Meta-Decision Modeling of Wicked Environmental Policy Design Problems
alternative set .
The set of policy alternatives can either be bounded by the alternatives that have shorter space – time scales , or they can be unbounded to include the policy alternatives at medium and longer term space – time scales . The complex problem is where to set the boundaries and how to bound the set of alternatives .
2.2 . Value Ambiguity
Which values are / should be included in the criteria set of evaluation to measure the outcomes of our actions ? Is the value set compact and closed or is it noncompact and open ? Do human societies only care for the values of cost-effectiveness , fairness , efficiency , social justice , and environmental preservation in evaluation of any environmental policy decision ; or are there / should there be some additional values such as ecosystem health , animal welfare that are / should also ( be ) included in the evaluation process ? Concisely , what is the logic of a meta-choice that a value is / should be included in the criteria set of evaluation ? In the rest of the paper , value ambiguity is referred to as a meta-decision problem of the criteria set .
Formally , the second meta-decision problem concerns the decision as to which value / criteria z k
( k ∈ { 1 ,…, x }) shall be included in the multiple value function of equation 1 . Restricting the value set to 1 element concatenates the MCDM problem to a scalar problem . 3
In the case of x ≥ 2 , we have a multiple-value decision problem . The meta-decision problem remains : which values shall be included in the valuation function f to determine the desirability of actions faced by decision makers ?
The decision-making models shown in Table 1 do not explicitly prescribe which set of values should be preferred by human societies , nor do they predict or describe which set of values will be preferred by human societies . These decision-making models merely lay out scenarios of various outcomes ( measured for decision criteria ) based on the modal logic of possible combinations of various value variables . The meta-decision choice confronted in creation / implementation of a decision-making model thus concerns which values should be included to generate a scenario set . Further , which values ( or mixes of values ) should be preferred is also a meta-decision choice problem . The preferences on the values can be modeled as weights associated with each value , which is another meta-decision choice problem , as explained next .
2.3 . Choice of Weighting Functions
How shall the weights be assigned to the pluralistic values and alternative mixes on the basis of which we measure the outcomes of our actions for judging good actions / decisions ? This is called as the meta-decision problem of weighting methodology . Formally , the third
3 For example , the cost – benefit function concatenates any decision problem with multiple valued outcomes to a single-valued outcome . All the values are thus represented by monetary units , which are commensurable scalar quantities .
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