- Question
- Should the voting age be 16?
- Position‹3 of 3
- No, the age requirement should be raised
Teenagers do not have a fully developed brain, and so should not be expected to vote rationally.
The argument
The argument sets a biological condition on the franchise in place of an age fixed by convention. Several studies show that the brain isn't fully developed until the age of 25, and the part that finishes last is the part most relevant to voting. The frontal cortex is the last thing to finish developing, and it is essentially responsible for what we know as "teenage behavior". That characterisation matters because it identifies the behaviour as a stage rather than a personality. Impulsiveness, poor weighing of long-term consequences and susceptibility to immediate pressure are not traits that some young people happen to have and others do not; on this account they are the predictable output of a structure still being built. Nor do they stop when adolescence formally ends, since these are actions that continue from high school, into college, and even into a person's twenties. The common assumption that someone becomes an adult decision-maker at eighteen therefore has no biological support behind it, because the relevant development is still years from completion at that point. The conclusion drawn is that the threshold should follow the biology rather than the custom. Because of this late development, the minimum voting age should be raised to 25, which is where the evidence places the completion of the frontal cortex. The underlying principle is stated plainly: it should be a requirement to have a fully developed brain before one is fully allowed to make decisions for society as a whole. Voting is presented as exactly such a decision, since its consequences fall on everyone rather than on the voter alone, and a choice with that reach ought to be reserved for people whose capacity for judgement is complete. On this reasoning a proposal to lower the voting age to sixteen moves in precisely the wrong direction.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Although the brain isn't fully developed, it's important to expose young and growing minds to politics as early as possible. Even if mistakes are made, they are incorporated into the system and are able to learn from previous errors to fully solidify a political stance in the future.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P1] The decisions are not necessarily bad. [Rejecting P2] Decisions made before 25 still matter, and still count.