AbstractThe move toward public decision making based on multiple objective analysis has occurred largely during the past decade. During this brief interval dozens of techniques have been advanced for this purpose. The class of (generating) techniques which do not require prior articulation of preferences and which provide alternative solutions rather than a single optimum is characterized and compared to goal programming. Goal programming, as generally employed, seeks a single optimum solution given an articulated set of targets and priorities on the relevant objectives. Four criteria were used in this comparison and neither approach was found to be unambiguously superior.