Consensus Vs Democracy
Consensus Vs Democracy"Democracy" in a workplace team environment can be a very bad thing, and "Consensus" in the workplace can be a very good thing:
Unfortunately, all the best ideas for improving a team process will be new and (temporarily) unpopular when first introduced. And after a team has done it's "Democratic Voting" process on an idea, it's often somewhere between "remarkably difficult" and impossible to get the team to reconsider a proposal.
This rant was inspired by an "EnginesOfDemocracyAtGeneralElectric" article, describing the participative Consensus-based approach used at their Durham, North Carolina jet engine plant.
One important area where democracy outshines consensus is that it is much more practical to get a majority vote than it is to get a unanimous vote. When there's potential for deadlock, consensus is often a bad thing. Of course, pitting democracy vs consensus presents a FalseDichotomy. There are more alternatives available, some which are hybrids. Well, that's true if the democracy only gives you two choices anyway.
Consensus and democracy as described above are not opposites but merely independent. Consensus refers to a method of communication, while democracy refers to a formal rubberstamping/vetoing process. In practice, consensus and democracy may be opposites (as described above) but when honest people use the word 'democracy' they usually mean some combination of democracy and consensus. And the positives of that compound process don't derive solely from consensus; the democratic principle has something crucial to contribute.
There is a principle in decision-making that people affected by a decision should be able to affect it to the extent that they are affected by it. So if a decision affects me crucially but affects no one else, then I should have the only say in it. Meanwhile, if a decision affects everyone equally, everyone should have an equal say in it. By following this principle, one can categorize decisions as requiring a single person, minority approval, simple majority, overwhelming majority, or even unanimity.
For example, the decision of when to take a coffee break in an office setting should be up to the individual. In a surgical suite, that's a very different matter, probably requiring unanimity.
Without this principle of proportionality in decision-making, whether enunciated or merely understood, consensus becomes a form of totalitarianism. Democracy without consensus is hollow, consensus without democracy is a prison.
I would imagine it's impossible to agree in practice how much various people are affected by any decision. Take building bypasses (I live near the infamous Newbury bypass). People all over the country claimed they had a legitimate interest because environment issues affect everyone. -- PaulHudson
And they don't?
Maybe they do. Some people think that they do, some that they don't. Which is my point. Take this case - how do you come to agreement on how involved the various people are and hence how much weight should be applied to their views? This "principle of proportionality" sounds great. I just don't think it can be made workable.
Now that is a technical decision (read below). And where it's not a technical decision (or seems not to be), there is no workable compromise possible. So you've lost nothing by applying the principle, except the illusion that a fair decision can be made, and that's a good thing.
Er. I can't see how that helps. Who decides who should be involved in the decision, and what if other people don't agree with that? In other words, the decision may be technical - but the associated decision (of who is affected to what extent by the outcome of the decision) certainly isn't, and I think this is the case for most real world decisions.
I didn't make myself clear. The decision at hand is political. The decision about who should decide, that one is technical.
The principle of proportionality is a moral principle since it talks about how society should be organized. (It would be ethical if this organization was to society's benefit but it isn't clear this is so, it rather seems like it defines society's benefit.) And as a moral principle, much thinking in moral philosophy becomes relevant to it, adding detail and colour to it.
For example, the existence and ranking of human rights. Human rights override mere interests so if a decision affects some people's human rights then they should have the most say (likely an overriding say). The same with greater human rights compared to lesser human rights.
Another example, the practice of 'reflective equilibrium' by which one uncovers and tests moral principles. One compares principles with one's moral intuition, accepts the one that fits best and modifies both principle and intuition to bring them into alignment. And then one repeats.
So in the case of proportionality in decision-making, one can test that principle against a case like abortion. The person that is most affected is the pregnant woman, who will have to give up at least 9 months of her life to the fetus. This is a compelling interest which the interest of the general populace (moral disgust and psychological disquiet) cannot override. Because if bystanders are so disgusted at the idea of abortion that they can't sleep at night or start hallucinating babies crying for help, they need psychiatric help.
Then comes the issue of whether the fetus has a say in the decision. It certainly can't articulate anything, so a "say" would have to be made on its behalf. And if one can give a say to any non-conscious object, then why not animals, trees and rocks? I suppose rocks don't want to be destroyed to make gravel, should that be stopped? Alternatively, only potentially conscious beings have a say in decisions. So if the fetus is aborted then it isn't potentially conscious, and if not then the baby has an interest in the mother not drinking or smoking during pregnancy. If we accept the criterion of potential consciousness then people in a permanent vegetative state have no say about what happens to them. If this result did not fit my intuition, then I would have to modify my intuition, because there are no competing principles and it's not such a bad result as to justify rejecting the principle.
Contrast that with if we had accepted that people with mental problems should be allowed to override others' fundamental interests based on those mental problems (if people who can't function because abortion exists are allowed to decide what happens to a woman's own body). That would have been an extremely ugly result.
There are many other cases where one person's rational interests are pitted against a group's irrational interests. For example, whether a black man can move into an extremely racist white neighbourhood. They are many and he's only one so democracy wouldn't allow him in. And if you invent "civil liberties" then you'd have to use some kind of moral or ethical principle as a basis for them. Yet another case is the interaction between the present generation of humanity and any future generations.
The principle of proportionality in decision-making informs people on a variety of thorny questions. The interests of "potential persons" informs the thinking of the Supreme Court of Canada on abortion. It arrived at the seemingly counter-intuitive result that you can kill a fetus but not damage it.
Well, I read what you say, but I still can't see how it's workable. You make lots of value judgements there, which other people will disagree with. It's not enough that you can form your own view on how much people are affected by the decision. They have to agree on that view too.
They do not. As a technical matter, they merely have to be unable to find any counter-arguments to it. Facts don't stop being facts just because people choose to live in denial. I take it then that you challenge the technical status of my reasoning above. I'd be interested in learning just what you consider to be a value judgement in my reasoning.
That a fetus (at any stage, it seems) is non-conscious will do
Infants aren't conscious. Some adults aren't conscious. And you think fetuses are? This isn't a value judgement, it's a technical fact of human neuroanatomy. Ask any child psychologist whether infants are conscious and they'll answer no.
You really aren't treating this seriously so it's pointless for me to talk to you.
I was wondering how long it would take you to use that argument - it was kind of obvious it was coming. I agree it's pointless; your belief that your view is inevitable makes it so. I'll stop responding now
As for specifics, if "this case" is the Newbury bypass then I can't answer because I've never heard of it. Apparently, it's not quite infamous enough.
Details sufficient for this purpose: A bypass through nice countryside (with conservation issues over fauna and flora) was proposed to alleviate extreme traffic pressure in a busy and growing town. Several routes proposed, with differing impact on the countryside and differing effectiveness on alleviating overcrowding. The decision: should the bypass happen, and on what route?
I don't see how to use the principle that people should have an affect on the decision proportional to their impact can be applied here and have any positive benefit. Please explain
Theoretically, all people on this planet should have a small say since promoting the usage of cars increases pollution and reduces biodiversity. The people in the region have an additional say because it affects their economy. The people in the city have an even larger say because it affects their traffic patterns. And the people in the proposed locations have the biggest say of all. Plus, the closer you are to the site, the more say you have due to likely usage of it as a recreation area.
So several things fall out of this. If the concern for pollution is universal and strong, then the bypass is nixed, no matter what the locals think. If the people in the region are enlightened about cars and know they destroy the economy, then the bypass is nixed, no matter what the residents think. And if the residents think the bypass is an eyesore and will destroy their neighbourhood by bringing in more cars, then the city had better have a compelling reason to do it, or else the bypass is nixed.
Right. But to use this to actually make the decision, you need agreement (quantitatively) on how much of a say the various constituencies have. This, and the idea that everyone on the planet gets a (small) say definitely fits my definition of impracticable.
No, you don't need anything quantitative. And the idea that the entire world has a say in something doesn't imply that the planet has to take a formal vote on the decision. It can mean that a good guess as to its interests is made and factored in. Do you want a fair but inexact process, or an exact but unfair process? It seems to me that you prefer the illusion of fairness to its imperfect reality. Another instance of Accuracy versus Precision. Let me put it this way: would your prefer saying that pi is exactly 3.0 (inaccurate) or about 3.1416 (imprecise)? If you just care about precision, don't look to moral philosophy to help you.
I think I gave pretty good arguments why in all good cases, the Newbury bypass should have been nixed. If you want to discuss quagmires where nobody's smart enough to know what's in their best interests, clear reasoning isn't going to help you. Why should anyone bother with a "quantitative" process to decide things when everyone's too stupid to even recognize their own interests? Do you propose that a group of stupid people make wise decisions just because they act as a group? Because they have the right Process in place and follow all the right forms? If people make stupid decisions that don't act in anyone's interests, nothing is gained by claiming that the "right" stupid decision was made. In a context of overwhelming stupidity, the idea of fairness is absurd. I'm interested in justice, not some CargoCult sham of justice.
''Your arguments are based on value judgements about the relative importance of the environment and the economy. They might be 'good arguments' in your view. Other people will think they're stupid. How does the principle of proportional influence on the decision help here? You have the views of the region overriding those of the residents - that is a quantitative judgement. You seem to assume some kind of "superior" person or body considers the input of all the people who have a say - including, apparently, judging if they're too stupid to decide the right way. Who is unstupid enough to make the "good guess"?
And I prefer that if a decision can't be made according to this principle, that there is no pretence that it has been.
You really don't understand what I said.
There is no "right way", because political decisions are not technical. There is, however, according to one's interests. And different people have different interests. If no-one'' can even recognize their own interests, I wash my hands of the travesty.
Let's be quantitative about if, as you think it's so damned important. There are 6 billion people on the planet and a city may have 1 million. That's 6000 to 1. So even if everyone on the planet has only 1/1000th the say of the people in the city, their decision overrides the city's. The people on the planet have an interest in stopping pollution. They do not have any interest in helping (or hurting) that region's economy or helping (or hurting) its traffic. They don't have any interest for a highway / bypass but do have an interest against it. So if the international community really doesn't like pollution, the project should be nixed. This has nothing to do with making a value judgement about the value of the environment.
Don't be silly. Of course it does.
Only with recognizing that such concerns exist for people and that they are universal. The environment beats the economy because it is universal.
The discussion isn't pointless because you don't know what you're talking about but because you're not willing to make any effort to learn anything nor even to express yourself. So it ends up with me talking and you not listening. Ho-hum, like that's terribly interesting! You, you personally, fumbled the ball, don't blame anyone else.
Naturally, I disagree. However, if it makes you happy to think that way, feel free.
(I'd appreciate it if someone other than us two protagonists refactored the above. The insults, at least, could do with being removed, but since I didn't make them, I don't want to DisagreeByDeleting.)
The argument about the pollution caused by the by-pass is flawed. In fact the centre of Newbury was a pretty appalling place to be and the pollution caused by the snarled up traffic was dreadful. The by-pass has now eased the congestion in the town centre and reduced journey times for people travelling past Newbury, therby reducing the overall net pollution and making the town centre more pleasant.
The environmentalists would have taken issue with the route had it been for a rail track as it crossed an area of outstanding natural beauty and environmental significance.
If pollution is your only concern then improving road systems to ease traffic flow will initially reduce pollution but as car usage increases the pollution will return. Car usage will increase in any case so maybe we should just give up and build more roads.
However we all agree that pollution is not the only factor and that we need to improve public transport systems and remove the requirememt for people to travel by car.
Doesn't the third point cancel out the first one? Cheap and easy way to reduce pollution: eliminate all cars. (See CarAddiction and CarFree.)
You're right, this is a pointless discussion. If you're really of the opinion that any interest shared universally overrides any local interest, then we're clearly of such different world views it's not worth arguing.
Local overrides universal only if it corresponds to more important human rights. No economic interest derived from a highway bypass can be considered a human right by any stretch of the imagination. In contrast, pollution leading to death is clearly a central human right. If you think otherwise, you don't know what you're talking about.
Just got to love that tolerance of different views there. "You think other than me, therefore you don't know what you're talking about". So any economic activity that can cause death as a by-product is to be denied, because of the fundamental human right to life? That would change the world a bit...
It would be a very different world if human rights were respected. Let me guess, you're a Utilitarian?
Bingo!
And you don't know that AmartyaSen disproved the possibility of Utilitarianism yielding any kind of self-consistent moral decisions or being a moral theory, do you? Nor do you seem concerned that as a principled Utilitarian, you'd have to think that it's okay for a society of sadists to torture a child if there's enough of them that the pleasure they derive from it outweighs the child's suffering. There really isn't any alternative to a Rawlsian-style moral theory if you're at all concerned with justice. So like I said, you really don't know what you're talking about.
No, that's just your opinion, and I think (as before in this discussion) you're imposing your views on what people's moral systems should be on others, regarding disagreement as ignorance or stupidity. It's neither. I think most Utilitarians accept that self-consistent moral decisions aren't possible - that's just a Utilitarian approach to the issue, after all. We view the world as too complex and imperfect to look for perfect self consistency. As a consequence, we don't have to agree with the sadists - that interpretation is a rather Fundementalist view of Utilitarianism. As a Utilitarian, I can agree that your approach is more self-consistent, if you like. I just feel the other consequences of your world view are unachievable in the real world, and positively damaging to the greater good. But then I would say that :-)
Then you're a fraud and a waste of time. If you actually believe Utilitarianism (a proposed moral system with the power to resolve absolutely jack shit in moral philosophy) then you have no concern for morality nor for justice. And having no concern for them, you should never have concerned yourself with a principle of decision-making that was advanced on the sole grounds of morality and justice.
Yawn. I'm getting fed up with the attacks, which are _still_ because I dare to disagree with you. This is my last response on this
Here's an elementary lesson: a moral system defines what people should believe, unless those beliefs have no impact on their actions. Having a moral system by definition means that one has beliefs about what everyone ought to believe. A self-contradictory "moral system" which applies to no one isn't a moral system at all, anymore than "every particle behaves according to its own nature" is a law of physics. You don't have a moral system, let alone a moral theory. What you have are, at best, some moral instincts which you have done a piss-poor job reasoning about. And what you substitute for moral arguments is power because in an amoral world, that's what resolves differences of interest between people. To you, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with torturing someone to death, it's just that anyone who does so would get beaten up. That's the "practical" side you insist so much on.
I had an inkling about it long ago. The only ways to resolve how much say everyone has in a political decision is either by making that a technical decision (eg, applying logic to self-evident moral truths), or power. And you've chosen power.
As for philosophical fundamentalism, you're talking to someone who takes lifeboat scenarios seriously when nobody else does. And has actually managed to resolve them in a framework of egalitarian human rights. I take ideas seriously. Not just as rhetoric to push my agenda.
And you still don't know what you're talking about. AmartyaSen proved there can't ever be any "greater good" as conceived by Utilitarians.
There is another, rarely compatible, principle that says decisions should be made by those best-qualified to make them. This is true when you visit the doctor's office for example.
This principle assumes two things. First, that most people cannot or should not be taught the knowledge required to make good decisions. For example, because it would cost too much to educate everyone, or it would take too long, or because they don't want to be or are incapable of being so educated. Second, that most decisions are technical decisions.
A technical decision is one that limits itself to fulfilling a set of clear requirements. The problem is that most decisions are not technical decisions. This is especially so in politics where the goal of political action is not to determine what is the best way to achieve something, but what to achieve in the first place.
This second problem is closely related to another problem. That of determining whether someone is qualified to make a decision. Are economists really experts in the economy? Most of the social sciences are too corrupted by the rich and powerful to arrive at impartial decisions.
I like this notion of technical decision versus, say non-technical, but ... there are many people who think everything is a technical decision. For instance, even when attempting to decide what to achieve in the first place, there are those who believe most of us aren't capable of knowing what we should want to achieve. <satire> There are experts in PerfectedHumanLiving. It is a technical decision, there are those more qualified to make it, and of course it is being done for our own good. </satire> The problem is creating a clear delineation between technical and non-technical arenas involves careful definitions of (appropriate) limits, fulfilling and clear requirements which probably requires an expert and is of course a technical decision.
Also consider that the various religious clergy would likely consider themselves to have some (large? absolute?) degree of expertise in PerfectedHumanLiving.
Yet another problem (the flip side of the first assumption) is that "obedience to experts" promulgates obedience. That has its own associated costs.
Juries are required to reach consensus, while the election of public officials works on something closer to democracy. In either case, the range of decisions is effectively fixed. The jury has a binary choice in front of it. Their consensus process involves altering individual opinions until all opinions are alike. This is a very limited model of problem solving, something we're not constrained to on software and other projects of creativity. If the binary choice (or ternary or some other small number) is relaxed and the participants are allowed to innovate solutions not on the board, consensus becomes a very different game in which the chance of satisfying all is greatly improved.
Don't be fooled. I can tell you first-hand that juries don't reach consensus, rather they argue until the minority view decides it's not worth arguing any more and just gives up without being convinced. I didn't see anyone actually change their mind about anything. -- AndyPierce
Also, juries sometimes have several charges to decide on, giving them several choices - 1st degree murder, 2nd degree, manslaughter, ...
Sometimes, no one gives up and no consensus is reached and the jury is "hung". But that's not my point. My point is to contrast between decision-making schemes in which the decision set is fixed, and schemes in which they are not fixed. Open to innovation, in other words. On this site, we are more concerned with contexts in which open solution decision-making is possible, so analogies to government are of limited educational value. Don't let yourself get pushed into voting on a set of crappy choices. -- wm
I voted against consensus. But then it turned out everyone else was against it too.
"He that is convinced against his will, is of his own opinion still."
See GroupThink, MeasuringConsensus
See also Ellen Gottesdiener's 'Decide How To Decide' http://www.sdmagazine.com/documents/s=735/sdm0101h/
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