A General Model of Preference Aggregation

A general model is presented which encompasses many procedures used for aggregating preferences in multicriteria decision making (or decision aid) methods. Are covered in particular: MAUT, ELECTRE and several other outranking methods. The main interest of the model is to provide a key for understanding the differences between methods. Methods are analyzed in terms of their way of dealing with “preference differences” on each criterion/attribute. The more or less large number of equivalence classes of preference differences that can be distinguished in a method helps to situate it in a continuum going from compensatory to noncompensatory procedures, from cardinal to ordinal methods.