Promoting Ethics in OR Practice, Why good practice of OR is not enough – Ethical challenges for the OR practitioner, Omega, Special issue on Ethics & OR

This paper develops the idea that following rules of good OR practice is necessary, but
not sufficient for ethical OR. Several challenges of introducing ethical aspects into OR
are discussed, evidencing difficulties and ambiguities in the relationship to be
established between the OR practitioner and his/her clients, decision-makers or
stakeholders. It shows that neither analysis nor modelling work nor the choice of
analytical tools is entirely ethically neutral; incomparability, incommensurability and
incertitude must be dealt with. The purpose of this article is to detail several difficulties
or dilemmas an OR practitioner may be confronted with in the course of his or her
assignment. In such situations following rules of good practice may not be sufficient to
indicate how to act in a morally good way. This paper aims at stimulating reflection by
structuring the debate; it may leave the reader unsettled - unsettlement being a result
and even aim of many discussions in moral philosophy.

Jaar van publicatie:2009

Trefwoorden:OR and Ethics; Philosophy of OR; Uncertainty; Dile, Dilemmas