Ethics in OR/MS: Past, present and future

Abstract

The pervasiveness and impact on society and on every day human life\ud\ud of technology has led to a growing awareness that science and technology cannot\ud\ud be considered above or beyond the realm of value judgements and hence of ethics.\ud\ud This is especially true for Operations Research / Management Science (OR/MS),\ud\ud that particular science which is concerned with methodologies for scientifically deciding\ud\ud how to design and operate man-machine systems in an optimal way, usually\ud\ud under conditions requiring the allocation of scarce resources. Here we try to give a\ud\ud historical account of the growing interest for ethics within the OR/MS community\ud\ud from its birth to present days. Starting from attempts to define models and codes\ud\ud of ethical behaviour in our profession, the OR/MS community has arrived at more\ud\ud fundamental questions about the ethical responsibility it faces in aworld of growing\ud\ud inequalities and in which the ever greater stress that human activities impose on\ud\ud the environment puts at risk the very survival of human kind

The Ethical Issues of Learning Analytics in Their Historical Context

“…One perspective is that of "those whose view on ethics is mainly internal, i.e. those who focus on the relation between OR/MS professionals and clients and on the way the modelling work is carried on" (Brans & Gallo, 2007), emphasising technical correctness and honesty. Within LA, such correctness would include respecting the relevant codes of practice and regulations covering the management of data.…”

An Ethical Waiver for Learning Analytics?

“…Secondly, if the answer is 'yes', what does this imply for the ethics of LA, and for educational research in general? Brans and Galllo [2] describe an ethical split in OR. Some view ethical issues as restricted to effective results and lack of bias.…”

Operations research and ethics: development trends 1966–2009

“…In 2004, Brans and Gallo (2007) published a historical account of the growing interest in ethics among the OR community where they note that ''Starting from attempts to define models and codes of ethical behavior in our profession, the OR/MS community has arrived at more fundamental questions about the ethical responsibility it faces in a world of growing inequalities and in which the ever greater stress that human activities impose on the environment puts at risk the very survival of human kind.'' They trace the beginning of ethical awareness to Churchman and develop a framework akin to the one used in this paper, considering ethics from two complementary vantage points: an internal and an external perspective.…”

“…In 2008 Jean-Pierre Brans -the founding father of the European Working Group for Ethics in OR -followed up a pledge made by Brans and Gallo (2007) by organizing a workshop on ''Ethics in Decision-Making'' during the Human-Centered Processes conference at Delft University of Technology-Delft, the Netherlands, where the papers in this special issue were presented and discussed.…”