Ethics Outside, Within, or Beyond OR Models?

Since ethical concerns are calling for more attention within Operational Research, the authors present three approaches to combine Operational Research models with ethics. Their intention is to clarify the trade-off faced by the OR community, in particular the tension between the scientific legitimacy of OR models (ethics outside OR models) and the integration of ethics within models (ethics within OR models). Presenting and discussing an approach that combines OR models with the process of OR (ethics beyond OR models), we suggest rigorous ways to express the relation between ethics and OR models. As their work is exploratory, they are trying to avoid a dogmatic attitude and call for further research. They argue that there are interesting avenues for research at the theoretical, methodological and applied levels and that the OR community can contribute to an innovative, constructive and responsible social dialogue about its ethics.