Voting is uncorrelated to consent. Unanimous voting can be non-consensual, and non-unanimous voting can be consensual.
Posted: March 10th, 2023, 2:58 am
When two people interact, it's theoretically typically easy to understand the difference between a consensual interaction or non-consensual action, at least in theory assuming we have all the details of the interaction. The epitome of consensual interaction is consensual sex and the epitome of a non-consensual interaction is rape. Of course, slavery and murder are up there as well as sad prime examples of non-consensual interactions between humans.
Things can get more complicated when groups of humans are interacting, such as a book club, people having group sex, a large private club, a large apartment complex with private roads, a large charitable organization, or a large corporation such as Google, Samsung, Apple, Twitter, or Facebook.
One thing that can confuse some people sometimes is that the existence of voting can falsely be perceived as correlating to the presence or lack of consent.
Voting can easily be part of a totally consensual interaction, even in large groups. For example, I do a family movie night every week with my family. We can vote on what movie to watch. It's completely consensual. Nobody is being forced to watch the movie gunpoint or such.
Voting can also easily be part of a non-consensual interaction. For example, a bank robber could take hostages, decide he needs to murder one of the hostages for some reason, and he could let the hostages vote on which hostage gets murdered. We can imagine he allows any hostages that want to abstain from voting to abstain, meaning nobody has to vote, and he will just randomly murder one person if nobody votes. So they even aren't being forced to vote, but the results of the vote (i.e. the murder) are still not consensual.
As we can see from the above examples, whether or not voting is involved has nothing to do with whether or not the associated interaction is consensual. You can have (1) voting without consent, (2) voting with consent, (3) no voting and no consent, or (4) voting but no consent. There's no correlation at all one way or the other.
Things can get even more confusing when we talk about unanimous consent or universal consent. It becomes even easier to accidentally falsely conflate what's going on with the voting versus what's going on with the consent. But voting and consent are two completely different things, and thus the unanimousness of the voting (or lack thereof) has nothing to do at all with the universality of the consent (or lack thereof).
If the fundamental interaction is not consensual, than it doesn't matter if the voting is unanimous. The consensuality of the interaction has already been determined before the vote even takes place.
Consider the bank robber example again. If it was me in the bank as one of the hostages, and all the other hostages were children, I would vote for myself to be the hostage that gets murdered. Assuming the kids all vote the same way, that means we would unanimously vote for me to be murdered, but the murder would still not be consensual. Since consent and voting are not connected at all and not correlated at all, we can also then see that the unanimousness of the voting (or lack thereof) would have nothing at all to do with whether the interaction was consensual. Universal consent (or the lack thereof) exists or is lost before the voting even takes place.
It goes the other way too of course because consent and voting are completely and utterly uncorrelated. In other words, just because the voting is not unanimous, that doesn't mean there isn't universal consent.
In fact, large groups coming together to all unanimously and universally affirmatively consent to using voting to come to a group decision is a great way to get unanimous consent for that decision, even though the results of the vote itself probably won't be unanimous. This kind of process is often written into the bylaws of private charities, private clubs, and for-profit businesses and corporations. The vote results likely won't be unanimous, but the consent is universal.
My family does movie night once a week. We might vote on what movie to watch. The vote doesn't need to be unanimous for the consent to be unanimous and universal.
Unanimous voting and universal consent are two completely different things and are uncorrelated. You can easily have the former without the latter, or the latter without the former.
What do you think? Did you already realize how disconnected voting and consent were before reading this post? Or did this post give you a new perspective?
Things can get more complicated when groups of humans are interacting, such as a book club, people having group sex, a large private club, a large apartment complex with private roads, a large charitable organization, or a large corporation such as Google, Samsung, Apple, Twitter, or Facebook.
One thing that can confuse some people sometimes is that the existence of voting can falsely be perceived as correlating to the presence or lack of consent.
Voting can easily be part of a totally consensual interaction, even in large groups. For example, I do a family movie night every week with my family. We can vote on what movie to watch. It's completely consensual. Nobody is being forced to watch the movie gunpoint or such.
Voting can also easily be part of a non-consensual interaction. For example, a bank robber could take hostages, decide he needs to murder one of the hostages for some reason, and he could let the hostages vote on which hostage gets murdered. We can imagine he allows any hostages that want to abstain from voting to abstain, meaning nobody has to vote, and he will just randomly murder one person if nobody votes. So they even aren't being forced to vote, but the results of the vote (i.e. the murder) are still not consensual.
As we can see from the above examples, whether or not voting is involved has nothing to do with whether or not the associated interaction is consensual. You can have (1) voting without consent, (2) voting with consent, (3) no voting and no consent, or (4) voting but no consent. There's no correlation at all one way or the other.
Things can get even more confusing when we talk about unanimous consent or universal consent. It becomes even easier to accidentally falsely conflate what's going on with the voting versus what's going on with the consent. But voting and consent are two completely different things, and thus the unanimousness of the voting (or lack thereof) has nothing to do at all with the universality of the consent (or lack thereof).
If the fundamental interaction is not consensual, than it doesn't matter if the voting is unanimous. The consensuality of the interaction has already been determined before the vote even takes place.
Consider the bank robber example again. If it was me in the bank as one of the hostages, and all the other hostages were children, I would vote for myself to be the hostage that gets murdered. Assuming the kids all vote the same way, that means we would unanimously vote for me to be murdered, but the murder would still not be consensual. Since consent and voting are not connected at all and not correlated at all, we can also then see that the unanimousness of the voting (or lack thereof) would have nothing at all to do with whether the interaction was consensual. Universal consent (or the lack thereof) exists or is lost before the voting even takes place.
It goes the other way too of course because consent and voting are completely and utterly uncorrelated. In other words, just because the voting is not unanimous, that doesn't mean there isn't universal consent.
In fact, large groups coming together to all unanimously and universally affirmatively consent to using voting to come to a group decision is a great way to get unanimous consent for that decision, even though the results of the vote itself probably won't be unanimous. This kind of process is often written into the bylaws of private charities, private clubs, and for-profit businesses and corporations. The vote results likely won't be unanimous, but the consent is universal.
My family does movie night once a week. We might vote on what movie to watch. The vote doesn't need to be unanimous for the consent to be unanimous and universal.
Unanimous voting and universal consent are two completely different things and are uncorrelated. You can easily have the former without the latter, or the latter without the former.
What do you think? Did you already realize how disconnected voting and consent were before reading this post? Or did this post give you a new perspective?