Ethical Theories and the Cost–Benefit Analysis-Based Ex Ante Evaluation of Transport Policies and Plans

ABSTRACT

In the policy analysis community it is widely recognized that ‘sound’ policies meet three criteria: effectiveness, efficiency and equity. In most western countries, cost–benefit analysis (CBA) is currently the standard method to ex ante evaluate transport policy options. It scores high for effectiveness and efficiency, but generally ignores equity and other ethically important implications of policies. The CBA has its roots in the ethical theory of utilitarianism. However, both utilitarianism and CBA have faced many objections. We present alternative ethical theories, based on deontological theories and contractarianism. We discuss how these theories can inspire the ex ante evaluation of transport policy options. We argue that in order to come to a moral evaluation of transport policies we need a context-sensitive approach. According to such an approach, there is a plurality of morally relevant features that have to be balanced per situation. We argue that such a context-sensitive approach is more appropriate than a priori selecting one theory such as utilitarianism, as such a theory is not appropriate in all possibly relevant circumstances. Consequently, by being based on utilitarianism, CBA overlooks issues of justice, fairness, and autonomy that are morally relevant to an evaluation of transport policies.

Keywords:

• ethics
• ethical theories
• evaluation
• policies
• utilitarianism
• CBA

Acknowledgements

We thank four anonymous reviewers for their useful suggestions to improve our paper.

Notes

1. ‘Social’ is sometimes added to make explicit that all costs and benefits for society are included. From now on we use the shorter abbreviation CBA referring to SCBA.

2. ‘Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it would become a universal law’ (Kant, 1998 [1785]).

3. With the exception of the intuitionist and monist Sidgwick (1901 [1874]).

4. For an extensive discussion of the usefulness of egalitarian theories for the area of accessibility, we refer to Van Wee and Geurs (2011).