Existence of Richter-Peleg Representation for General Preferences

Abstract

This paper provides a general characterization of preferences that admit a Richter-Peleg representation without imposing completeness or transitivity. We establish that a binary relation on a nonempty set admits a Richter-Peleg representation if and only if it is "strongly acyclic" and its transitive closure is "separable". Strong acyclicity rules out problematic cycles among indifference classes, while separability limits the structural complexity of the relation. Our main result has two significant corollaries. First, when the set of alternatives is countable, a binary relation admits a Richter-Peleg representation if and only if it is strongly acyclic. Second, a preorder admits a Richter-Peleg representation if and only if it is separable. These findings have important implications for decision theory, particularly for obtaining maximal elements through scalar maximization in the presence of indecisiveness.