Ethics in OR/MS: past,present and future |
| |
Authors: | Jean-Pierre Brans Giorgio Gallo |
| |
Institution: | (1) Center for Statistics and OR, VUB, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan, 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium;(2) Centro Interdipartimentale Scienze per la Pace and Dipartimento di Informatica, University of Pisa, Largo B. Pontecorvo, 3, 56127 Pisa, Italy |
| |
Abstract: | 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. |
| |
Keywords: | Societal problem analysis Ethics Social implications of operations research practice |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|