Exploring Philosophical Devices for Thinking About Ethics in Socially Engaged Design: Reflections on a Workshop

Buwert, Peter; Bianchin, Matteo; Heylighen, Ann

Abstract

Socially engaged design seeks to tackle tangible problems of our society. Yet, all too often attempts to use design in this way bring new problems into being. In this sense, designers are pervasively asked to confront and reason about ethical questions by the very nature of design processes: in articulating what becomes, they find themselves inescapably involved in processes of ethical sensitivity and moral reasoning. This workshop explores methods for grappling with the complexities of design ethics by recruiting four philosophical thinking devices, which participants consider in the context of their own design work. In this way, the workshop seeks to advance one route to encouraging and nurturing ethical thinking embedded within design processes, and to raise awareness about ethical choices implied by certain ways of designing.

Citation

Buwert, P., Bianchin, M., & Heylighen, A. (2020). Exploring Philosophical Devices for Thinking About Ethics in Socially Engaged Design: Reflections on a Workshop. In Socially Engaged Design Conference 2019

• Conference Name: Socially Engaged Design Conference
• Conference Location: Limassol Cyprus
• Start Date: Oct 4, 2019
• End Date: Oct 6, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Dec 14, 2020
• Publication Date: Dec 14, 2020
• Deposit Date: Nov 22, 2022
• Book Title: Socially Engaged Design Conference 2019
• Keywords: Design ethics; responsibility; philosophy; thought experiment
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2963961
• Publisher URL: https://www.sedconference.com/full-papers-1