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The will to consensus
Abstract
In a democracy, when a group of deliberators have a set of differing (and contrary) views and beliefs about a particular policy or action, p , a recommended course of action is for them to pursue, and ultimately reach, a consensus on p . The pursuit of consensus allows deliberators to ‘reach over the aisle’ in accommodating dissenting views through rational dialogue until a consensual agreement is reached by all the deliberators. What fuels this pursuit of consensus is the ‘will to consensus’—a ‘frame of mind’ or a ‘disposition’ to resolve disagreements into a consensus. In this paper, I will raise some conceptual problems with positing a ‘will to consensus’ that is prior to, and supervenes on, the rational discussion of deliberators. Instead of a ‘will to consensus’, democratic theorists should be content with the minimal claim of a ‘will to dialogue’.
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In his plea for consensual democracy in Africa, Kwasi Wiredu recommends unanimity about what is to be done, not what ought to be done, or unanimity on action rather than unanimity of values, beliefs and opinion. I caution the use of this procedural instrument by showing that some issues are so value-laden that a group decision cannot be value-neutral. It may sometimes be more productive to entertain value differences to keep them from going underground and becoming dangerous. However, the ability to locate some common interest or ground seems to be crucial for such value confrontation.
The question of what political system best suites post colonial/independentAfrican states remain alive and ever more pertinent particularly in the face offailed attempts at democratisation. Kwasi Wiredu notes that the adversarialnature of Western democratic practices along party political lines may not bewell suited for African politics. Instead he suggests that the practice of consensual democracy as practised in the traditional Ashanti society may bemore appropriate. Emmanuel Eze raises three objections against Wiredu’saccount of consensual democracy. This paper seeks to respond to Eze’s objections and argue that consensual democracy may have more appeal thanEze is prepared to concede.
Kwasi Wiredu has argued that democracy by consensus, unlike majoritarian democracy, posits a political system that is not characterised by competition for power between political parties. While majoritarian democracy vests political power in the party that has won a simple majority at the polls, hence proscribing losers to opposition, democracy by consensus seeks to avoid appropriation of power to winners on the basis of majority votes. Two of the most persuasive reasons advanced in favour of consensual democracy are that sectional appropriation of power to the majority party may lead to the tyranny of the majority at the exclusion of minority parties and that democracy by consensus provides maximal representation for the electorate. While I sympathise with most of the claims made on behalf of democracy by consensus I have some reservations about the theoretical outline of the role of the opposition in this polity. In this article I wish to present an outline of three serious difficulties that are attendant to Wiredu's formulation of the notion of party in democracy by consensus and the envisaged place and role of opposition parties in such a set up.
This paper explores some alternative accounts of doxastic disagreement, and shows what problems each faces. It offers an account of doxastic disagreement that results from the incompatibility of the content of doxastic attitudes, even when that content’s truth is relativized. On the best definition possible, it is argued, neither non-indexical contextualism nor assessment-relativism have an advantage over contextualism. The conclusion is that conflicts that arise from the incompatibility (at the same world) of the content of given doxastic attitudes cannot be accommodated by theoretical positions that allow for the compatibility (at the same world) of the content of different doxastic attitudes.
Pluralism permeates modern societies, dividing the loyalties of their members. Richard Bellamy suggests standard liberal theory cannot resolve the resulting clashes of ideals, interests and identities. Its attempts to construct a consensus by either trading, trimming or segregation, all fail. Trading suggests we can reach mutually advantageous bargains; trimming that we can avoid contentious issues; segregation that different groups try and live as separately as possible. Each of these responses, this book argues, seeks to circumvent the tensions arising out of pluralism, and promotes unjust or unstable settlements. Bellamy advocates a fourth solution: negotiated compromise. He links this approach to a neo-republican political system, which guards against the domination of any values, ideals or concerns over others by dispersing power. The result is a democratic liberalism, which employs the resources of politics to produce mutually acceptable, fair solutions to pluralist dilemmas. Liberalism and Pluralism critically examines the ways the main schools of contemporary liberal thought tackle the problem of pluralism. Part I analyses the views of libertarian traders, such as Hayek, liberal trimmers, such as Rawls, and communitarian liberal segregators, such as Walzer. Part II defends democratic liberalism, and proposes the political negotiation of compromises as a way of resolving plural conflicts. Part III moves from the ideal to the real, examining three attempts to reform British liberal democracy so as to meet the pluralist challenge: the Citizen's Charter programme, the Human Rights Act and the European Union citizenship. He associates these policies with trading, trimming and segregation respectively, noting how their practical weaknesses mirror their theoretical failings. In each case, alternative proposals of a democratic liberal character show the approach of negotiated compromise to be empirically plausible as well as normatively attractive.
This article argues, against all previous deliberative theory, that self-interest ought to play a role in democratic deliberation. Among the conditions that legitimate the entry of self-interest into deliberation, the authors include both the regulative ideal of the absence of coercive power and the constraint of self-interest by fairness. They count as " deliberative" both integrative and "fully cooperative" forms of negotiation when interests conflict. Finally, they argue that deliberation can have a complementary relation to non-deliberative, aggregative democratic mechanisms.
Normative deliberative theory has contributed much to an understanding of ideal procedural standards, but there is considerable uncertainty regarding the appropriate nature of desired deliberative outcomes. In this paper we identify two inter-related concepts of meta-consensus and inter-subjective rationality as outcomes that an authentic deliberative process ought to produce. Importantly, these deliberative ends are consistent with ideal deliberative procedure. They are also empirically tractable, where preference transformation can be described in terms of underlying values, and judgments. Methods for assessing deliberative ends are provided and demonstrated using a case study.
Trust in the practice of rational deliberation is widespread and largely unquestioned. This paper uses recent work from business contexts to challenge the view that rational deliberation in a group improves decisions. Pressure to reach consensus can, in fact, lead to phenomena such as groupthink and to suppression of relevant data. Aggregation of individual decisions, rather than deliberation to a consensus, surprisingly, can produce better decisions than those of either group deliberation or individual expert judgment. I argue that dissent is epistemically valuable, not because of the discussion it can provoke (Mill's and Longino's view about the benefit of dissent), but because dissenting positions often are associated with particular data or insights that would be lost in consensus formation. Social epistemologists can usefully pay attention to various methods of aggregation of individual opinion for their effectiveness at realizing epistemic goals.
Some African thinkers have argued that the governance systems in traditional
precolonial African societies were democratic, and the kind of democracy they
practised was consensual democracy. It was democratic because it ensured the
maximal participation of all members in the governance of the society, and it was
consensual because it involved the rational deliberation of issues where decisions
were primarily reached by consensus. The aim of this article is to examine, on the one
side, the nature of the demos and kratos in traditional African systems of governance
that warrants characterising them as democratic, and, on the other side, the decisionmaking
process that marks it as a distinctive form of democracy – consensual
democracy. Reflecting on Akan proverbs and archival records of deliberations, I
argue that the question of democracy in relation to the traditional African systems
of governance should be pursued not from how they cherish consensual decisionmaking,
but by how they uniquely conceptualise the demos and kratos in the political
experiences of African societies. This unique conception of people-power and the
institution of decisional dissensus is what distinguishes traditional African consensual
democracy from both populism and deliberative democracy.
In this article, we inquire into two contemporary participatory formats that seek to democratically intervene in scientific practice: the consensus conference and participatory technology assessment (pTA). We explain how these formats delegitimize conflict and disagreement by making a strong appeal to consensus. Based on our direct involvement in these formats and informed both by political philosophy and science and technology studies, we outline conceptions that contrast with the consensus ideal, including dissensus, disclosure, conflictual consensus and agonistic democracy. Drawing on the notion of meta-consensus and a distinction between four models of democracy (aggregative, deliberative, participatory and agonistic), we elaborate how a more positive valuation of conflict provides opportunities for mutual learning, the articulation of disagreement, and democratic modulation – three aspirations that are at the heart of most pTAs and consensus conferences. Disclosing the strengths and weaknesses of these different models is politically and epistemically useful, and should therefore be an integral part of the development of participation theory and process in science and technology.
A political challenge facing constitutional democracies in Africa is the lack of adequate representation and participation of citizens in democratic processes and institutions. This challenge is manifest in the vesting of power solely in, and the exercise of this power by, a sectional group – the majority party – to the exclusion of others; as evinced in the liberal democratic systems extensively practised on the continent. Wiredu proposes as a solution to these challenges the adoption of consensual democracy; an indigenous, non-party democratic system rooted in the traditional African humanist and communitarian conceptions of the individual and the community, in which political decisions are characteristically reached by consensus. In this article, I present a critical exposition of Wiredu’s consensual democracy and defend it against liberal democracy on the one hand, and criticisms levelled against it on the other hand. I also offer some modifications to Wiredu’s theory in a bid to render it more suitable for practice in Africa.
Since the 1960s, two claims have been at the core of disputes about scientific change: that scientists reason rationally and that science is progressive. For most of this time discussions were polarized between philosophers, who defended traditional Enlightenment ideas about rationality and progress, and sociologists, who espoused relativism and constructivism. Recently, creative new ideas going beyond the polarized positions have come from the history of science, feminist criticism of science, psychology of science, and anthropology of science. Addressing the traditional arguments as well as building on these new ideas, Miriam Solomon constructs a new epistemology of science.
After discussions of the nature of empirical success and its relation to truth, Solomon offers a new, social account of scientific rationality. She shows that the pursuit of empirical success and truth can be consistent with both dissent and consensus, and that the distinction between dissent and consensus is of little epistemic significance. In building this social epistemology of science, she shows that scientific communities are not merely the locus of distributed expert knowledge and a resource for criticism but also the site of distributed decision making. Throughout, she illustrates her ideas with case studies from late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century physical and life sciences. Replacing the traditional focus on methods and heuristics to be applied by individual scientists, Solomon emphasizes science funding, administration, and policy. One of her goals is to have a positive influence on scientific decision making through practical social recommendations.
Disagreement is common. Even informed, intelligent, and generally reasonable people often come to different conclusions when confronted with what seems to be the same evidence. Can the competing conclusions be reasonable? If not, what can we reasonably think about the situation? This book examines the epistemology of disagreement, with a focus on disagreements involving epistemic peers. Philosophical questions about disagreement arise in various areas, notably politics, ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of religion: this book focuses on the general epistemic issues arising from informed disagreement. Ten leading philosophers offer specially written chapters which together will offer a starting-point for future work on this topic.
The most widely debated conception of democracy in recent years is deliberative democracy--the idea that citizens or their representatives owe each other mutually acceptable reasons for the laws they enact. Two prominent voices in the ongoing discussion are Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson. In Why Deliberative Democracy?, they move the debate forward beyond their influential book, Democracy and Disagreement. What exactly is deliberative democracy? Why is it more defensible than its rivals? By offering clear answers to these timely questions, Gutmann and Thompson illuminate the theory and practice of justifying public policies in contemporary democracies. They not only develop their theory of deliberative democracy in new directions but also apply it to new practical problems. They discuss bioethics, health care, truth commissions, educational policy, and decisions to declare war. In "What Deliberative Democracy Means," which opens this collection of essays, they provide the most accessible exposition of deliberative democracy to date. They show how deliberative democracy should play an important role even in the debates about military intervention abroad. Why Deliberative Democracy? contributes to our understanding of how democratic citizens and their representatives can make justifiable decisions for their society in the face of the fundamental disagreements that are inevitable in diverse societies. Gutmann and Thompson provide a balanced and fair-minded approach that will benefit anyone intent on giving reason and reciprocity a more prominent place in politics than power and special interests.
To govern in a democracy, political leaders have to compromise. When they do not, the result is political paralysis-dramatically demonstrated by the gridlock in Congress in recent years. In The Spirit of Compromise, eminent political thinkers Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson show why compromise is so important, what stands in the way of achieving it, and how citizens can make defensible compromises more likely. They urge politicians to focus less on campaigning and more on governing. In a new preface, the authors reflect on the state of compromise in Congress since the book's initial publication. Calling for greater cooperation in contemporary politics, The Spirit of Compromise will interest everyone who cares about making government work better for the good of all.
This chapter responds to arguments for the conclusion that participants in persistent peer disagreement ought to suspend judgment about the disputed proposition by noting that 'ought implies can' and that belief (and suspension of judgment) are typically not under the relevant kind of voluntary control. It is argued that issues about disagreement are better seen as being about acceptance rather than belief, and that continuing to accept propositions in the face of disagreement can have sufficient value to make it rational, and thus that peers can rationally accept conflicting propositions.
From the theory of "deliberative democracy" to the politics of the "third way," the present Zeitgeist is characterised by an attempt to negate the inherently conflictual nature of democratic politics. Political thought and practice are stifled by a misconceived search fro consensus and the promotion of a bland social unanimity which, as Chantal Mouffe shows, far from being the sign of progress, constitute a serious threat for democratic institutions. Indeed, in many countries this 'consensus of the centre' is providing a platform for the growth of populist right-wing parties which, by presenting themselves as the only 'anti-establishment' forces, are trying to occupy the terrain of contestation deserted by the left. Taking issue with the work of John Rawls and Jurgen Habermas on one side, and with the tenets of the third way as practised by Tony Blair and theorised by Anthony Giddens on the other, Mouffe brings to the fore the paradoxical nature of modern liberal democracy. Against those who affirm that, with the demise of the left/right divide, antagonism has been eliminated from contemporary post-industrial societies and that an all-inclusive politics has become possible, she argues that the category of the 'adversary' plays a central role in the very dynamics of modern democracy. Drawing on the work of Wittgenstein and Derrida, and engaging with the provocative theses of Carl Schmitt, she proposes a new understanding of democracy in terms of 'agonistic pluralism' which acknowledges the ineradicability of antagonism and the impossibility of a final resolution of conflicts.
This chapter discusses two distinct topics in social epistemology: epistemological relativism and peer disagreement. It characterizes epistemological relativism by treating it as a combination of three theses. It then proposes a novel version of relativism that may be appealing to firm objectivists. Next, it looks at the relativization proposal, which is supported by the notion of iterative justification. The chapter also gives provisional suggestions for applying these ideas to the peer disagreement problem.
My aim in the paper will be to better understand what faultless disagreement could possibly consist in and what speakers disagree over when they faultlessly do so. To that end, I will first look at various examples of faultless disagreement. Since I will eventually claim that different forms of faultless disagreement can be modeled semantically on different forms of context-sensitivity I will, in a second step, discuss three different semantic accounts that all promise to successfully accommodate certain forms of context-sensitivity: Indexical Contextualism, Nonindexcal Contextualism (aka Moderate Relativism) and Radical Relativism (aka Assessment-sensitive Relativism). Focussing on the controversy between Indexical and Nonindexical Contextualists the remainder of the paper will be devoted to the question which theory is best suited to handle what kind of disagreement.
In this paper, I will trace a distinction between two different ways of thinking about doxastic conflicts. The first way emphasises what is going on at the level of semantics, when two subjects disagree by uttering certain sentences or accepting certain contents. The second way emphasises some aspects that are epistemic in kind, which concern what subjects are rationally required to do whenever they disagree with someone. The semantics-oriented and epistemically-oriented notions will serve for the purpose of assessing some aspects of the debate that revolves around the notions of disagreement on matters of inclination. These aspects include: (i) the idea that disagreements in areas of inclination are somehow defective (Egan 2010); (ii) the idea that Relativism makes disagreement epistemically insignificant (Carter 2013); (iii) the idea that there can be faultless disagreements in which faultlessness is epistemic in kind (Schafer 2011).
This controversial new look at democracy in a multicultural society considers the ideals of political inclusion and exclusion, and recommends ways to engage in democratic politics in a more inclusive way. Processes of debate and decision making often marginalize individuals and groups because the norms of political discussion are biased against some forms of expression. Inclusion and Democracy broadens our understanding of democratic communication by reflecting on the positive political functions of narrative, rhetorically situated appeals, and public protest. It reconstructs concepts of civil society and public sphere as enacting such plural forms of communication among debating citizens in large-scale societies. Iris Marion Young thoroughly discusses class, race, and gender bias in democratic processes, and argues that the scope of a polity should extend as wide as the scope of social and economic interactions that raise issues of justice. Today this implies the need for global democratic institutions. Young also contends that due to processes of residential segregation and the design of municipal jurisdictions, metropolitan governments which preserve significant local autonomy may be necessary to promote political equality. This latest work from one of the world's leading political philosophers will appeal to audiences from a variety of fields, including philosophy, political science, women's studies, ethnic studies, sociology, and communications studies.
Nowadays democratic liberal societies face a rising challenge in terms of fragmentation and erosion of shared values and ethical pluralism. Democracy is not anymore grounded in the possibility of a common understanding and interpretation of the same values. Neverthless, legal and political philosophy continue to focus on how to reach consensus, especially through monist, objectualist, contractualist, discursive and deliberative approaches, rather than openly affording the issue of disagreement. Far from being just a disruptive force, disagreement and conflict are matters of fact that no reflection on democracy can underevaluate. They are the major issues through which to look at the intersection of law, politics and morals. The inclusion of dissent is a powerful tool for moral recognition of different understandings of justice. That is where legal procedures become crucial. Law is a fundamental element in the building of a democracy. But it is also particularly exposed to disagreement. Language indeterminacy, dogmatic concepts and value pluralism constitute the main elements that lead to alternative and conflicting interpretations of law in a democratic framework. Major legal progress in the past has come from different understandings of the same legal materials. In this article I argue that respect for disagreement should be a moral principle in democracy and that the role of legal disagreement is essential to understand the evolution and the future directions of democracy as the government of a political community. To do so, a link between respect for disagreement and legal interpretation and argumentation must be established in order to make room for reason and avoid extreme skepticism on the contribution of law to the enforcement of democracy.
The idea that there can be cases of faultless disagreement, cases of disagreement in which neither party is making a mistake, is frequently discussed in connection with relativist views in philosophy of language. My goal is to argue that we can make sense of faultless disagreement without being committed to any form of relativism if we recognise that disagreement sometimes involves attitudes other than belief, such as desires or preferences. Furthermore, this way of making sense of faultless disagreement allows us to avoid some of the problems that have been raised in connection with relativist accounts of faultless disagreement.
One way in which colonialism injured Africa was through the rupture it caused in the integration of the civil with the political aspect of her social life. That integration was one of the strong points of traditional society. Indeed, in traditional life the distinction between the state and civil society was largely inoperative. This seamless‐ness was, however, not complete. It was still possible in traditional times to distinguish between societies with states and societies without state apparatus. The Zulu of South Africa are an example of societies with an organized state, while the Tallensi of Ghana exemplify societies without state apparatus.
Predicates of taste, such as ‘fun’ and ‘tasty’, have received considerable attention in recent debates between contextualists and relativists, with considerations involving disagreement playing a central role. Considerations involving disagreement have been taken to present a problem for contextualist treatments of predicates of taste. My goal is to argue that considerations involving disagreement do not undermine contextualism. To the extent that relativism was supposed to be motivated by contextualists being unable to deal with disagreement, this motivation is lacking. The argument against contextualism rests on a too simple and narrow conception of disagreement that turns out to be problematic once we consider a wider range of cases. If we reject the assumptions about disagreement that the argument rests on, it no longer poses a threat to contextualism.
Democracy as a political system entailing multi-party competition for power is only one form of democracy. Given that democracy is government by consent, the question is whether a less adversarial system than the party system, which is bound up with majoritarian decision-making, cannot be devised. This paper contends that a system based on consensus as a decision procedure would be a democracy of just such a description. It is important to note that the kind of consensus envisaged here is not agreement regarding questions of truth and morality; it is concerned only with the question of what is to be done. And it is an important fact that reasonable human beings can come to an agreement about what is to be done by virtue of compromise without agreeing on issues of truth or morality. A consensual system will naturally be a non-party arrangement. However, as I explain, such a polity need not be one without parties.
Political compromise is difficult in American democracy even though no one doubts it is necessary. It is difficult for many reasons, including the recent increase in political polarization that has been widely criticized. We argue that the resistance to compromise cannot be fully appreciated without understanding its source in the democratic process itself, especially as conducted in the U.S. The incursion of campaigning into governing in American democracy—the so called “permanent campaign”—encourages political attitudes and arguments that make compromise more difficult. These constitute what we call the uncompromising mindset, characterized by politicians' standing on principle and mistrusting opponents. This mindset is conducive to campaigning, but not to governing, because it stands in the way of necessary change and thereby biases the democratic process in favor of the status quo. The uncompromising mindset can be kept in check by an opposite cluster of attitudes and arguments—the compromising mindset—that inclines politicians to adapt their principles and respect their opponents. This mindset is more appropriate for governing, because it enables politicians more readily to recognize and act on opportunities for desirable compromise. We explore the dynamics of these mindsets by examining the processes that led to the compromises on tax reform in 1986 and health care reform in 2010.
IntroductionDemography and DemocracyThe Epistemological Roots of Consensus in Traditional SocietyA Monarchical DemocracyThe Evils of the Party System
While consensus is often taken to be the ideal way to secure political legitimacy, a more robust pluralism has many defenders too. We attempt to reconcile arguments for pluralism and consensus. Pluralism ought to be accepted and valued at the simple level of values, beliefs, and preferences. Pluralism at this level can nevertheless coexist with normative, epistemic, and/or preference meta-consensus, all of which have qualities that should attract even pluralists. However, close attention must be paid to the content of meta-consensus and the conditions of its production or discovery.
The relativist's central objection to contextualism is that it fails to account for the disagreement we perceive in discourse
about "subjective" matters, such as whether stewed prunes are delicious. If we are to adjudicate between contextualism and
relativism, then, we must first get clear about what it is for two people to disagree. This question turns out to be surprisingly
difficult to answer. A partial answer is given here; although it is incomplete, it does help shape what the relativist must
say if she is to do better than the contextualist in securing genuine disagreement.
Democracy and consensus in African traditional politics: A plea for a nonparty polity
- K Wiredu
Wiredu, K. (1995). Democracy and consensus in African traditional politics: A plea for a nonparty polity. The
Centennial Review, 39(1), 53-64.
Democracy or consensus? Response to Wiredu
- E C Eze
Eze, E. C. (1997). Democracy or consensus? Response to Wiredu. In E. C. Eze (Ed.), Postcolonial African philosophy: A critical reader (pp. 313-323). Blackwell.
The place of self-interest and the role of power in the deliberative democracy
- J Mansbridge
- J Bohman
- S Chambers
- D Estlund
- A Føllesdal
- A Fung
- C Lafont
- B Manin
- J Martí
Mansbridge, J., Bohman, J., Chambers, S., Estlund, D., Føllesdal, A., Fung, A., Lafont, C., Manin, B., & Martí,
J. (2010). The place of self-interest and the role of power in the deliberative democracy. Journal of Political
Philosophy, 18(1), 64-100.
Doxastic disagreement. Erkenntnis
- T Marques
Marques, T. (2014). Doxastic disagreement. Erkenntnis, 79, 121-142.