or shifting priorities. 

• Consider only the policy positions you think are likely to be enacted.

• Additionally, consider other choices that a candidate will have to make that go beyond policy, such as (depending on the situation) choosing key cabinet members or agency heads, crisis response, being a representative to the public, and diplomacy. Think about which candidate is likely to produce more of what you intrinsically value in these sorts of choices.

This step is full of things to be careful about. For example:

• It’s not always easy to determine the values exemplified by any given policy position. To give just one example, you might think that valuing freedom means valuing things like deregulation or smaller government, but some conceptions of freedom say that poverty is a form of unfreedom - on those views, policy that aims to lift people out of poverty is policy that increases freedom.

• It’s easy to have your judgment clouded by biases. Confirmation bias, for example, might lead you to focus on evidence that supports the candidate you feel a stronger attachment to, while downplaying evidence to the contrary. Try to approach each candidate’s policy positions with as much neutrality as possible, weighing both their potential benefits and risks.

• Another pitfall is mistaking campaign promises for certain outcomes. Just because a candidate pledges to enact a policy doesn’t mean they’ll have the power, the resources, or the political support to follow through. So, as much as possible, look at evidence such as their track record: have they achieved similar goals in the past? Are their positions realistic in the current political climate?

3) Weigh the empirical facts against each other

Once you’ve narrowed your list of values-exemplifying policies down to those that seem likely to be enacted, it’s time to decide how to weigh these remaining policy positions against each other. Start by reflecting on your intrinsic values: you might find that some values are non-negotiable for you, while others can be balanced or flexible. For example, if justice is an extremely important value for you, policies aligned with that value might get priority. Or, if both economic opportunity and social equality matter to you, consider how to weigh these if policies supporting one come at the expense of the other.

Another approach is to assess the strength of the policy's potential impact. Ask yourself, "What difference could this policy make, and over what time period?" Policies with long-term, structural benefits may outweigh short-term solutions, while those with immediate benefits might hold more importance if they address urgent needs.

If you’re struggling to make these decisions, it can be helpful to use a numerical scoring system, assigning values to each policy based on criteria like importance, feasibility, and projected impact. You don’t need to be completely certain that the numbers are exactly right - just putting an approximate value on something can help you enormously in weighing options. This approach can help you gain clarity, even if you adjust the scores as you think more about each factor.

Ultimately, there’s no single ‘right’ way to weigh policy positions, so take time to experiment with different methods until you feel confident that your choice reflects what matters most to you. 

Finally, don't forget to take into account which candidates you think will do a better job of making the numerous decisions (that come up during their term) so as to create more of what you intrinsically value. A politician’s work doesn't reduce only to policies, but also to decisions that come up on the job.

4) Vote!

Once you’ve gone through each step, it’s time to put your research, reflections, and values into action. Take a moment to review everything you’ve gathered – the values you hold dear, the likely outcomes of each candidate’s policies, and how you’ve weighed them against each other. Knowing that you’ve made a thoughtful, values-driven decision, it’s time to vote!