Lecture 7 - Ethics

Lecture 7 - Ethics: What is good? 

First things First Manifesto - Garland

Argues that visual communicators and creative in the 60’s were wasting their talents by taking jobs that contribute little to the world, such as trivial advertising of detergents and cigarettes. 

Ad busters republished first things first, they changed key bits and changed the manifesto from a call to arms to something much more politicised. 

Two presentations of ethics but both very different in style.

If you are in anyway participating with the production in such commercial images you are supporting and endorsing a society that revolves around slave labour and exploitation of the third world. You are changing the way citizen consumers are brainwashed. 

- The first manifesto, the ethical question is just about putting your talent to the right use.

- The second one suggests you need to put your talents to use to destroy capitalism and consumerism.

Culture Jamming- intervene in the techniques and apparatus of advertising. Finding ways to subvert the message of commercial organisations. 

A meme is a potent message that can change minds, alert behaviour and transform cultures. 

Victor Papanek - Design for the Real World 

Most things are not designed for the needs of the people, but for the needs of the manufacturer and to help them sell to the consumer. 

Designers only touch the tip of the iceberg, the design problems we address only touch the edge of the problems. 

Subjective Relativism 

• no universal moral norms of right and wrong
• All persons decide right and wrong for themselves

Cultural Relativism

• The ethical theory that was is right/wrong depends on the time/place

Divine Command Theory

• Good actions are aligned with the will of God
• Bad actions are contrary to the will of God
• The holy book helps make the decisions.

Kantianism (Deontological Ethics)

• Society should be organised by a set of agreed or shared moral rules.
• Everyone thinks through collaboratively but everyone shares an investment on.
• These rules govern our actions.
• Consider wider impact of actions on society
• Two categorial imperatives:

1. Act only from moral rules that you can at the same time universalise 

• If you act on a moral rule that would cause problems if everyone followed it then your actions are not moral.

2. Act so that you always treat both yourself and other people as ends in themselves, and never only as a means to an end.

• If you use people for your own benefit that is not moral. 

Utilitarianism or consequential Ethics - John Stuart Mill

• The end determines the means
• An action is ethical if it increases the total happiness of all parties involved, i.e. profit , pleasure, happiness, general quality of life.

Social Contract Theory

• We exist in mutual consensus, agreed rules.
• We sacrifice some of our liberty, what we can and cant do for the sake of the greater good. 
• We have a system of agreed rules, some that we agree with and some we don’t but thats is tough for the sake of a stable society. As part of a society you are invested in it.