Ethics: What is Good?

Today, our lecture was about Ethics and how we as designers can influence this capitalist world and still be ethically ''good''. I am going to briefly talk about certain points from my notes made in the lecture.

Living in a capitalist system, how can we survive in this system in all aspects of career and life?

The article by Ken Garland in 1964, ''First Things First'',  a manifesto produced during an affluent time talks about how designers felt frustrated with producing pointless ads for products like cat food, detergent etc.

The ad was then re-written by the magazine Adbusters in 2000, outlining similar problems but mainly placing the blame on advertisers and accusing them of not using their talents to stop the capitalist system.
The article basically talks about how capitalism is the main cause and not the designers but designers also need to stop encouraging that and use our problem solving skills to help charities and help the planet. However, there were 22 visual communicators that were in favour of upcoming advertisers to re-think what jobs they took, this is easier said than done because most of the 22 visual communicators already had made a name for themselves and didn't need to look for work and could easily sustain themselves, whereas this is not the case for upcoming designers.

Victor Papanel, a writer stated in one of his articles, that most ads are designed not for the needs of the people but for the needs of manufacturers to sell to people.

Radio created using any material that can burn such as cow dung and a juice can. Manufacturing costs came at 9cents.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/laimagendelmundo/3832399766/

Victor wanted to make people understand that designers since we are what connect the manufacturer's to the public, should create work that improves our world instead of just thinking for profits.

The tips left to us after the lecture was How do we determine what is Good?

Subjective Relativism
there are no universal moral norms of right and wrong
all persons decide wrong and right for themselves

Cultural Relativism
ethical theory that what's right or wrong depends on place and time

Divine Command Theory
good actions are aligned with the will of God
bad actions are contrary to the will of God

These points do not fit every situation and therefore cannot really be used. Immanuel Kant, a german philospher created theories that stated how humans could determine if an act was ethical, it is called Kantianism.

http://cdn8.openculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/kant-shooting.jpg

He created two moral rules based on two categorical imperatives.