Why are design ethics good for business?
Slog along with us as DLB examines the Prisoner’s Dilemma to help us understand what is not so great about doing good.
We last left our discussion on design ethics with the conjecture that designers should take into account the consequences of their actions. This week, I’d like to tackle the question: "why bother?"
That may sound flippant, but it’s a serious inquiry. If we’re going to address this topic fully, we need a serious examination of our reasons for doing so. We ought to have a better answer than the legal ramifications of getting caught or moral appeals to "just because".
Ethics, by their very definition, are supposed to be good. In a perfect world, that should be all the convincing we need. However, there’s a reason why we study ethics: not playing fair is often advantageous. In fact, being ethical might result in lower profits or losing a job.
What we need is an objective look at costs and benefits of ethics. That’s our theme for this week.
Goin' on a Prison Break
Rather than try to come up with some kind of taxonomy for ethical and unethical design activities, I want to start by talking in the abstract –focusing only on the consequences of good choices and bad choices— with a thought experiment called The Prisoner’s Dilemma.
