Individualism, Communitarianism and Consensus

KEITH LEHRER

INDIVIDUALISM, COMMUNITARIANISM AND CONSENSUS �

(Received 27 October 2000; accepted 15 May 2001)

ABSTRACT. There is a contemporary conflict between individualistic and communitarianconceptions of rationality. Robert Goodin describes it as a conflict between an enlighten-ment individualistic conception of a “sovereign artificer” and “a socially unencumberedself” as contrasted with the communitarian conception of a “socially embedded self”whose identity is formed by his or her community. Should we justify and explain rationalityindividualistically or socially? This is a false dilemma when consensus is reached by amodel articulated by Keith Lehrer and Carl Wagner. According to this model, the con-sensus results from the positive weights individuals give to others and use to continuallyaverage and, thus, aggregate their allocations. Aggregation converges toward a consensusin which the social preference and the individual preferences become identical. The truthof communitarianism is to be found in the aggregate and the truth of individualism in theaggregation. The original conflict dissolves in rational consensus.

KEY WORDS: aggregation, communitarianism, connectedness, consensus, convergence,Enlightenment, individualism, interpersonal unity, liberalism, Robert Gordin, self, weights

There is a contemporary conflict concerning the role of the individual andsociety in the theory of rationality. On one side there is the enlighten-ment account of individualistic rationality. Robert Goodin describes it asfollows:1

The Enlightenment model of social life is a seductive one. It depicts rational (or anywayreasoning) individuals choosing goals and plans and projects for themselves, with thoseautonomous individuals then coming together, of their own volition, in pursuit of sharedinterests and common goals. . . . From Pico della Mirandola through Kant and the earlyRawls, this vision of modern man as a “sovereign artificer” has reigned supreme throughoutmainstream Western moral and political thought.2

� This paper was presented to the World Congress of Philosophy, Boston, 1998, underthe title “Individualism versus Communitarianism: A Consensual Compromise.” It waswritten while the author was a fellow of the Australian National University, Institute forAdvanced Study. A version of this paper was presented to the Society for Ethics in 1999.

1 Robert E. Goodin, “Review Article: Communities of Enlightenment,” British Journalof Political Science 28 (1998), p. 531. All quotations from Goodin are to this article andfootnotes within quotations are due to Goodin.

2 Immanuel Kant, “What is Enlightenment?” The Philosophy of Kant, trans. and ed.Carl J. Friedrich (New York: Random House, 1949; originally published 1784), pp. 132–139, esp. Section 2. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard

The Journal of Ethics 5: 105–120, 2001.© 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

106 KEITH LEHRER

This Goodin describes as the enlightenment view of the unencumberedself.

Goodin describes the opposing communitarian view as follows:

Familiar old Hegelian themes have recently been refashioned into a full-dress “communi-tarian critique” of liberalism and, through it, of the Enlightenment conception of manas a whole.3 In place of the socially “unencumbered self” of Enlightenment mythologyand Kantian ethics, we are asked to substitute a ’socially embedded’ self. In place of theautonomous individual, we are asked to substitute an agent constituted and constrained inimportant respects by communal attachments and cultural formations.4

The communitarian view is, as Goodin remarks, the view of the sociallyembedded self.

Both enlightenment and the communitarian views concern the correctperspective to take on the individual but also on society. According to theenlightenment view as Goodin elaborates it:

Ex hypothesi, there are no affective sentiments binding them together. Ex hypothesi, eachis indifferent to the well-being of the other. Ex hypothesi, each is pursuing his or her owngoals to the exclusion of all else.

Despite their utter indifference to one another in all those respects, such individuals dononetheless find themselves embedded in “communities of interests”. They share certainconcerns which can be better pursued jointly than separately. Each finds that others havesomething s/he wants or needs. Without coordination, they find themselves cutting acrossone another unnecessarily, or they find themselves missing opportunities for mutuallybeneficial collaboration.

University Press, 1971) and “Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory,” The Journal ofPhilosophy 77 (1980), pp. 515–572. Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialecticof Enlightenment, trans. John Cumming (London: Verso/New Left Books, 1979).

3 The Enlightenment conception was indeed a conception of man, and man alone,however.

4 Goodin, p. 532. For some articulations of communitarianism, see Michael Sandel,Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998)and “The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self,” Political Theory 12 (1984),pp. 81–96. Alasdair C. MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame,Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988). Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1989). Cf. also, Michael Walzer,Thick and Thin (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994). Thecommunitarian argument has been reviewed effectively in many other places already, e.g.:Amy Gutmann, “Communitarian Critics of Liberalism,” Philosophy and Public Affairs14 (1985), pp. 308–322; Will Kymlicka, “Communitarianism,” Contemporary PoliticalPhilosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 199–237; Stephen Mulhall and AdamSwift, Liberals and Communitarians, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996); and ElizabethFrazer and Nicola Lacey, The Politics of Community: A Feminist Critique of the Liberal-Communitarian Debate (Brighton: Harvester-Wheatsheaf, 1993). See also two importantcompilations collecting key contributions to this debate: Michael J. Sandel (ed.), Liber-alism and Its Critics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984); and Shlomo Avineri and Avner de-Shalit(eds.), Communitarianism and Individualism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).

INDIVIDUALISM, COMMUNITARIANISM AND CONSENSUS 107

That story is as familiar as Hobbes and Locke and the Scottish Enlightenment. Some-times those stories are presented in terms of an overarching social contract;5 other timesthey are couched in terms of more diffuse conventions underlying social institutions orparticularised exchange relations.6 What all those stories nonetheless have in commonis that they all depict a “community of interests” arising among individuals without anyantecedent communal sentiments. Interests, and interests alone, here beget community.7

By contrast, Goodin avers, the communitarian argues that we belong tocommunities of meaning, experience, regard and subsumption to socialnorms. To quote Goodin again, the communitarian view is characterised interms of identity as follows:

Communitarian critics of the Enlightenment model are looking for something beyond anyof that, however. Their talk of communities of generation, or meaning, experience or evenof regard points to something that stands above and before any calculation of enlightenedself-interest. Communitarians themselves would phrase this in terms of the social construc-tion of identity, of the communal “sources of the self.”8 Whereas the Enlightenment fictionis that sovereign artificers make communities, the communitarian emphasis is upon thevarious ways in which communities make individuals: literally, in the case of communitiesof generation; figuratively, in communities of meaning, experience and regard.9

He continues later as follows:10

So too, for communitarians, are our collective conversations and deliberations partlyconstitutive of who we are and what we want.11 Where the Enlightenment model seesconversations among independently constituted interlocutors, who through the poolingof information come to some shared judgments, the communitarian model sees conver-sations constituting and reconstituting interlocutors who are partly made and remadethrough them. Where the Enlightenment model sees independent assessors converging oncertain facts and values, premises and conclusions, the communitarian model sees inter-dependent agents constituted at least in part by that which they share in the course of theirconversations.12

Goodin examines the conflict in detail and after noting the variousways in which the unencumbered self of the enlightenment will inevi-

5 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (London: Andrew Crooke, 1651). John Locke, SecondTreatise of Government, ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960;originally published 1690).

6 Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, eds.R.H. Campbell, A.S. Skinner and W.B. Todd (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976; originallypublished 1776). David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (London: John Noon, 1739)and An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (London: Cadell, 1777).

7 Goodin, p. 535.8 Taylor, Sources of the Self, Part I.9 Goodin, p. 551.

10 Goodin, p. 554.11 Taylor, p. 181.12 Thus, Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1958), pp. 175–181.

108 KEITH LEHRER

tably become involved in and constrained by communities to which heor she belongs, Goodin concludes concerning the sovereign artificers ofthe enlightenment model:

Thus, while participating happily in all sorts of “communities of enlightenment,” sovereignartificers should, by the same token, strictly limit themselves to “communities of enlight-enment.” Communities of darkness – all-consuming attachments, of the sort which has sopowerfully seized the recent world, to one’s race or nation or religion – cannot pass theirmuster. But that fact and the reasons behind it seem to tell more powerfully against suchcommunities than against the Enlightenment model itself.13

It is clear that after a lucid account of the conflict, Goodin thinksthat the sovereign artificers, however encumbered they might become bycommunities, should not sacrifice their sovereignty to the community.This leaves us with a paradox at the core of the issue, namely, that asrational agents we must retain our sovereignty within the communitieswhich might define our identities. In the end, Goodin states his position bycontrasting “communities of enlightenment” with “communities of dark-ness.” Of course, we all deplore communities which define membership inways that require that we be destructive to those outside the communitieswhich define us. However, the powers of darkness are not restricted tocommunities of darkness. Individuals acting as sovereign artificers seekingtheir own personal goals and interests have done enough harm to others,sometimes by organising communities that subsume others, sometimes byacts of personal destruction, so that we must not blame darkness exclu-sively on communities. There is plenty of sovereign individual evil in theworld. My own impression is that communities are much like individuals.Some are benevolent or, at least, just, while others are malevolent, or, atleast, unjust. Moreover, Goodin sees clearly that this is so.

I propose that we confront the paradox of individual sovereignty andsocial identity as a paradox that should be treated initially as a problem ofexplaining how we can offer an account of a sovereign individual with asocial identity and how within the social situation we can have a sovereignindividual. How can we resolve the conflict between individual autonomyand social identity? How can the interests of the individual conform to theinterests of the social groups to which he or she belongs without the groupco-opting the interests of the individual? How can the interests of the socialgroup conform to the interests of the individual without decomposing inthe conflict of individual interests? The answer to all these questions is thatindividual interests may converge toward consensus at the same time inthe ideal case and by the same process that the consensus socially definesthe identity of the individual. We do not need to suppose, at least in the

13 Goodin, p. 558.


ideal case, that there is a chicken and the egg problem of whether theegg of individualism comes before the chicken of communitarianism orvice versa. The individual and society fry and fly together. The societyis defined by a consensus aggregated by individuals and individuals aredefined by the consensus they aggregate. The truth of communitarianism isto be found in the aggregate, the truth of individualism in the aggregation.

I shall construe the problem as the problem of individualism versuscommunitarianism. It is clear, as Goodin illustrates, that the conflictbetween individualism and communitarianism is an ongoing ethical andpolitical conflict. The resolution of it, if one is to be found, is more thana solution of an abstract logical puzzle. We may, however, find a solutionby means of an abstract logical or mathematical representation of it, andthat is what I shall suggest. Before turning to mathematical representation,we shall need as much clarification of the problem that we can obtain, andthat requires that we distinguish different problems that may be confusedunder a single heading. We may murder to dissect, but some confusionsmust meet their justified demise before precise articulation is possible.

The first distinction is between a conflict of fact and methodology, onone hand, and conflict of value and deontology, on the other. Some valueindividualism above communitarianism and think we all ought to, whileothers value communitarianism above individualism and think we all oughtto. This dispute of value and deontology is easily confused with one of factand methodology. The latter dispute concerns whether, on one hand, we areto explain the thought and action of an individual in terms of the influenceof social groups or communities to which he or she belongs or whether, onthe other hand, we are to explain the thought and action of social groups interms of the individuals belonging to them.

Of course, most of us are inclined to the latitudinarian view that some-times we can explain the thought and actions of an individual in termsof the social groups to which he or she belongs and sometimes we canexplain the thought and actions of social groups in terms of the individualsbelonging to them, but that does not end the dispute. For the questionremains as to which explanations are basic. The individualistically orientedpsychologist or economist may be committed to the methodology – theindividual is basic for explanation – while the socially oriented sociologistor political scientist may be committed to the methodology – the socialgroup is basic for explanation. The first may think of the goals and interestsof individuals as providing the basic explanation of why social groupsthink and act as they do in terms of the personal minds of individualsbelonging to the group. The second may think of the goals and interestsof groups as providing the basic explanation of why individuals think and

110 KEITH LEHRER

act as they do in terms of the social mind of the individuals belongingto the social group. Both kinds of explanations are useful, but the ques-tion remains – what is basic to explanation in the social sciences – theindividual or society?

There is a parallel dispute when we turn from the explanation of whatis the case to the question of what ought to be the case. Ought the interestsand goals of the social groups be derived from the interests and goals ofthe individuals belonging to them, or ought the goals and interests of indi-viduals be derived from the interests and goals of the groups to which theybelong? Again, it is clear that sometimes an individual should respect thegoals and interests of a group to which he or she belongs, and sometimesa groups should respect the goals and interests of an individual belongingto them, but the question is – what is basic to justification? Are the goalsand interests of individuals basic to justifying what ought to be pursuedby individuals and groups, or are the goals and interests of groups basic tojustifying what ought to be pursued by groups and individuals?

The similarity of the form of the questions suggests that there maybe a similarity in the form of the answer, and so there is. Moreover, theanswer is the same in both cases. There is an ideal case in which neitherthe individual nor the society is basic, namely, the case in which the goalsand interests are consensual, for in that case the individual and social goalsand interests are identical with the consensual goals and interests. There isa fundamental mistake in both the perspective of individualism and that ofcommunitarianism, namely, the assumption that one must be basic, just asthere is a common insight in both, namely, that each is essential. But howcan consensus resolve the conflict of individualism and communitarianismin either the domain of explanation or justification? Either the consensusis formed by individuals consenting to some common interest or goalexpressing nothing more than their individual interests and goals, whichis individualism, or commitment to the consensual goals and interests isrequired of the individuals, which is communitarianism. How can we slipbetween the horns of the dilemma?

The crux of the answer is that ideal consensus is a commitment ofconsenting individuals to consensual goals and interests. The commitmentto the consensual goals and interests is what the communitarian requiresfor social identity, but because it is the consensus of consenting individuals,it is formed from their individual goals and interests as the individualistrequires. The consensus is the consensus of individuals, and, therefore,the individual and communal goals and interests coincide within it. Whatwe require to solve the two problems of explanation and justification is a


theory of a consensus that articulates the double solution. Let us turn to thearticulation of it.

As a first step toward the solution to the problem, let us consider conflictbetween two persons. One favourite articulation of a two person problem isthe prisoners dilemma, but it is a poor model for social intercourse betweentwo people because it precludes communication and negotiation betweenthem to solve the problem. Let us instead consider a problem where twopeople need to resolve their conflict and see how a consensus might arise.George and Mary are left $1,000 in a will which they may divide amongtheir favourite charities provided they can agree on how to divide themoney. George wishes to give $1,000 to the American Cancer Society, A,because his father died of cancer. Mary wishes to give $1,000 to PlannedParenthood, P, because of her commitment to that cause. How are they toreach agreement? One way, would be for each to think of himself or herselfas having a unit of weight to divide between himself or herself and theother. Suppose that George gives a weight of 0.1 to Mary, 0.9 to himself,and Mary does the same. Consistency requires that each modify his orher allocation in terms of the weight assigned to himself or herself and theother, and the way to do so is to average or aggregate the allocations, so thatGeorge modifies his allocation to 0.9 X $1,000 to A and 0.1 X $1,000 to Pwith result that he now agrees to allocate $900 to A and $100 to P, whileMary agrees to allocate $900 to P and $100 to A. They have not reachedagreement by a single aggregation, but suppose they continue to give aweight of 0.1 to the other, 0.9 to themselves, and average or aggregateagain. They will continue to move closer to each other in their allocations,and iterated aggregation will drive them to converge toward the allocationof $500 to each charity. This will then become the consensual allocationof the group consisting of George and Mary.

This is a very simple example of consensus. The process of forminga consensus violates the principles of extreme individualism. It is not thecase that each is pursing his or her goals to the exclusion of all others.Each is giving some weight to the goal of the other. The motive might beegoistic, or it might not be. There may be an affective sentiment bindingthem which influences what weight each gives to the goal of the other,and they may be concerned about the well-being of each other. We cannotexclude the possibility that George and Mary have arrived at consensusby exercising pure egoism, but once the aggregation process begins eachparty is sacrificing the egoistically preferred position of giving $1,000 tohis or her favourite charity. Moreover, once that aggregation begins, eachparty begins to form a preference that is partly social in nature. George andMary may begin by assigning an allocation without concern for the other.

112 KEITH LEHRER

But after the first aggregation, Mary’s allocation is an aggregation of herown allocation and George’s. Her allocation, like his, is intrinsically social.Each person has an allocation, a charitable position, if you will, that is anaggregation of his or her own and that of the other. At the second aggrega-tion, each arrives at an allocation that is an aggregation of an aggregationof his or her own and that of the other, and, in that way, doubly social.As the process iterates and converges toward consensus, each convergestoward an allocation that is an inextricable amalgamation of their originalallocation and an increasingly dominant social factor.

We may, in fact, consider the solution in mathematically equivalentterms that articulates the social component in a precise manner. Theconsensual allocation is mathematically equivalent to finding a consen-sual weight to give to George, wG, a consensual weight to give to Mary,wM , and multiplying these weights times the original allocations to obtainthe consensual allocation resulting from aggregation convergence. In theexample we imagined, the consensual weights would be 0.5, but theweights could have been any positive pair that sums to 1. For example,if George had given Mary a weight of 0.3 and Mary had given Georgea weight of 0.1 and both had aggregated to convergence, the consensualallocation would have been $250 to A and $750 to P which is equivalentto assigning a consensual weight of 0.25 to George and 0.75 to Mary andmultiplying these weights times their original allocations. So, we may lookat the process as mathematically equivalent to one by which George andMary seek to agree to consensual weights to assign to each other.

Notice, however, that the consensual allocations are both communaland individual. They are both individual and communal because the indi-viduals are committed to the social process of aggregation resulting in thecommunal allocation. George and Mary are committed to iterated aggrega-tion and the allocation of $500 to each charity is their resulting communalallocations. These allocations are individual, on the other hand, because theconsensus results from the weights and allocations of individuals and are,in the end, also allocations of individuals. The communal allocation resultsfrom the original individual allocations of George and Mary of $1,000 toeach of their respective charities and of the weights of 0.1 that each assignsto the other (and of 0.9 to themselves) used in the iterative aggregationprocess. The crux is that $500 to each charity is the communal allocationto which George and Mary are committed as members of the group theyhave formed. At the same time, however, each of them individually hasmodified his or her individual allocation to $500 to each charity. Consensusidentifies the individual and the communal allocations.


It is important to notice that the allocation of $500 to each charitymight have resulted from different processes without consensus. Onepossibility is George and Mary might have been told that if they did notreach consensus about the allocation, the allocation would be randomlychosen by an unidentified third party. Suppose that they do not reachconsensus, each refusing to give positive weight to the other in the negoti-ation, and the third party chooses the allocation of $500 to each charity.The actual allocation is the same as in the case of consensus, but theallocation, though it is to some extent the result of a failure of the pairto reach consensus, is neither an individual nor a communal allocationbut is, instead, imposed. They are subsumed under an imposed allocation.Neither of them is committed to that allocation communally or individu-ally, though they each bear some responsibility for the outcome and willhave to accept the result. Finally, suppose that instead of aggregating toconsensus, George and Mary each guess at an allocation they think theother will accept without negotiation or aggregation, and they each pick theallocation of $500 to each charity. Each of them is individually committedto that allocation, but there is no communal commitment to that allocationbecause it is not the result of social consensus.

In the example of George and Mary we can solve our two problems,the problem of fact and methodology, on one hand, and the problem ofvalue and deontology, on the other. Consider first of all the problem offact and methodology. Should we explain the allocations in our examplein terms of the goals and purposes of the individuals or in terms of thegoals and purposes of the group when George and Mary reach consensus?Are we to explain the thought and action of an individual, George or Mary,in terms of the influence of the social group to which he or she belongsor are we to explain the thought and action of the social group composedof George and Mary in terms of them? We certainly can explain the firststep of aggregation in terms of the preferences of George and Mary andthe weights they give to each other. The movement from the initial state,state 0, to the next state, state 1, is fully explained in terms of individualpreferences, goals and interests. The transition from state 1 to state 2, thesecond step of aggregation, brings in a social factor, however. Considera formal representation of George’s aggregation from state 0 to state 1and from state 1 to state 2, where the subscripts mark the person andthe superscripts mark the state, followed by the representation of Mary’saggregations for these states:

George,

A1G = A0

Mw0GM + A0

Gw0GG

A2G = A1

Mw1GM + A1

Gw1GG;

114 KEITH LEHRER

and Mary,

A1M = A0

Gw0MG + A0

Mw0MM

A2M = A1

Gw1MG + A1

Mw1MM.

I assume as in the example that George holds the weights he assignsconstant from state 1 to state 2 as does Mary, but that is for them to decidein each state. It is clear, however, that even at state 1, the allocations ofGeorge and Mary are already socially embedded. The allocation of eachis embedded in the allocation of the other and a social factor is introducedinto the allocations of the individuals.

The most important social element is introduced in the second aggrega-tion, however, and extreme individualism vanishes therein. This is revealedwhen we substitute in the state 2 allocations what the state 1 allocationsequal. We obtain the following for George:

A2G = (A0

Gw0MG + A0

Mw0MM)w1

GM +(A0

Mw0GM + A0

Gw0GM)w1

GG.

Now when we consider this formula, it is clear that the weight that Georgegives to Mary in state 2 reflects his evaluation of the weight that Mary gaveto his allocation as well to her own in the original state. So the weight thathe gives to her is, in part, an evaluation of the weight that she gave to him.Similarly, the weight that Mary gives to George in state 2 reflects her evalu-ation of the weight he gave to her in the original state. Moreover, when theaggregation progresses to state 3, the weight that George gives to Mary willreflect his evaluation of the weight that she gave to the weight he gave toher just as the weight that she gives to him will reflect her evaluation of theweight that he gave to the weight she gave to him. Thus, though the weightsmight remain constant from state to state, what is evaluated by the assignedweight changes and becomes socially more complicated from state to state.The allocations of George and Mary at state 2 are already a mixture ofsocial and individual factors. The allocation of each is socially embeddedin the allocations of the other, the weights the other has assigned, and theweight one assigns to those weights. At this point, George’s allocation isencumbered with Mary’s allocations and evaluations and hers with his. Theinnocence of the unencumbered self is lost.

Should we explain the allocations of the individuals in terms ofconsensus toward which they have converged and to which they haveagreed? It seems that we must. Neither would allocate $500 to each charityexcept as a member of a group who has amalgamated his or her prefer-ences and interests with the other to form a consensus. It is commitmentto the consensus which explains the $500 allocations that each makes.


But there remains a caveat. Each of them has allocated $500 to eachcharity as a result of a process of aggregation that each engaged in toreach his or her goal. The consensus is the solution to a coordinationproblem that each confronts as an individual. However, to reach the solu-tion, each must amalgamate his or her interests with the other to reach aconsensus that is communal and commit themselves to it. The sovereignartifice is immediately lost in the second state of aggregation, and theindividuals become socially encumbered. Moreover, once they are sociallyencumbered, the distinction between the communal allocation and theindividual allocations vanishes in magic of mathematics. The individualallocation of each “sovereign artificer” becomes the “communal norm” ofconsensus. Individual interests become communal interests and communalinterests remain individual. The individual allocations and the communalallocations are identical and symmetrical.

To turn from fact and methodology to value and deontology, shouldwe agree that the interests and goals of the group ought to be derivedfrom the interests and goals of the individuals justified by them, or oughtthe interests and goals of the individuals be derived from the interestsand goals of the group and justified by them? As we have formulatedthe example, the interests and goals of the group require that $500 beallocated by each individual to each charity, for it is in the interests andgoals of the group that a fixed sum be consensually allocated to eachcharity and, therefore, that the individuals allocate $500 to each charity.The individual allocations are justified by the consensual allocations ofthe group. The individuals ought to conform to the consensual allocationsas a social or communitarian norm. On the other hand, the interests andgoals of the group are justified by and derived from the interests and goalsof the individuals, namely, to do what they must to obtain an allocationfor their preferred charity by reaching consensus. What is and what oughtto be coincide in the symmetry and identity of individual and communalinterests.

There is an ambiguity in the meaning of “derive” that should not leadus astray. The word is here used in the senses of both explanation andjustification. We have argued for the symmetry of individual and socialexplanation and justification. There is, of course, also a temporal notionof derivation in which to say that one thing is derived from another is toimply that the derived thing was caused by the antecedent occurrence ofthe thing from which it was derived. In our example, one has the impres-sion that the consensus is derived in this sense from the earlier statesof aggregation. Though this might be the case, it need not be, and thejustification for the consensual allocation does not depend upon it. We

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need only imagine that state 1 is a state in which each individual modifieshis or her allocation by aggregating his and her original allocation on thebasis of assigning 0.5 to himself and herself. The individuals reach theirown modified allocations at the same time that they create a consensualallocation. The symmetry of the individual and the communal allocationis instantaneous and synchronic. Thus, temporal symmetry and identity ofthe individual and social allocation may be conjoined to that of explanationand justification.

The two person example that we have described above can be extendedto larger groups with more interesting results. The introduction of a thirdperson, Jean, into the decision making group would exhibit most of theconsequences of the extension of the model to groups of any finite size.The most interesting consequence of introducing a third party is that sucha person might mediate conflict between the other two. For example, ifGeorge and Mary each refuse to assign positive weight to each other andeach, consequently, assigns zero weight to the other, then each will remainstubbornly fixed with his or her original allocation. If, however, Jean isadded to the group, and Jean assigns positive weight to each of them andis assigned positive weight by each them, then aggregation will convergetoward consensus as a result of Jean’s role when the weights assigned bythe three remain constant through iterated aggregation. So a third partycan connect parties who are otherwise disconnected. This is a powerfulalteration of the original example.

Moreover, as more parties are added the possibility of more indirectconnection arises. If every pair of members of the group is connected bysome sequence of members each of whom assigns positive weight to thenext, then, again, convergence will result from constancy through iteratedaggregation. This means, for example, that if all members of the groupare thought of as forming a circle in which each person assigns positiveweight to the person to his or her left and to no one else except himselfor herself, convergence would result from constancy of weight throughiterated aggregation. This allows for the creation of a communal allocationin a large group where each person’s individual allocation is identical to thecommunal allocation even though each person in the group gives positiveweight to only one other member of the group!

Let us consider a more formal representation of the addition of moreparties. Each person, j, would assign a weight, ws

jk, to each other person, k,at each state s. Thus the allocation for person j resulting from aggregatingfrom state s to s + 1 is as follows:

As+1j = As

1wsj1 + As

2wsj2 + . . . + As

nwsjn.


The consensual allocation Ac is the value to which the aggregationconverges for all j as s goes to infinity. The major implication of addinga third person is that it permits us to obtain convergence toward consensuseven when some members of the group assigns a weight of 0 to othermembers of the group. If all members of the group assign some positiveweight to themselves and all are connected by vectors of positive weightand all remain constant in the weights they assign through iterated aggreg-ation, convergence toward consensus will result (these conditions are notnecessary for convergence, but they are sufficient).14 Two members of thegroup j and k are connected in this way just in case there is a sequenceof members of the group such that j is the first member and k is the lastmember and each member in the sequence assigns positive weight to thenext member in the sequence. It is possible for all members to be connectedin this way even though each member gives positive weight to only oneother member of the group. If members of the group are connected, iteratedpositive aggregation will converge toward a consensual allocation whenweights are held constant.

There is obviously no reason to suppose that weights will remainconstant through the process of aggregation. However, it is plausible tosuppose that after extended aggregation weights would remain constant,and, assuming that members of the group are connected at that state,iterated aggregation will again converge toward consensus. Nevertheless,it should not be assumed that connectedness is assured, for the process asdescribed in the example, and as assumed so far, allows for an individual toopt out of the process by assigning all others a weight of zero. This insuresthat the individual cannot be co-opted by other members of the group, andit is necessary that he not be co-opted if the consensual allocation is tocarry moral commitment. If an individual assigns all others a weight ofzero, then either they must reciprocate or face the prospect of making thatindividual a dictator by converging toward his or her allocation. Of course,as a result of individuals assigning others zero weight the group maydecompose into a major group and an outsider or into various subgroupshaving diverse allocations.

We may now define a basic difference between an individualistic and acommunal perspective. The individualistic perspective is one that requiresthe right of the individual to opt out of the consensual process and tobecome an outsider to the group. A communal perspective might mandatesome weighting procedure requiring individuals to give positive weight to

14 For weaker sufficient conditions for convergence, see Keith Lehrer and Carl Wagner,Rational Consensus in Science and Society: A Philosophical and Mathematical Study(Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Reidel Publishing Co., 1980).

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others to insure convergence toward consensus. Such a perspective mightbe democratic requiring that each assign at least some minimal weight toall the others or more autocratic requiring that each member assign somespecified weight to some leader or leading subgroup. The required weightassignment might be a condition of communal membership.

Assuming that membership is not coerced, however, there remains theargument that the individual allocation and the communal allocation arethe same, though in the case in which an individual assigns positive weightto others as a condition of membership in the community, he or she maybe aware of an alternative allocation representing the allocation he or shewould make as an outsider. Nevertheless, having chosen to meet the condi-tion of group membership by assigning a positive weight to others andparticipating in the aggregation process, the allocation of the individualwill, through aggregation, converge toward the communal allocation. Evenin this case, the communal allocation and the individual allocation will beidentical. The commitment to the communal allocation will coincide withthe communal allocation at the time at which each emerges as the outcomeof aggregation.

The foregoing reflections provide us with an understanding of howindividual and communal justification and explanation can be symmetricaland identical. They show us how disparate individual allocations can beaggregated toward consensus by means of the constancy of positive weightgiven to others in a group. A question arises, however, since the modeldoes not appear to describe actual behaviour. What light can the modelof aggregation shed on actual conflict between individual and communalinterests, goals, thought and action? First of all, the aggregation modelcan be applied to arrive at consensus concerning anything that can berepresented mathematically. So if interests, for example, can be repre-sented by utilities, the model can be applied to them. Moreover, the useof the model avoids the usual problems resulting from an attempt to findsome interpersonal or intersubjective measure of utility. It is not needed.The personal utilities of members of the group need not conform to anyinterpersonal measure. The reason is that each individual can correct fordifferences in the way others represent their utilities in terms of the weightsthey assign. Thus, for example, if I think that the utility assignment ofanother exaggerates his intensity of interest in comparison to others, I canassign him a proportionately lower weight to discount the exaggeration inhis utility assignment. Moreover, the model might be indirectly applied tocases where a conflict could be first concerned with question of how muchweight to give to each person in the dispute, and once that is resolvedby finding consensual weights to be assigned to each person, the weights


could be used as votes to resolve a conflict that is represented qualitatively.It must be conceded, however, that the model as articulated above can bedirectly applied only in cases in which the dimension of conflict can berepresented mathematically.

The second and more important reply to the question of what light themodel can shed on actual conflict is that the model may be realised bymany instances of actual conflict without members to the dispute reflec-tively assigning weights to others. Their behaviour might be explained bythe assumption that they give weight to others and modify their positionin terms of these weights even though they do not do so reflectively orin a way that introspection reveals. Moreover, as is apparent from ourexample of George and Mary, the convergence point may be obvious to allparties after only one or two aggregations rendering the extended iterationunnecessary. The intention to continue giving a positive weight to othersin a constant manner will be seen to commit one to a consensual point ofconvergence.

There are many features of actual negotiation that are well explainedby the model. The first is the role of mediators in reaching consensus.That is explained by their role in connecting members that are a partyto the dispute. Another feature is the rejection of the influence of medi-ators when one or more parties to a dispute does not want to compromise.That is explained by the need to assign zero weight to those mediating inorder to avoid being connected to others and driven to agreement by theconnection. Yet another feature is that increasing the size of a group mayfacilitate reaching consensus. That is explained by an increase in waysin which individuals can be connected by adding individuals to the group.Perhaps most important is the fact that respect for a central figure or mutualrespect among parties to a conflict is so important in reaching agreementand maintaining community. That is explained by the way in which suchrespect connects the members permitting aggregation toward consensus.There is also the fact that negotiated agreement is so much more satis-factory than imposed agreement. That is explained by the identification ofindividual and social commitment resulting from connection, constancyand aggregation toward consensus. By contrast, there is the anger thatis displayed when negotiation fails to reach consensus. That is explainedby the assignment of zero weight to others needed to avoid being slowlydriven to consensus. Finally, there is the happy occurrence of consensusyielding surprising shifts in norms and social paradigms arising in a groupwith dissenting subgroups. That is explained by mutually respected indi-viduals who connect the dissenting group with others in the aggregation toconsensus.

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We began by considering the contrast Goodin described between theenlightenment view of individuals as socially unencumbered sovereignartificers and the communitarian view of individuals socially embeddedin communities which require commitment from them. The consensualmodel I have proposed provides an alternative that shares something withboth views. It shares the fundamental idea of the enlightenment viewthat social agreement and community can be explained by the action ofindividuals seeking to further their goals and interests, namely, by givingpositive weight to others and aggregating toward consensus. It shares thefundamental idea of the communitarian that there should be an iden-tification of the interests and goals of the individual with those of thecommunity.

On the other hand, the model departs in an equally fundamental wayfrom each view. It departs from the fundamental idea of the individual-istic model that the individual interests and goals, though they may becoordinated with others belonging to a community, are not identical tothem. It departs from the fundamental idea of the communitarian modelthat communal commitment to the goals and interests of the communitycan not be the result of individuals pursuing their own goals and interests.The model is, however, closer to the enlightenment view and the positionGoodin espouses because the process of aggregation to consensus is basedon individuals pursuing their goals and interests. My own view, however,is that egoism, however enlightened, would fail to produce harmony andcommitment within a community without social interests and goals withinthe individuals motivating them to give positive weight to others with suffi-cient constancy to form a community among them. We are social beings,as Thomas Reid noted in the Scottish enlightenment, and were we not,life would, in spite of occasional short-term coordination of small groupsseeking some common interest, remain what it is when the social impulsefails in times of war, namely, hostile, hateful and horrific. Benevolence andrespect are the engines of the vehicle of social aggregation.

Department of PhilosophyUniversity of ArizonaTucson AZ 85721USAE-mail: [email protected]

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Individualism, Communitarianism and Consensus