Dear friends on the design list

I suspect the ethics of design would come nicely under moral philosophy, or what in Aristotelian categories is "practical reasoning". Perhaps also interesting is the relevance of design research for helping us think through practical reasoning, ethics. I.e., how research in design epistemology can further work in moral philosophy or applied ethics.  I think encounters between design researchers and moral philosophers can be mutually beneficial.

Here's something (below) I wrote that should be coming out as part of a chapter in a book collection relating design epistemology to moral philosophy (natural law theory, John Finnis et al). Critical comments very welcome.

Warmest
Jude

John Finnis: On Thomistic Principles and Design Epistemology

An important idea captured under the "design bias" is the attentiveness to unintended side-effects, which when judged welcome are then re-integrated into one's design or engineering intentions.  Herbert A Simon's account of "design without final goals" in his Sciences of the Artificial captures this idea nicely: he recounts the times when designers aim for a certain pre-determined effect, but something else emerges (irrespective of the first intended effect), that on inspection turns out attractive, and Simon suggests that it is not wrong to re-orientate the design-ing towards the new set of effects, aiming therefore at a new set of goals.  Simon then takes this one step further by suggesting that one can even design in order to discover new goals for which the designs can aim for; meaning that the implicit point of any design is not just the targeted goal, but to "force" side-effects to emerge which when desirable can be integrated into one's design plans; design-ing to flush out desirable side-effects therefore makes designing an "exploratory" activity, rather than an exploitative activity, which design-engineering, following some carefully engineering blue-print, can often be.  This idea is also echoed in James G March's discussion of technologies of foolishness, which are psychological or pedagogical techniques to generate divergent ideas for improving decision making, and one of which he describes as the acceptance of rationalizations-here, through new interpretations of histories, leaders rationalize about their failures (judged under original plans) and suggest the benefits that nonetheless emerged, suggesting that, although they are excusing themselves for these failures, or even lying about their original goals, they are simultaneously also inviting others (and perhaps themselves) to recognize new goals and benefits that the plan could have and have indeed achieved.
Theorizing about "design" is a rather recent phenomenon, but one could loosely place the theorising about "design" as a branch of speculation that extends from the root of the ancient discipline we call practical philosophy, which considers what are the principles that guide one's acting and doing. There is nothing, to my knowledge, in the new natural law tradition that has captured this very design process which Simon labels as "design without final goals", although I have argued elsewhere that natural law theory would welcome such a design theory since natural law-as did Simon, in a later work-recognizes a plurality of incommensurably valuable final goods to be sought, leaving thus the new possible design trajectory aiming at the new goal axiologically incommensurable with respect the original:

"The plan to stick with the original goal notwithstanding, the fact remains that there is in principle nothing wrong about sending the design in a different direction, since the incommensurability of these goals means that there is no way of saying which course of action is better or worse off."

Also consistent and relevant is Aquinas' attentiveness to the practical reality of "intentions" and "effects besides the intention" (praeter intentionem), and the accurate description of the nature of these realities offers in principle what else is needed for such an account of design epistemology. For, as Finnis reminds us, the very nature of "intentions" as something intentional, that is to say, is something internal and cognitive, being itself the adopted string of practical reasons identifying the very means and ends one seeks when one wills an action, and therefore even if some consequent effect is foreseen or much desirable, but not part of the original practical plan, it is not intended, but a side effect. This reality is often employed in the thomistic literature to morally absolve the agent of those undesirable side effects (even if foreseen), and has been classified under the phrase the "doctrine of double effect." But another application of this distinction, focusing this time on side effects that are desirable, is to infer that: whilst a desirable side effect is not part of the original intention (in one's design or practical plans), it is possible in a new future intention to adopt those very same means to achieve these desirable side-effects (previously unintended) as the intended goals (now). In short, Aquinas' recognition of such a thing as "unintended side effects" sets the stage not only for absolving us from these things, but also for intentionally welcoming them in a new and next intention, and also for design theorists to remind us of such possibilities, and to not just let these possibilities pass.

Contrast Aquinas' account with those that muddle desires and foreseen consequences with intentions:  under these accounts, often drawn from consequentialist circles, whatever foresee-ably emerges from one's course of action or is desired is necessarily counted as part of one's plan (and what one is culpable for); here the recommendation to adopt (i.e., in the future tense) these (desirable) effects as one's design intention makes sense only if these effects could not have been foreseen, or are undesirable.  Conversely, if an effect was foreseen or desirable, then the invitation to integrate these effects into the next design intention makes little sense, since these effects already had been so "intended". But might one not say that, it is precisely those persons whose actions produce foreseen, desirable effects yet fail to take these effects seriously and do so not by choice but through epistemic failures, that should stand most to benefit from the recommendation to integrate these effects into their design intentions? For: it is said that there can be a tendency in amateur designers or bureaucratic administrators responsible for the design of policies under performative terrors to be unreflectively obsessed with original goals, and to narrowly take only these goals seriously, no matter what other foreseeable, desirable qua valuable effects become obvious-yet in each and every of these cases no such critical recommendation is at all possible, since these latter benefits have already all been "intended". Therefore, unlike Aquinas' account, the lack conceptual clarity here rules out the possibility of criticizing epistemic small-mindedness that continues to fester under the cover of the muddled jargon, and that continues to neglect any pressure to further these other benefits or goals intentionally, and hence, seriously and pro-actively.

More thomistic parallels to other neighbouring decision or design heuristics are found also in Finnis' retrieval of determinatio as Aquinas uses the word: the need to feely chose one amongst many possible options which are (practically) impossible to be judged inter-alia to be better or worse off, even with a commensurate criteria for comparison across options; and thus, positive laws are at times chosen in this way, through determinatio, such as for example, in the choice to have motorists drive on the right (rather than the left) side of the road, both options commensurably measured against the same indicator of road safety. Aquinas' own example, as Finnis points out to us, is one of architecture, and the choice of the width of a door to be built from amongst a infinite number of options-that is to say, having centrally to do with design.  Persons familiar with administrative theory recognize quickly how Aquinas' determinatio shares much in common with the decision process (relevant to the design of policies, for instance) labelled as "satisficing" by Herbert Simon.   Like "determinatio", one "satisfices" when under conditions of bounded rationality it is just impossible to calculate the most optimal means to a given goal. "Which width of such a door is best?" is not a question that can be humanly answered, short of the capacity for comparing across every possible option's effect on a certain value function, all things considered.  Such satisficing determinatio is another basis for freely choosing one (sometimes, accidental) side effect over the originally intended one as the intermediate goal qua means towards some further commensurable value or end-goal when it is impossible to judge-because  impossible to consider all things-which is better with respect that further end-goal.


CHUA Soo Meng Jude PhD FRHistS FCOT AMCollT FBCap MDS Novak Laureate
| Assistant Professor | Programme Coordinator, IoE-NIE Dual Award EdD | Policy and Leadership Studies | National Institute of Education, NIE2-03-08, 1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore 637616
Tel: (65) 6790-3246 GMT+8h | Fax: (65) 6896-9151 | Email: [log in to unmask] | Web: www.nie.edu.sg
An Institute of Nanyang Technological University

also occasionally Visiting Research Scholar, Blackfriars Hall, Oxford University




National Institute of Education (Singapore) http://www.nie.edu.sg

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