ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the basic features of complex choice situations. Complex choice situations might involve a variety of stakeholders such as existing people and their organizations, the natural environment and even future generations. The applying ethical norms, the aspirations of the decision maker, and the perceived stakeholders together form the normative-affective bases that serve in searching for goals and alternatives. The aspirations of the decision maker are joined by normative-affective factors, namely ethical norms that apply in the given situation and perceived other parties that are affected by the outcome of the choice. Certain sets of ethical norms are valid only in one moral tradition or within the boundaries of a particular moral community. Incompatibility between the moral tradition or the moral community of the decision maker and that of the affected parties may lead to difficult-to-resolve conflicts. The choice formation is usually an interactive process.
