We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
To save content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about saving content to .
To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
This chapter reviews Cost–Benefit Analysis (CBA) as one of the most commonly applied methods for assessing engineering projects, particularly when a choice is to be made between alternatives. It is often wrongly assumed that a CBA is an objective way of assessing costs and benefits and that the result unequivocally presents the best outcome. CBA is rooted in utilitarian thinking in ethics which argues that moral rightness depends on whether positive consequences are being maximized. CBA – together with its underlying ethical theory – has been abundantly criticized in the philosophy literature. This chapter is not just another voice in this "philosophical choir": not because the critique is not valid, but because it does not necessarily dismiss the CBA altogether. The chapter aims to show what a CBA can and cannot do and how it can be made more suitable for assessing the risks, costs, and benefits of engineering projects. It provides several ways of circumventing some of the ethical objections to a CBA by amending, adjusting, or supplementing it – and when none of these can help – rejecting the CBA as a method and substituting a multi-criteria analysis.
Recommend this
Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this to your organisation's collection.