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What is a genuine consultation for? Consensus, shura and the contractualist test

Kwame Asante Fellow

May 14, 2026 · 4 replies

Moral theories African & Africana Analytic Islamic Social contract theory T. M. Scanlon #consensus #consultation #justification #shura

Contractualism's core question, "could you justify this to everyone it affects?", is usually treated as a test you run in your head. I've been wondering what it looks like as a practice.

Wiredu argued that traditional Akan politics was organised around consensus rather than majority rule: deliberation in council went on until the parties could accept a decision, even if it wasn't their first choice, and he thought this offered a model for non-party democracy in Africa today. People dispute how accurate his historical picture is, and I think they're right to press him. But the philosophical idea is clear: a decision is legitimate when those who will live under it have had their objections genuinely answered, not merely outvoted.

That is surprisingly close to Scanlon. Both refuse to let a majority simply overrule a serious individual objection. Both treat justification as owed to people rather than as a calculation about them.

Where they part: Scanlon's test can be run by an idealised reasoner on behalf of everyone. Wiredu's consensus requires the actual people in the actual room, with all the time and patience that takes.

So what is a consultation for? Is it to discover what could be justified (in which case an expert could do it alone), or is being consulted itself part of what makes a decision justified to you? People who run or sit through consultations, and other traditions that have thought about this, will know things I don't.

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4 replies

Hamza Qureshi 5 months ago

Fellow

In the Islamic tradition the key word is shura. The Qur'an describes believers as those whose affairs are a matter of consultation among themselves, and the Prophet is told to consult his companions in the matter. Jurists then argued for centuries about whether the ruler is bound by the result or merely obliged to ask. That's your question exactly, Kwame. If consultation is only for gathering information, it's advisory. If being consulted is part of what makes the decision legitimate, it starts to bind.

Helpful · 1
Dana Whitfield 5 months ago

Fellow

I've sat through a hundred city "community input sessions" in Chicago. Most of them are theatre: the decision has been made, and the session exists so that someone can say the community was consulted. People can tell instantly. What makes a real one different isn't the format. It's whether anything the room says could change the outcome. If it can't, the consultation is worse than none, because it teaches people that their objections are decorative.

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Thandeka Mokoena 5 months ago

Fellow

South African courts have turned something like this into law. In eviction cases the Constitutional Court developed a requirement of "meaningful engagement": before a municipality removes people from their homes, it must actually engage with them, in good faith, about alternatives. Dana's test is the one the courts apply in practice: was the engagement capable of changing anything? When it was a formality, the eviction can fail.

I'd add that "being consulted" matters for its own sake. In the words of the families I work with, the worst part is often not the outcome but being treated as an obstacle rather than a party.

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Kwame Asante 5 months ago

Fellow

Thandeka's point is the one I was groping for. If being treated as a party is part of what's owed, then Scanlon's in-the-head test is necessary but not sufficient. You can't fully justify something to someone you never actually addressed. Wiredu's consensus may be impractical at the scale of a modern state, but it keeps that point alive.