TOWARDS GROUP AGREEMENT: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PREFERENCE ANALYSIS

It is well known that strict preferences often prevent a group from arriving at a group decision. Indifference on the other hand can be a powerful tool as it represents flexibility in a group member’s position, thus potentially making room for negotiation on that particular alternative. Preference and indifference however are mutually exclusive – at least in classical preference models and structures. It is perhaps no surprise that group choice models based upon such strict separation dictate the impossibility of reaching a group choice satisfying even a small number of rational conditions. While we do not attempt to extend Arrow’s fundamental results to the case where the dichotomy of preference and indifference naturally vanishes – the case of fuzzy preference structures – we present in this paper some findings based on earlier work in fuzzy preference structures that hint at the importance of doing so. We believe these findings show the significance of preference structures and the importance of preference analysis techniques for aiding groups in their search for agreement – and survive Arrow’s paradox. 1