Decision AidingSocial multi-criteria evaluation: Methodological foundations and operational consequences
Section snippets
Methodological foundations of social multi-criteria evaluation: Complexity, post-normal science and incommensurability
The world is characterized by deep complexity. This obvious observation has important implications on the manner policy problems are represented and decision-making is framed. As a consequence, one may decide to adopt a reductionistic approach trying to tackle one of the many possible dimensions or simply to deal with real-world complexity. This second approach is the one adopted in the present article. My firm conviction is that any representation of a complex system reflects only a sub-set of
Technical incommensurability and multi/inter-disciplinarity
An effective policy exercise should consider not merely the measurable and contrastable dimensions of the simple parts of the system, that even if complicated may be technically simulated (technical incommensurability). To be realistic it should also deal with the higher dimensions of the system. Those dimensions in which power relations, hidden interests, social participation, cultural constraints, and other “soft” values, become relevant, and unavoidable variables that heavily, but not
Social incommensurability: Public participation, ethics and transparency
At this point in the discussion, one question arises, who is making the decisions? Some critics of multi-criteria evaluation say that in principle, in cost-benefit analysis, votes expressed on the market by the whole population can be taken into account (of course with the condition that the distribution of income is accepted as a means to allocate votes).
Conclusion: Social multi-criteria evaluation as a framework for applied social choice
The pioneering research developed by Arrow and Raynaud (1986) showed that the relationships between multi-criteria decision theory and social choice are clear and relevant. In my opinion, the main directions of cross-fertilization between these research fields are two:
- 1.
Multi-criteria decision theory can be an adequate framework for applied social choice.
- 2.
Social choice can supply interesting theoretical results for assuring the axiomatic consistency needed by multi-criterion aggregation
Acknowledgments
Comments by the anonymous referees are gratefully acknowledged. This research has been partly financed by the European Commission, research project: Development and Application of a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis Software Tool for Renewable Energy Sources (MCDA_RES)
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