Ethics in OR/MS: past, present and future

The pervasiveness and impact on society and on everyday 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 the present day. 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 humankind.