Preferences in an open world

Abstract

We consider constructive approaches to decision making which allow incomplete preference orders over multiple criteria. Whereas additional preferences may be acquired during the decision making process, the set of criteria is usually kept fixed. In this paper, we study the addition of new criteria and examine how this may refine or even reverse the existing preferences. We identify essential changes in the preference order and show that these changes provide a compact representation of preference relations in an open world. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.