Voting on Alternatives or on Criteria? The Meta-Decision on Group Decision Procedures

Abstract

For many decision problems the literature provides several types of solutions. By this, however, a preliminary meta-decision problem is created on the choice of the suitable decision procedure. This paper explores the meta-decision in the context of multicriterion group decisions, considering two alternative procedures: the group members may build individual preference orderings by solving the multicriterion problem on their own and then vote on the alternatives, or they may vote on the relative relevance of each criterion and then compose a group preference ordering with the results. Within a Monte Carlo simulation both procedures are confronted with an appropriate group welfare measure introduced by John Rawls. This paper demonstrates that voting on the alternatives in general results in higher group welfare, but voting on criteria may be superior, if the group faces fundamental value conflicts. The results are applied on the meta-decision of industrial and political decision committees.