There was a desire to talk with others to see what the collective judgment was.

"We had to use our collective judgment," Burdon said.

Adam Smith put his faith in the collective judgment of the market.

Some ranking executives are skewered with an anonymous collective judgment.

"The market's collective judgment seems to be that they don't want to be short of securities going in to the employment number on Friday."

"What you need to do is develop an institution of good professionals working as a group and using their best collective judgments," he said.

It is not surprising that such collective judgments often are difficult to explain.

Society sets the rules; there are collective judgments.

"The collective judgment is usually very, very good," he said.

There might be only ten thousand people in a country, yet their collective judgment and will would be the law of that country.