Ethical Design

Within the book's Ethics motto section, 'Ethical design, viewed through this eudaimonic lens, should therefore relentlessly strive to create the enabling conditions – the supportive social structures, the healthy environmental contexts, the fair economic arrangements, the empowering technological affordances – that allow for this collective Eudaimonia to emerge, create the appropriate relations and be sustained' (Ch9 §095). The same section states that 'Ethical design must also demonstrate profound cultural sensitivity and engage respectfully, humbly, and critically with the diverse values, norms, beliefs, and worldviews of the specific communities being worked with (not designed for or at),' embracing what decolonial thinkers term pluriverse rather than a 'simplistic, often arrogant universalism.' Applied to the Human Component, 'Human agency is where ethical reasoning, value judgments, and moral responsibility are exercised within design' (Ch10 §101). Applied to the Technological Component, 'the ethical designer has a responsibility to demand transparency and seek out materials certified as conflict-free' and to 'a commitment to fair labor standards and worker dignity' (Ch15 §146).