An Assessment of Decision Analysis

Making decisions is what you do when you don't know what to do. Decision analysis is a process that enhances effective decision making by providing for both logical, systematic analysis and imaginative creativity. The procedure permits representing the decision-maker's information and preferences concerning the uncertain, complex, and dynamic features of the decision problem. As decision analysis has become more accepted and influential the ethical responsibility of decision analysts has increased. Analysts must be sensitive to assuming improper roles of advocacy and to participating in analyses whose means or ends are ethically repugnant. Criticisms of decision analysis are examined at three levels. Application criticisms question how much decision analysis improves actual decision making. Conceptual criticisms argue that the decomposition and recomposition of the decision analysis process may lend to a misshapen framing of the problem or to a suppression of “soft” or “fragile” considerations. Criticisms at the level of principle grant the effectiveness and comprehensiveness of decision analysis but express fear that the process may legitimize decisions otherwise questionable because of their end-state value system or their anthropocentric focus. Decision analysis is the most effective decision methodology yet advanced. Sensitivity to practical and ethical concerns about its use can only increase its effectiveness.