Dear Rosan, David and All,

A rather interesting dialogue is happening between Rosan and David on
morals and ethics. Rosan wrote:

1 Now, David, are you saying that the design point of view is a moral
position?
And design is a moral act?

2 Incidentally, I was reading an article by Alain Findeli in the current
Design Issues Vol.17, No.1 2001 in which he asserted "There can be no
responsible design without a responsible designer, ie. education should
be directed to the development of an individualistic ethics".

Your writing and Findeli's article make me ask where does moral come from?
On which moral ground the moral ground itself is judged?

To the first question David anwered an unqualified YES! I fully agree. Any
act requires a motivation by the individual. The content of the motivation
of the individual, factual or imagined, is what others judge somebody's
morals on. Design is always for somebody, i.e. design is a social act.

I also agree with David that it is meaningless to talk about ethics except
in a social context. All the ethical theories are about relationships
between people:

Utilitarian ethics: The value of the outcome of an act/event on those
affected is the moral focus. Typical ethical questions: Is it morally
defensible if an act benefits millions greatly at the expense of a select
few? Is it ethical for a firm to maximize the good of its constituencies at
the expense of third parties? (typical question in environmental issues).

Deontological ethics: What duties do I have? Rights? These rights/duties
exsist independently of utilitarian outcomes and rules of an incident.
Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative is the best known of deontological
philosophies: "Handle nur nach derjenigen Maxime, durch die du zugleich
wollen kannst, dass sie ein allgemeines Gesetz werde." And his humanity
formula: "Handle so, dass du die Menchheit, sowohl in deiner Person, als in
der Person eines jeden andern, jederzeit zugleich als Zweck,niemals bloss
als Mittel brauchest." Typical rights: See the UN human rights declarations
ratified by almost all countries in the world.

Virtue ethics: Platon and Aristoteles are the early birds on this one,
while Alasdair MacIntyre in "After Virtue" (1981) updates Aristoteles: "A
virtue is an aquired human quality the possession and exercise of which
tends to enable us to achieve those goods which are internal to practices
and the lack of which effectively prevents us from achieving such goods."
In Business ethics typically virtues like understanding, honesty and
integrity are sought TO MAKE THE COMMUNITY WORK. All religions are filled
with virtues to be sought (ref. the ten commandments of the christian
faith).

In a sense Rosan is a little right. Even though morals are formed by,
accepted by, and regulate societies (they vary between societies and over
time - ethics are the philosophical/theoretical thinking we use to
understand and evaluate morals), the morals of the society (ies) you are a
part of are internalized and become a part of your individual personality.
Socialization of the individual can actually be seen as the process of
internalizing (psychologically speaking) the morals of society in the
individual, so that society does not need to continuously monitor the acts
of the individual to keep him/her on the right track. The individual does
that to him/herself responding to internalized values. Now, if the quote of
Rosan in part 2 had been "...to the development of an individually imbedded
moral," I would not have had any problems accepting the sentence. However,
"individualistic ethics" has no clear meaning to me. Does "individualistic"
mean that the right moral is egoistic maximization regardless of
consequences for others? Or does it mean that every individual should have
his/her personal morals, that stand above whatever the rest of the society
might believe to be the right moral?

It makes me reflect once more on why it is "in" in modern management to
employ value-based management methods. I guess one of the beliefs is that
only when all menbers of the organization have the same measuring rod of
right and wrong and good and bad, can you trust your fellow men and
delegate authority to them. Maybe that is the thinking behind Findeli;
"Don't trust a designer till (s)he has internalized the morals of the
society (s)he is supposed to serve."

I am interested in further debate.....

Bryn


Brynjulf Tellefsen
Associate Professor
Department of Knowledge Management
Norwegian School of Management
P. O. Box 580
N-1302 Sandvika
NORWAY

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