Bartlet on Accountability
Continuing this week's series on design ethics, DLB borrows from The West Wing to help develop the case for accountability.
I've been thinking for a few days now about how I would respond to Paul's most recent weekend ponderable.
His question was: What if you went out of your way to design an ecologically-friendly MP3 player, but in doing so, inadvertently caused the manufacturing contract to be outsourced, costing American jobs? In short, can a design be ethical despite having unethical consequences?
Whether we design sustainably or not, our decision is going to do harm to someone. As I see it, we should choose the option which does the most good for the most people-- i.e. design the MP3 player with recycled materials because, ultimately, it's better for everyone. Being environmental, in this case, is a higher obligation.
Fair enough, but how does one do that?
| Tagged with: | Accountability, Consequentialism, Design Ethics, The West Wing |