Ethics of technology and design ethics in socio-technical systems (original) (raw)
Related papers
Despite recognizing that ethics is integral to design, and despite awareness that design brings about risks and undesirable side and after-effects, design ethics remains critically under-developed. What is design ethics? How should one broach an area as vast as design ethics? In this article, I examine three discourses that have been commonly used to engage—and to provoke—moral reasoning, awareness, and action in design. They are namely, technology, sustainability, and responsibility. Within the defined area of each discourse, I examine a limited set of debates and issues that are relevant to design ethics today. Through this critical analysis, I raise new questions and issues for design ethics. Subsequently, I suggest how a theoretically robust design ethics ought to engage with the concepts and categories of applied ethics on the one hand, and on the other, to condition this engagement with the domain-specific interests, concerns and experiences of design.
Head-Hand-Heart: Ethics in Design - Keynote at Istanbul
Our understanding of design has been evolving steadily over the past 100 years and in recent years there has been a rush of new research into a variety of dimensions and Ethics is one the many dimensions that have received research attention. In this paper we look at the various dimensions of design and at current and past definitions to see the contemporary understanding of the subject as we see it today with the aid of models that the author has evolved over several years of reflection and research. We then trace the evolution of design as a natural human activity and restate this history in terms of the major stages of evolution from its origins in the use of fire and tools through the development of mobility, agriculture, symbolic expression, crafts production and on to industrial production and beyond to the information and knowledge products of the day. This sets the stage to ponder about the future of the activity and of the discipline as we see it today.
Hand-Head-Heart-Ethics in Design_Istanbul_2009
Our understanding of design has been evolving steadily over the past 100 years and in recent years there has been a rush of new research into a variety of dimensions and Ethics is one the many dimensions that have received research attention. In this paper we look at the various dimensions of design and at current and past definitions to see the contemporary understanding of the subject as we see it today with the aid of models that the author has evolved over several years of reflection and research. We then trace the evolution of design as a natural human activity and restate this history in terms of the major stages of evolution from its origins in the use of fire and tools through the development of mobility, agriculture, symbolic expression, crafts production and on to industrial production and beyond to the information and knowledge products of the day. This sets the stage to ponder about the future of the activity and of the discipline as we see it today.
Past present and future of design ethics
Past present and future of design ethics, 2024
With the ever-more present climate crisis, resource shortage and the expansion of AI, the core question of the ethical aspects of our development of new products and solutions becomes unavoidable. But which topics are commonly discussed in design ethics literature and how has it evolved? To answer this question and to understand the existing underpinnings and foundation of ethics in design, we adopted a structured literature review searching literature across 42 renowned scientific design journals. A systematic search revealed 1177 academic publications relating to the topic. After filtering and reviewing the titles, abstracts and keywords of these publications, a total of 121 sources were singled out as qualified to constitute the foundation of this review. From these, 8 central themes in past and present design ethics research were identified: Design processes and practices, design education, participatory/cocreation, responsible design, social design, sustainability, technology, and human-centred design of which the three predominant themes are related to questions of the designers´ role and actions (design processes and practices), the effects and consequences of new developments(technology), and the common objectives of addressing the urgency of ecological imbalance (sustainability). This opens a discussion of future research, what are we missing?
The Ethical Turn of Emerging Design Practices
Sheji:The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation, 2023
Ignited by the transformative impact of technoscience, diverse alternative design practices have emerged, each distinct from prevailing norms. Within this heterogeneous landscape, a common theme emerges: an inclination toward ethical considerations, closely tied to or stemming from these novel approaches and practices, warranting thorough investigation. This article adopts a dual strategy. First, it introduces technoscience as the catalyst behind this transition, framing the contextual backdrop. Second, based on Jürgen Habermas's knowledge-interest theory and its tripartite structure, this article focuses on those emerging design practices which deal with ethical and social design, a category that has become especially significant since 2000. The subsequent analysis explores the significant ethical turn within diverse disciplines and these emerging design practices, illustrated across domains. This transformation unfolds in ontological, epistemological, and methodological dimensions, signifying a renewal of design ethics. The article establishes a fundamental framework to comprehend a field without rigid boundaries, facilitating future critique and ongoing design research progress.
Design Ethics: The Social Ethics Paradigm
Technology is human behavior that transforms society and transforms the environment. Design is the cornerstone of technology. It is how we solve our problems, fulfill our needs, shape our world, change the future, and create new problems. From extraction to disposal in the life-cycle of a product, the design process is where we make the most important decisions; the decisions that determine most of the final product cost, and the decisions that determine most of the ethical costs and benefits. It is quintessentially an ethical process. Ethics is not an appendage to design but an integral part of it, and we advocate using the moral imagination to draw out the ethical implications of a design [1]. We will stress and develop the social ethics paradigm, because design is an iterative social process for making technical and social decisions that may itself be designed at each stage with different people at the table, different information flows, different normative relationships, different authority structures, and different social and environmental considerations in mind . Despite the considerable recent growth in the literature and teaching of engineering ethics, it is constrained unnecessarily by focusing primarily on individual ethics using virtue, deontological, and consequentialist ethical theories. In contrast, the social ethics method requires an examination of the social arrangements for making decisions that is particularly relevant to the iterative, decisionmaking, design process. Different social arrangements may be made for making any decision, each of which arrangement embodies different ethical considerations and implications. Dewey argued in much the same way for a scientific and experimental approach to ethics in general:`What is needed is intelligent examination of the consequences that are actually effected by inherited institutions and customs, in order that there may be intelligent consideration of the ways in which they are to be intentionally modified in behalf of generation of different consequences.' . The social ethics paradigm that we will unfold owes much to the pragmatist thought of John Dewey.
DESIGNING THE FUTURE – Open discussion on design ethics.
Possible and Preferable scenarios of a sustainable future – Towards 2030 and Beyond, 2021
The contribution aims to focus attention to the system of responsibilities that revolve around man’s ability to alter and significantly modify the landscape that surrounds him. Confronting the field of de- sign in the broadest possible sense by bringing out the relationships between ethics and design. Offer food for thought for a change of vision that allows to identify new approaches to the design process having the attention and ethical responsibility of those called upon to plan the future in which they will live. An open debate, free from the rigid logic of the academic world in the perspective of a scien- tific thought that does not evolve linearly but proceeds by rhizomes of thought. The aim of the discus- sion is therefore not to validate a theory in demonstrating assumptions but to outline a generative ma- trix of thought that can provide useful elements for an interpretative exploration of transversalities re- lated to the taxonomy of design. The purpose of the discourse is the discourse itself.
Socio-Technical Design of the 21st Century
IFIP International Federation for Information Processing, 2007
The norm of the 21" century has been decentralization as competition in the marketplace has increased significantly. Organizations commonly freelance or outsource work to other professionals or manufacturers where it can be performed at lower cost. Thus, due to the changing nature of work, there is a need to reconsider the ETHICS of the past. Based upon the new work order, changes in ETHICS are proposed and will be discussed in this paper.