On Measuring Consensus in the Setting of Fuzzy Preference Relations

A ‘soft’ consensus measure which is basically a degree to which most pairs of individuals agree as to their preferences between almost all relevant options, and the point of departure is the set of individual preference relations.

Abstract

Consensus, traditionally understood as a full and unanimous agreement, is a utopia in virtually all practical cases. A degree of consensus to indicate how far one is from complete agreement does therefore make sense. We present a 'soft' consensus measure which is basically a degree to which, say, "most pairs of individuals agree as to their preferences between almost all relevant options". The point of departure is the set of individual preference relations. A fuzzy-logic-based calculus of linguistically quantified proposition is employed.