Emotional Intelligence in MCDA: Comments on Mindsets, Rationality and Emotion in Multi-criteria Decision Analysis

摘要

I welcome Fred Wenstop's paper. My research also relates the paradigm of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) to other disciplines. I agree with his conclusion that 'that MCDA needs a larger, not smaller, emphasis on values and subjectivity to increase rationality in decision-making'. In my discussion of his paper I intend to show how we have been on similar journeys. I will focus on the differences, not as a criticism, but more to offer a second view in support of his conclusion that 'MCDA should not be shy of subjectivity and emotion'. In doing so I will refer to some of my papers, the milestones of my own journey. The main problem I had reading his paper was with how he draws from the literature. Some of the views he calls on to support his case are questionable, for instance in his section on Emotion. I nearly agree that emotion is a 'necessary component of rational decision-making'. (Actually I would reverse the order; but people might disagree with me.) However, I dispute some of the ideas he has adopted from Damasio (1994, 200.3) such as that feelings are 'mental phenomena', and 'sympathy is an emotion while empathy is a feeling'. Also, he wrongly attributes the beginning of a cognitive theory of emotions to Simon (1967).