A fuzzy and bipolar approach to preference modeling with application to need and desire

Abstract

Fuzziness and bipolarity allow representing human knowledge, taking into account the gradual and the dialectic properties of language, focusing on the meaning of concepts. Under this cognitive and linguistic approach, we explore preference relations, examining their semantic decomposition through fuzzy preference structures and the specification of meaningful opposites. In particular, we introduce the Preference–Aversion (P–A) model, which allows analyzing, under an independent aggregation methodology, the possible gains and losses, like pros and cons, towards a given set of alternatives. As an attractive feature of this proposal, we show that the P–A model allows distinguishing between need and desire, contrary to common preference models where both notions are indistinguishable.