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Showing papers by "Thomas L. Saaty published in 2011"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The coherent approach to structuring complex decisions with the Analytic Hierarchy Process enables one to transcend the complexity of dealing in a scientific way with the problem of widespread orders of magnitude of criteria and alternatives in a complex decision.

116 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) makes it possible to evaluate moderate and extreme viewpoints and determine their effect on the trading of concessions, and encourages us to advocate its use in the negotiation process.
Abstract: In most long-lasting conflicts, each party's grievances increase while the concessions they are willing to make decline in number, quality, and perceived value. Both parties lose sight of what they are willing to settle for, generally exaggerate their own needs, and minimize the needs of the other side over time. But, it is precisely the matter of trading that needs to be made more concrete and of higher priority for both sides, if a meaningful resolution is to be found. Without a formal way of trading off the concessions and packages of concessions, both sides are likely to suspect that they are getting the short end of the bargain. After the parties have agreed to a trade, very specific binding language about the terms of the agreement, clear implementation policies, and outside guarantors are needed. The worth of the concessions traded, as perceived by both the giver and receiver, need to be accurately determined and recorded. All of this requires going beyond verbal descriptions of the concessions to more broadly include their economic, social, geographic, humanitarian, and historical worth. It is critical that all of these need to be translated into priorities derived in terms of the different values and beliefs of the parties. Priorities are universal and include the diversity of measures in terms of which economic, social, and other values are measured. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) provides a way to perform such an assessment with the participation of negotiators for the parties. It is a positive approach that makes it possible to reason and express feelings and judgments with numerical intensities to derive priorities. It has been used productively in the past to deal with the conflicts in South Africa and Northern Ireland and with other controversies throughout the world. With the assistance of panels of Israeli participants and Palestinian participants brought together in 2009 and 2010, AHP was applied for the first time to the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. The process makes it clear that moderation in different degrees by both sides is essential to arrive at acceptable agreements on concessions proposed and agreed upon by both sides. AHP makes it possible to evaluate moderate and extreme viewpoints and determine their effect on the trading of concessions. The results obtained encourage us to advocate its use in the negotiation process.

29 citations


Book ChapterDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an alternative process to address the Israeli-Palestine conflict by formally structuring the conflict and the manner in which discussions are conducted and conclusions drawn.
Abstract: We present an alternative process to address the Israeli Palestinian conflict. It does so in two ways that are different from past efforts. The first is by formally structuring the conflict and the second is the manner in which discussions are conducted and conclusions drawn.

9 citations


Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2011
Abstract: Decision making is not like measuring something on a scale because it involves human values that are intangible. We make judgments about these intangibles in two ways. One is intuitive and spontaneous and may be the result of long and profound experience. The other is reasoned and deliberative. It relies on both intelligence and the ability to think logically about the many factors that are involved in a decision and the outcome of the interaction and feedback among these factors. It is known that intelligence is not the only factor that determines whether a person is a good thinker and decision maker. Either way by itself may lead to wrong estimates of relations, but usually we use them together to synthesize a richer judgment that is likely to be the wiser way to make a decision. We cannot make a decision without knowing how important each person’s value is in each particular decision and how to combine them all in the appropriate way to get the best decision. How to measure and prioritize these values and trade them off is a primary concern of ABSTRACT

4 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, it is shown that the weights of the criteria in this case depend on the measurements of the alternatives with respect to these criteria and that the meaning and significance of these measurements may not reflect our actual preference for them because our ability to appreciate values differs when they are very large or very small.
Abstract: It is known in the AHP that when dealing with intangible alternatives they are compared with respect to the criteria and the resulting priorities are multiplied by the priorities of the respective criteria and then synthesized in either the distributive or the ideal mode. When the criteria are tangible the alternatives need to be measured on ratio scales. Since ratio scales of measurement differ, they must be standardized and then weighted by the priorities of the criteria to trade off a unit of one scale against a unit of another. Of course ratio scales suffer from the defect that they use a unit of \measurement uniformly whether the measurements are large or small. But the meaning and significance of these measurements may not reflect our actual preference for them because our ability to appreciate values differs when they are very large or very small. We need to obtain these measurements in relative form through prioritization and comparisons. If we insist on using them as they are, we must convert them to relative priorities by dividing each value by the total values. But we cannot do that without noting that the weights of the criteria in this case depend on the measurements of the alternatives with respect to these criteria.http://dx.doi.org/10.13033/ijahp.v3i1.91

3 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Comparisons are the bedrock of all human thinking no matter where it is done on this earth in every culture and needs time to be connected and unfolded to draw meaning as the authors compare it to other thoughts.
Abstract: Saaty lecturing at ISAHP2011 in Sorrento, Italy. Comparisons are the bedrock of all human thinking no matter where it is done on this earth in every culture. We compare things with one another and with themselves through memory to know if they are what we are looking for. We need memory and time to do that regardless of how brief and spontaneous a comparison may be. Thus thought is a dynamic process in its minutest form and needs time to be connected and unfolded to draw meaning as we compare it to other thoughts.http://dx.doi.org/10.13033/ijahp.v3i2.124

2 citations