In today's lecture we wanted to look into ethics and what is classed as good in this world. We live in a very unfair system which is full of inequality and we ask ourself what is it to be an ethical designer? Well if we look at figures throughout the last century we can see that advertising is a fundamentally unethical and we need to use this lecture to figure out for ourselves what is right and what is wrong ethically.
We started by looking at Garland and his manifest entitled First Things First, 1964. He thesis was published during the time of the boom of consumerism and it was said really creative talents where flogging themselves on worthless items, such as advertising for cigarettes, cat food and hair products. Garland theorised that calls for designers to do something other than flog dog biscuits needed to be said out loud and therefore proposing that it is unethical to waste talent this way. A counter to this manifest came much later in 2000 by the socialist group Adbuster. They republished First Things First but advocated revolution and consumerism in it instead, but only in small ways like creating posters than changed the way we looked at adverts, such as changing the ESSO logo to have two lines going vertically down the letters S in the name, therefore changing it to E$$O.
Adbuster's version of the manifest was relatively similar but it was the differences in it that stood out the most and were important. They say that advertising should be used for the big things, earning them lots of money in the process and gaining them a very glamourous life. They are virtually accusing the exploitation of the system and that things that are created out of advertising are not always ethical; for example credit card advertising, as why would you want to advertise something that is going to get you into trouble with a life time agreement? But we can ask ourselves this, how do you judge what is worthy of your advertising skill? Would we rather be working for film, education or charity?
If you work for a company who sells some of the worst things, tobacco for example, and especially those who are linked to consumerism, are you being unethical? Adbuster have tried to create a buy nothing day to encourage people to fight against this consumerism, but is it really working. We all know of Primark's main scandal and the fact they they are famous for using sweat shops and this is something that can be seen as unethical but then again they will only sell cheap things anyway so it could be seen as the right amount to be spending on wages. To be an ethical designer you have to want to design more and not just take jobs for the sake of it.
We now move onto Meme Warfare, which was created by Victor Papanek in the 70s to 80s. This inspired people to create iRaq, a poster that looks like its part of the Apple products range but in actual fact it campaigns against sending our troops into Iraq with the very crude way of showing speakers being plugged into all kinds of weapons. But back to Victor Papanek and he states that 'Most things are designed not for the needs of the people but for the heads of manufacturers to sell to people.' He uses this to link advertising with capitalism. In 1971, he challenged capitalism by creation a car bumper made out of beer cans and a plank of wood. This was to challenge the fact that they stated they could not make a bumper for less than £500 when in fact he made his for under £10.
So, how do we determine what is good? Well it's up to us really. There have been many theories about what is good and how we come to think about it but the bests ones to think about, which are technically wrong, are these below:
Subjective Relativism
- There are no universal ethics and you believe what your doing is right
- All persons decide right and wrong for themselves
- There are moral norms of right and wrong
Cultural Relativism
- The ethical theory of whats right and wrong depends on the place and/or time
Divine Command Theory
- Good action are aligned with the will of God
- Bad action are contrary to the will of God
- The Holy Book helps make decisions
But none of these theories above really work out that well, whether we think they are a good idea or not. The first doesn't have ethics as it doesn't help others in any way, the second relies on the fact that all of us have the same culture and the third relies on us all believing in a God and the same one for that matter.
The next theory that we looked at was that of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and he had different theories on this subject as well. He believed that peoples wills should be based on moral rules and therefore its important that our actions are based on appropriated moral rules. He determined this theory on these 2 rules:
Two Formulations of the Categorical Imperative
- Act only from moral rules that you can at the same time universalise
This states that if you act on a moral rule that would cause problems if everyone followed it then your actions are not moral and therefore unethical.
- Act so that you always treat both yourself and other people as ends in themselves, and never only as a means to an end
This states that if you use people for your own benefit that it not moral and therefore not ethical.
Lastly we spoke about the Social Contract Theory which is an agreement between individuals held by common interest. People are better than animals at what we do, even though animals are free to do whatever they want, whenever they want. But if everyone basically did whatever they wanted, everyone begins to compete against each other. So we have an unconfirmed agreement between people; that we have laws that we follow just for the greater good, whether we are presented with problems that are easy or difficult to solve. So in conclusion, its fit to say, we should all be aiming for socially and ecologically responsible designs.
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