Measuring Consensus

Unanimity gives you consensus. Does unanimity minus one give you consensus? How about unanimity minus two? At what percentage do you draw the line?

Consensus at it is commonly understood is an inherently vague concept (i.e., there is no line). Unanimity minus one can be consensus or not depending on informal criteria such as whether the holdout is a respected authority or a known crackpot, whether people are for something or just against something else, or whether the objections are "major" or "minor." All that's highly subjective. The definition of consensus as "that which everybody can live with, even if they don't like it" is a variation of the for versus against criterion that adds abstain or reluctantly accept as possible responses.

Voting is an objective way of measuring consensus. Ideally, voting gives you a precise answer. But to measure consensus by voting, you are forced to accept some precisification of the vague consensus concept; e.g., 2/3 in favor of X means we have consensus on X, and 2/3 minus 1 means we don't.

Sometimes we insist on a precise measurement, as in democratic elections. Other times we cling to the vagueness of consensus and trust a chairperson to make subjective, possibly inconsistent evaluations of group consensus.

No matter when you call for a vote, someone may object that they are still "building consensus" (i.e., persuading people to change their votes). But some people never give up, and sometimes you need to vote just to put an end to it. It's no crime to call the question when a debate has used up its time slot. LifesTooShort.

Building consensus is just that, reaching common and unanimous agreement on how to proceed. It does require, however, an effort on everyone's part to reach consensus. The approach is not to persuade people to change their votes, but to change the proposal to allow everyone to deem it acceptable. Again, the point is not to argue for the "best" approach, but to determine an approach all find acceptable.

CategoryVoting