Dear Chris,
To the two Schools of Ethics you mention (from Aristotle,
and Utilitarianism) I'd add a third, Kant's. (There are
more, but I'm no Ethics scholar.)
I go with Kant, who (again, roughly) puts duty at the
centre of moral behaviour: humans are bound, by a knowledge
of their duty as rational beings, to obey the categorical
imperative to respect other rational beings--some words
I've paraphrased from a precis of Kant, which I would
re-state as: we have an always present, in escapable
responsibility to respect others as human beings.
When I come across bad designs, which is often, I think
we might usefully rob the "First, do no harm" from
medicine--mangle it a little--and have for us designers:
First, great no unhappiness.
Like the "first do no harm" in medicine, this is easy to
state, and agree to, but far from easy to do, always.
So, a good, broad study of designs, as Victor urges, might
also do something for the ethical practices of
contemporary designing. What do you think?
Best regards,
Tim
Donostia / San Sebastián
The Basque Country
========================================================
At 15:13 +1000 4/4/07, Chris Brisbin wrote:
>Dear Ken, Tim, & all,
>
>
>
>
>
>This issue of ethics has fascinated me for some
>time, or rather its conscious and/or unconscious
>agency upon judgement. It is fundamentally at
>the root of every decision that we make as
>free-thinking humans, whether we choose to
>acknowledge it or not, but an issue that we
>generally do not discuss in any detail within
>the design disciplines [well, at least not
>within Architecture]. Some of the posts around
>this topic throw 'ethics' around as an
>all-encompassing term to justify belief systems,
>but a belief system actually has little to do
>with ethics. Morals and Ethics are often
>semantically conjoined, and are often used to
>define one another in a sort of cyclic ying and
>yang, but ethics are far more socially
>altruistic than is generally acknowledged in
>discourse outside of philosophy. We need to be
>very specific about the kind of ethics that we
>are discussing here when we are talking about
>design judgements and decision, as there should
>always be conscious consideration of an ethical
>obligation to an 'other' which reflects our own
>desire to be in turn treated with fairness and
>equity.
>
>The historical definitions of ethics espoused by
>Socrates and Aristoltle supported the theory
>that 'happiness' should be the ultimate end to
>any ethical consideration; Spinoza believed that
>God provided the greatest 'happiness' to the
>greatest number, or more recently Jeremy
>Bentham's Utilitarianism theories of the
>nineteenth-century that sought to provide the
>greatest level of 'happiness' to the greatest
>number of citizens through his behavioural
>standards. At the core of these definitions, or
>rather understandings of ethics, is the common
>believe that the search for 'happiness' should
>be the goal of any ethical principle. But why
>should happiness preferences count as ethical in
>our judgements? A clear ethical dilemma emerges;
>if we uphold the 'pursuit of happiness' as the
>highest moral good, then we will find it
>difficult to justify resisting anything that
>impedes or interferes with our pursuit as
>'morally unacceptable'. If we are all only
>interested in ourselves and what makes us happy,
>even at the level of
>society/culture/religion/tribe, then we will
>have a dramatically destructive impact upon the
>social and environmental commons. The
>'happiness' ethical standard is thus
>unacceptable. We should be subscribing to
>another kind of ethical consideration, our
>ethical obligation to protect and prevent harm
>to universal interests that transcend the
>ignorant and short sighted notions of nationhood
>or sovereignty that perpetuate every global
>decision.
>
>So why is this definition of ethics important to
>this conversation? Ethics are not about whether
>something is good or bad or right or wrong, it
>is about a broader consideration of the
>collective global good. My role as an architect
>and educator is ever-changing, but particularly
>in light of the economic and environmental
>plundering over the last one hundred years, i
>find myself often in the position where i do
>have a direct agency upon the kind of buildings,
>the kind of materials, the rates of numeration,
>and the levels of environmental care and impact
>that are applied within design projects under my
>influence. I have an ethical obligation to say
>no to clients whom are only interested in making
>money in pursuit of their own sense of
>'happiness', at a cost to everyone and
>everything around them that we cannot afford to
>accept. I am no lefty tree-hugger; far, far from
>it. But i believe that i not only have the right
>to develop an alternative ethical position to
>that of the current system that allows this
>highest-bidder principle to continue, i also
>have an ethical responsibility to do so: as do
>each one of you. I live my life according to
>Ghandi's inspiring and empowering mantra; "be
>the change you want to see in the world."
>
>I subscribe to Ken's assertion that we need to
>delve deeper into the actual systems that
>support the execution of an individual or
>organisation's ethical principles if we are to
>understand the consequence of a given ethical
>position; especially if we are to then propose
>our own alternative ethics. Ethics are only
>'normative' within the system that supports
>them. The University system for example promotes
>a set of ethical principles that directly affect
>how students are treated within that system,
>although the ethical principles are often
>actually at direct odds with that of the
>students? Similarly, the government, or any
>system that defends a sovereignty-based
>territorial claim to its peoples and resources,
>does so without consideration for anyone or
>anything outside of that system. Tim is wrong to
>suggest that the 'market' is the agent that
>effects demand alone. This is not a dig at Tim,
>but I am really tired of listening to
>politicians and corporate CEO's justifying their
>lack of ethical consideration to an 'other' by
>hiding behind the faceless and unaccountable
>'market'. We have a responsibility to offer
>alternatives, to educate not only our students,
>but more importantly our clients as to what is,
>and should be, ethically appropriate design
>decision making.
>
>Lets not let this conversation centre around
>self-perpetuating cycles of decision and outcome
>that deny the agency of a sound, globally
>responsible, ethical principle.
>
>
>
>
>
>Regards,
>
>: : c h r i s b r i s b I n : :
>B. Des. Studies, B. Architecture [ hon I ]
>
>
>Lecturer in Architecture
>PhD Candidate
>Member of the ATCH Research Centre
>[ architecture/theory/criticism/history ]
>http://www.architect.uq.edu.au/atch/
>
>http://web.mac.com/christopherbrisbin/
>
>
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