Outranking Methods

Abstract

As discussed in Chapter 4, on Preference Modelling, the outranking approaches differ from the value function approaches in that there is no underlying aggregative value function. The output of an analysis is not a value for each alternative, but an outranking relation on the set of alternatives. An alternative a is said to outrank another alternative b if, taking account of all available information regarding the problem and the decision maker’s preferences, there is a strong enough argument to support a conclusion that a is at least as good as b and no strong argument to the contrary. The way in which the outranking relation is exploited by a method depends on the particular problematique (choice, sorting, or ranking; see Chapter 2).