Design Virtue
If consequentialism can't deliver justice, we might be better off with a theory that can. But how might a design count as good other than by virtue of its consequences? How about in virtue of its ... virtues?
After all, maybe consequences aren't everything. We've certainly seen that they're difficult to quantify, and that makes it difficult to come up with an algorithm that produces intuitive and edifying results. What's worse, we're often wrong or only partially right when we try to predict the consequences of our actions.
We've also seen that for all forms of consequentialism, one's obligations to oneself and to one's family and friends are no weaker or stronger than those to strangers, a fact which seems to skew certain types of situations towards having to choose between an intuitive, non-maximally ethical conclusion or a non-intuitive, maximally ethical one.
It's also worth noting that consequentialism seems to make the somewhat confusing assumption that blameworthiness is not really a moral quality internal to an agent, but rather a function of whether or not it is societally useful to blame her. In the case of the designer who takes the job designing cigarette packaging because she needs money for her sick mother, we don't necessarily blame the agent because we hold her as particularly blameworthy in a moral sense, but rather because it is useful for us to blame her if we want to advocate against products that endanger the health of children.
Which is all to note that consequentialism might be called an agent-neutral theory. Starting next week, we'll consider an alternative theory, one that is agent-based. For now, let's call this an agent-based virtue ethics.
In our first, very rough formulation of this, we might say that a good design counts as good by virtue of the fact that it is undertaken with virtuous motivation on behalf of the designer, as well as exhibits, expresses, or promote certain design virtues.
Does this idea, which goes back to ancient Greece, help us intuitively solve the kinds of moral dilemmas we've been posing so far? That's something to think about until Monday, when we'll discuss it more.
| Tagged with: | Aristotle, Consequentialism, Design Ethics, Design Virtue, Homer, Rembrandt, Virtue Ethics |