The Responsibility of the Scientist

The tradition of mutual trust between science and the public appears to have been broken in recent years. It is necessary to define the boundaries of science and to reflect upon the responsibility of the scientist.     

The importance of systems thinking in ethical and sustainable decision-making

Ethical values beyond the satisfaction of basic human needs are specific to each society at a given time. Modern societies are confronted to the challenges of disappearing natural resources, fierce competition on global markets, and climate change. In this paper we define ‘good’, and at the same time ‘ethical‘ decisions in the 21st century as being in accordance with the principles of Sustainable Development. Operations Research can assist sustainable decision-making in two ways: (1) through the tools of systems thinking, in particular system dynamics and soft system modelling, to provide insight into the way complex non-linear living systems and human societies function, and help making sustainable decisions, and (2) through educating and training young people in systems thinking. The paper presents examples of simple models that could serve in classrooms.     

Greenwashing and sustainable fashion industry

The fashion industry is now in the eye of the storm for what concerns sustainability because of the enormous impact that such a business area has on the environment. To exploit the full potential for circular economy implementation, the fashion industry requires urgent changes adapting much more conscientious business practices, driving consumers to change their perceptions and behaviors toward circular products and services. The renunciation of greenwashing practices and the use of strategy focused on regaining consumer's trust will increase the positive sentiment toward the fashion brands. This work demonstrates to what extent greenwashing may jeopardize the fashion industry in addressing challenges related to the implementation of more sustainable circular economy in the context of designing with intention of recycle, reduction of by-products, lower energy consumption, and wise purchase habits.This study provides guides for fashion brands about the risks and gains related to the greenwashing practices and sustainable fashion industry. This study sketches also future research opportunities in more sustainable holistic approach of a products’ life cycle and how this can be translated into clear, transparent, or reliable certification schemes to prevent the misleading and dishonest marketing strategies helping the consumers to make a responsible choice.     

An examination of pre-service mathematics teachers’ ethical reasoning in big data with considerations of access to data

Implementations of Big Data analysis are reshaping society. The novel ways mathematics operate in society warrants new efforts for mathematics education, both in teaching the new technology and in providing an ethical and critical awareness of its implications. This interview study investigates pre-service teachers' ethical reasoning in data science contexts, focusing on aspects of access to the data that underpin the technology. Findings show that pre-service teachers offer a wide array of ethical arguments related to access to data, that informs their effort to think critically on oppressive situations. However, there is also an indication that their reasoning can be limited by lacking understanding of the related data science methodology, implying that mathematics teacher education should encompass more of this.     

A Logic of Practical Reasoning

In this paper my primary aim is to present a logical system of practical reasoning that can be used to assess the validity of practical arguments, that is, arguments with a practical judgment as conclusion. I begin with a critical evaluation of other approaches to this issue and argue that they are inadequate. On the basis of these considerations, I explain in Sect. 2 the informal conception of practical validity and introduce in Sect. 3 the logical system P, which is an extension of propositional logic and can be used to assess the validity of a wide range of practical arguments. In the last section, I apply this system to some examples of practical reasoning in order to demonstrate how it can be used in practice.

Ethics in OR/MS: past,present and future

The pervasiveness and impact on society and on every day human life of technology has led to a growing awareness that science and technology cannot be considered above or beyond the realm of value judgements and hence of ethics. This is especially true for Operations Research/Management Science (OR/MS), that particular science which is concerned with methodologies for scientifically deciding how to design and operate man-machine systems in an optimal way, usually under conditions requiring the allocation of scarce resources. Here we try to give a historical account of the growing interest for ethics within the OR/MS community from its birth to present days. Starting from attempts to define models and codes of ethical behaviour 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. This paper appeared in 4OR 2, 95–110, 2004.     

Optimal response-adaptive allocation designs in phase III clinical trials: Incorporating ethics in optimality

Optimal response-adaptive designs have been studied by various authors in the context for allocating patients among two competing treatments in a phase III clinical trial. However, depending on the variabilities of the responses, most of these designs may allocate a smaller number of patients to the better treatment. In the current work, we obtain an optimal target for a general class of responses maintaining a prefixed lower bound for the allocation to the better treatment, in addition to an ensured level of statistical precision. Various properties of the proposed procedure are investigated, and compared with the existing competitors. A data study is also included for the assessment of the proposed procedure in real situation.     

Operational research and ethics: A literature review

Any human activity raises ethical questions, questions about ‘good’ and ‘right’ ways to act and to live; or to put it differently, questions of values and responsibility. From its inception operational research (OR) has engaged with such questions in terms of professional behavior, the handling of preferences in OR, the societal role of OR, the process of OR intervention and the content of OR analysis. As a result, analytical methods and processes have been developed to help clients explore the ethical dimension of their decisions. The paper reviews the literature published in selected OR journals (Management Science; Operations Research; Interfaces; the European Journal of Operational Research; the Journal of the Operations Research Society; Omega; International Transactions in Operational Research; the Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis), organizing it along the lines of OR’s core competences. The review identifies a number of significant research programmes that are well established and are being energetically pursued; the research findings are being applied to a wide range of important issues. Ethical questions lie at the heart of the great governmental and commercial issues of the day: economic growth and instability; inequality and injustice; environmental degradation and sustainability. They also lie at the heart of the more mundane decisions of day-to-day OR. ‘Ethics’ therefore provides a useful focus for OR both in terms of raising the awareness of all concerned and in providing a theme for research. As a result of the review some research questions are suggested. There is much of interest, much to do.     

Multi-criteria analysis and the resolution of sustainable development dilemmas: A stakeholder management approach

We demonstrate that stakeholder-oriented multi-criteria analysis (MCA) can adequately address a variety of sustainable development dilemmas in decision-making, especially when applied to complex project evaluations involving multiple objectives and multiple stakeholder groups. Such evaluations are typically geared towards satisfying simultaneously private economic goals, broader social objectives and environmental targets. We show that, under specific conditions, a variety of stakeholder-oriented MCA approaches may be able to contribute substantively to the resolution or improved governance of societal conflicts and the pursuit of the public good in the form of sustainable development. We contrast the potential usefulness of these stakeholder-oriented approaches – in terms of their ability to contribute to sustainable development – with more conventional MCA approaches and social cost–benefit analysis.     

Moral mid-level principles in modeling

Modelers, especially in operational research, are becoming increasingly aware that their role in decision-making raises moral problems. This paper discusses two questions: How do moral issues in modeling arise? How can these moral issues be addressed? I propose a framework that (1) provides tools for discovering moral issues raised by models, and (2) provides practical guidance for solving moral problems in modeling. As regards (1), I discuss three moral perspectives on modeling: a perspective that focuses on the beneficial or harmful consequences of using a model; a perspective that focuses on the intentions of using a model; and a perspective that focuses on whether a model promotes virtuous behavior. In order to achieve practical action guidance, (2), four moral mid-level principles are introduced: (i) The principle of transparency expresses the obligations to explain the structure, assumptions and further properties of the model; (ii) the principle of integrity demands for the application of professional standards; (iii) the principle of comprehensiveness stresses that all moral concerns should be acknowledged thoroughly; and finally, (iv) the principle of efficacy states that models should evaluate moral issues explicitly.