Chapter 4: Design through the Ethical Lens

2016

The central original contribution to knowledge proposed by this thesis is the setting forth of a conceptualisation of ethical theory specifically in relation to design, with a focus on visual communication design. Building on earlier work by design theorist Clive Dilnot in the area of design ethics and on philosopher Giorgio Agamben's formulation of the philosophical concept of potentiality, a way of thinking about the relationship between design and ethics is proposed which concludes that design is in fact always inherently ethical. However, this conception of ethical design purposefully leaves questions of the qualification of good and bad unresolved, stating only that the ethical is the prerequisite condition in which both good and bad become possibilities. Design's significantly unethical capability to suppress and anaesthetise individuals' ethical experience is highlighted through a proposal of a process of an/aesth/ethics. Observation of the relationship between design and ethics in the real world through a series of interviews demonstrates something of the complexity of design's relationship with ethics and the diverse range of positions, beliefs, attitudes and paradoxes abounding within the design profession when it comes to addressing the question of "good" design practice. Six "sites" of ethics within contemporary design discourse are introduced and discussed. The ethicality of design practices in relation to these sites are then analysed through the lens of the proposed ethical framework: identifying strengths, weaknesses and potentials within these observed strategies. The way of thinking about ethical design proposed here demonstrates potential in contributing to designers' ability to critically consider the ethicality of their own practices. From this foundation they may be better equipped to begin addressing the question of the qualification of the "goodness" of design. In conclusion, proposals are made for how this framework could be practically developed and used to support and encourage ethical design in the real world.

Design is often thought of as an activity seeking to change existing situations into preferred ones (Simon, 1969). But how are designers to discern what the nature of this “preferred” change should be? What would it mean to truly design ethically? In the admirable but naïve quest to improve situations through design, it is possible to end up bypassing the ethical altogether. Design can aesthetically provide the appearance and sensation of ethicality without the inconvenience of actually having to be ethical. Ethical discomfort is anaesthetised through the process of aestheticizing ethics: an/aestheticization. Beginning with visual communication design, but maintaining a view to the applicability and importance of the argument for broader fields of design, this paper presents the case that there is hope for genuinely ethical design in an increasingly aestheticized world by drawing on German philosopher of aesthetics Wolfgang Welsch’s suggestion that the root of ethics can be found to emerge from within the aesthetic itself. Design, which for so long has been a principal contributor to an/aestheticization, contains within itself - precisely due its aesthetic nature - the potential to return feeling to a society which finds itself constantly numbed to true ethical being.

Proceedings of DRS

In the context of the designers responsibility for the impact of technology, ethical considerations are important. However, these considerations are often seen as limiting innovation and the freedom of the designer. Is it possible, on the contrary, that ethics can also foster creativity in design? The research project Tech-Wise is about a practice oriented approach in ethics; developing tools to engage people with ethical deliberation on the impact of technology. One result of the project is a workshop format for stimulating ethical deliberation that can be tailored to particular technologies and design disciplines. We argue from the results of one particular instance of this workshop format that such an approach to ethics has a fruitful reciprocal effect. It can stimulate creativity in design by enriching the question about the purpose of an innovation, and the other way around enrich ethical reasoning by opening up to often surprising impacts of technologies.

This paper highlights the importance and the ubiquitous character of the education of Ethics in the design studio. Focusing on the educational procedure in a specific key study, I re-examine and establish the distinction between the terms morality and ethics. The analysis of the two different aspects of discourse of Ethics reveals two different kinds of connection between architectural education and moral-ethical issues raised in the design studio. The one (education-morality) consists mainly of the communication of moral propositions and judgements which are applications of an external rule to the practice of design. The other (education-ethics) keeps its place in the tacit introduction in a way of doing, in the customs and dispositions of individuals which at the same time are internal to the practice of design education.

Proceedings of Relating Systems Thinking and Design (RSD4) 2015 Symposium. Banff, Canada, September 1-3, 2015., 2015

The relationship between ethics and design is most usually thought of in terms of applied ethics. There are, however, difficulties with this: for instance, conventional ethical stances such as deontology or consequentialism depend on procedures (predefined rules, optimisation) that are inapplicable in the sorts of complex situations which designers commonly face. In any case, it is not as if ethics is a settled body of theory that can act as an authority with which to guide practice. Depending on which theories we refer to, we receive different, and often directly conflicting, guidance. Paralleling the idea that design has its own epistemological foundations, rather than needing to import ideas from science, I propose an alternative way to think of the relation between design and ethics, looking to (1) the ethical questioning implicit in what designers do, and (2) the similarities between those situations which they encounter as a matter of course and those questions with which normative ethics is both most concerned and confused. I suggest that we might reason about ethical questions in design in design's own terms and, also, that rather than apply ethical theory to design we explore what design can contribute to ethics, inverting the more usual hierarchy. Design and ethics The relationship between ethics and design is most usually thought of in terms of applied ethics—as the application of normative ethical theories to design practice, for instance in terms of questions about agency, professional ethics or our relationship to technology or the environment. There are, however, difficulties with this. Firstly, as with any instance of applying theories to design that are external to it, what is special about design itself can become obscured. Secondly, it implies that ethical considerations are external to design questions, a view that can lead to seeing ethics as conflicting with design, either as an amelioration of design ideas or a radical innovation. In any case, it is not as if ethics is a settled body of theory that can be straightforwardly treated as an authority with which to guide practice: depending which theories or ideas we refer to, we receive different, and often directly conflicting, guidance as to what to do. There are parallels between this and the relationship between design and science. With the exhaustion of the attempt to provide a rational basis for design through the application of the scientific method, usually referred to as the Design Methods Movement, Nigel Cross, John Naughton and David Walker (1981) argued that, given what they identified as a state of epistemological chaos in science at that time (following critiques such as those of Paul Feyerabend, 1975/1993), scientific method was not a fruitful basis for design. Similarly, while we may wish to treat ethical philosophy as authoritative, it is unstable as a point of reference. As Terry Eagleton (2003, p. 229) has noted, we might expect to agree on general principles and diverge on particulars, yet we have no common view on many everyday ethical questions. Even with those questions where we have widespread agreement over an action being ethically good or bad, there is little agreement on why this is the case. Whether this state of disagreement is understood as a conflict between objective goods (Berlin, 1958/1998), an inevitable property of our subjectivity (Sartre, 1948) or as resulting from the dissipation of any overall idea of the good life with which to make different goods commensurable (MacIntyre, 1981/1985), the situation in which we find ourselves is that anything to which we refer to help clarify an ethical

Chapter 3 of my PhD thesis: "Ethical Design: a foundation for visual communication." Robert Gordon University, 2016.

Contemporary design practices, such as participatory design (PD), humancentered design (HCD), and codesign, have inherent ethical qualities, which often remain implicit and unexamined. Three design projects in the hightech industry were studied using three ethical traditions as lenses. Virtue ethics helped to understand cooperation, curiosity, creativity, and empowerment as virtues that people in PD need to cultivate, so that they can engage, for example, in mutual learning and collaborative prototyping. Ethics of alterity (Levinas and Derrida) helped to understand human-centered design as a fragile encounter between project team members and prospective users, and foregrounds the ethics in these encounters: our tendencies to ''grasp the other'' and to ''program invention.'' And pragmatist ethics (Dewey) helped to understand codesign as a process of joint inquiry and imagination, involving the organization of iterative processes of problem setting and solution finding, with moral qualities. When we open the ''black boxes'' of design practices, we find them filled with ethics. Moreover, it is proposed that design practitioners need to make explicit their practices' inherent ethical qualities and that they can do that by embracing reflexivity.

Design is undergoing a re-conceptualisation triggered by debates about its potential to instigate meaningful social, cultural and environmental change. Simultaneously, design and the allied designbased industries are experiencing a vigorous ascendancy across many spheres of life. While our collective aesthetic is finely tuned to contemplate and consume all things designer, innovations in digital media are generating new dimensions in the design realms -spawning new industries and aesthetic developments. From designer kitchens and clothes to technology and landscapes, our senses have become hard wired to appreciate the nuances and aesthetics of the visual. At the same time, a growing consensus about environmental fragility and how practices of production and consumption are contributing to an unsustainable future, underpin a discourse which sees the potential of design to be transformative, or "redirective" (Fry 2008). There is little disagreement that we are witnessing an 'ethical turn' occurring in professional and allied practices, including the design fields. This re-conceptualisation extends design's role -and the of practitioners responsibility -beyond stylistic enhancement or the quest for optimal product solutions, to account for the aesthetic dimensions of human experience and consequences of creative decision-making underpinning design processes. The traditional roles of design, designer and designed object are thus redefined through new understandings of the relationship between the material and immaterial aspects of design, where the design product and process are understood as embodiments of ideas, values and beliefs. This notion brings to the fore central questions around ethics, social

Proceedings of DRS

Wicked problems are wicked because, amongst other things, understanding problems as existing in society, at the intersection of many possible points of views held by a variety of potential stakeholders introduces indeterminacy. Ethical frameworks in this context may also be multiple and may exist in harmony or dis-harmony alongside each other. In this paper, we argue for an acknowledgement of this complexity. This acknowledgement includes recognizing a distinction between successful and good design; that design, when considering the best course of action in an ethical and pragmatic sense needs to look beyond the business and consumer dichotomy; that ethical pluralism can exist across multiple stakeholders in an ecosystem; and that our ethical judgements need to be considered within the context of socio-cultural change. This paper concludes by suggesting a range of interventions and tools that could be incorporated into design curriculum to assist design students with understanding and navigating ethical complexity.