Linguistic Fuzzy-Logic Decision-Making Process

Abstract

The chapter presents a linguistic fuzzy-set approach to decision making that models how actors who are faced with situations fraught with vagueness make their decisions. The chapter considers situations where the actors engage in a process of evaluating the merits of different choice alternatives under multiple criteria – a process of Multiple Criteria Decision Making. A key question of this chapter is: how do actors aggregate the vague information that they have on these criteria to reach a final decision on the situation facing them? Drawing on a vast area of research in engineering and other fields of knowledge such as business management and medical research, I propose a linguistic fuzzy-logic approach to analyze the process of decision making in social and politics under multiple criteria.

The chapter is organized into three sections. A first section introduces a hypothetical example to be used as illustrative anchor for explicating the model. A second section explicates a linguistic fuzzy theory approach to the process of decision-making under conditions where the decision makers are required to simultaneously satisfy multiple criteria, which might be mutually reinforcing or conflicting. A third section compares the linguistic fuzzy set approach to social choice theory. This section hence helps make the case that the linguistic fuzzy set method can be applied to individual decision making as well as collective choice situations. The hypothetical situation is one where state leaders have to decide on the formation of a security alignment by choosing among a set of alternative arrangements based on a set of multiple criteria. This example is meant to be illustrative only and hence I do not claim any empirical “truth” to the underlying substantive assumptions or conclusions.