Qualitative Bipolar Decision Rules: Toward More Expressive Settings
Résumé
An approach to multicriteria decision-making previously developed by the authors is reviewed. The idea is to choose between alternatives based on an analysis of the pros and the cons, i.e. positive or negative arguments having various strengths.Arguments correspond to criteria or affects of various levels of importance and ranging on a very crude value scale containing only three elements: good, neutral or bad. The basic decision rule in this setting is based on two ideas: focusing on the most important affects, and when comparing the merits of two alternatives considering that an argument against one alternative can be counted as an argument in favour of the other. It relies on a bipolar extension of comparative possibility ordering. Lexicographic refinements of this crude decision rule turn out to be cognitively plausible, and to generalise a well-known choice heuristics. It can also be encoded in Cumulative Prospect Theory. The paper lays bare several lines of future research, especially an alternative to the bicapacity approach to bipolar decision-making, that subsumes both Cumulative Prospect Theory and our qualitative bipolar choice rule. Moreover, an extension of the latter to non-Boolean arguments is outlined.