Using arguments for making and explaining decisions

Abstract

Arguments play two different roles in day life decisions, as well as in the discussion of more crucial issues. Namely, they help to select one or several alternatives, or to explain and justify an already adopted choice. This paper proposes the first general and abstract argument-based framework for decision making. This framework follows two main steps. At the first step, arguments for beliefs and arguments for options are built and evaluated using classical acceptability semantics. At the second step, pairs of options are compared using decision principles. Decision principles are based on the accepted arguments supporting the options. Three classes of decision principles are distinguished: unipolar, bipolar or non-polar principles depending on whether i) only arguments pro or only arguments con, or ii) both types, or iii) an aggregation of them into a meta-argument are used. The abstract model is then instantiated by expressing formally the mental states (beliefs and preferences) of a decision maker. In the proposed framework, information is given in the form of a stratified set of beliefs. The bipolar nature of preferences is emphasized by making an explicit distinction between prioritized goals to be pursued, and prioritized rejections that are stumbling blocks to be avoided. A typology that identifies four types of argument is also proposed. Indeed, each decision is supported by arguments emphasizing its positive consequences in terms of goals certainly satisfied and rejections certainly avoided. A decision can also be attacked by arguments emphasizing its negative consequences in terms of certainly missed goals, or rejections certainly led to by that decision. Finally, this paper articulates the optimistic and pessimistic decision criteria defined in qualitative decision making under uncertainty, in terms of an argumentation process. Similarly, different decision principles identified in multiple criteria decision making are restated in our argumentation-based framework.

Sharing Online Cultural Experiences: An Argument-Based Approach

“…This principle is suitable when all the tags are equally important. It is worth pointing out that several principles can be found in [4,9,11] in case of weighted tags.…”

“…[12,17]), decision making (e.g. [4,8]), practical reasoning (e.g. [6]), and modeling different types of dialogues (e.g.…”

Bridging the Gap between Abstract Argumentation Systems and Logic

“…In fact, all well-known logics are adjunctive. 1 A logic which is not adjunctive could for instance fail to deny x ∨ y from the premises {¬x, ¬y}. Throughout the paper, the following assumption is made:…”

“…[2,9]) and for decision making (e.g. [1,3]). One of the most abstract argumentation systems in existing literature is Dung's one.…”

An Argumentation Framework for Deriving Qualitative Risk Sensitive Preferences

“…[5] present a qualitative model for decision making with plausibility measures of input situations, but they treat plausible and likely beliefs equally. [6] present an argument-based approach to multi-attribute preferences that does take degree of belief into account, but it is a two-step process in which argumentation is used only for epistemic reasoning. In our approach, we combine reasoning about preferences and knowledge in a single argumentation framework.…”