Lecture 6 / Ethics - What is Good?

14 / 11 / 13

OUGD501 / CONTEXT OF CONTEXT

ETHICS - WHAT IS GOOD?

LECTURE 6.

We live with in a fundamentally unfair system. Capitalism is based on exploration. How do we go through life being ok with this system and making the most of what we have.

How as a creative professional, do you work trough ethics and society.

Written by a designer called Ken Garland. It was produced in the boom of consumerism that came close after the war. it is written and signed by designers and art directors that had become frustrated in the fact that man designers and creative professional were working on menial products such as toothpaste or cat food.

They say in is un-ethical to waist talent and designers should use there skill for useful means such as education.

The original manifesto was re-published by the company 'Adbusters' there are very revolutionist movement that get their points across though active manipulation of existing ads.
in this re-draft the tone changes. it is not only about the waste of creative talent, it is more vicious its approach by demeaning advertising and what is does. The image below is of a quote from this redraft

This starts to say that the market and capitalist system are a sort of taking out the most talented designers and bribing them with moNey to put false truths and over promotion to their products.

They through together many types of creatives labelling them as unethical people that trick consumers into buying things that are useless to people tat are already strapped for cash. Some products are more unethical than others, but it states that if you are a single part in this product and how it is sold, then you are responsible for the negative effect this can have on the public. It seen as a global exploitation.

As a creative you are effect the way people look at each other and the selfs. Which can be damaging depending on what this is being presented.

How do you decide what is worthy. the tone of voice through this redraft is very damning of creatives however does not take in to consideration the need to work for the need to live that designers and creatives have to take. Of course it would be great if you could always work in the educational sense of or a charitable cause but this does not allow you to earn enough to live.

If you work in any way through a company that endorses and supplies costumer items then you are being unethical.

Just because you are working for a company means that you are as one with the ethics and products this company supply. Many of these people that apply this extreme ethical approach to the there work and who they choose to work with are more often than not extremely rich and have the means and ability to take on this kind of work.

If this is a call to make the system a more balanced then this can be a very positive movement, however placing the woes off capitalism that have been conjured by large scale companies and brands is not right.

Appropriate adverts that are informing society on the evils of consumerism. The images above are examples of 'mean war fair' that the Adbusters movement use.

A mean is something that stick in your head and circulate around the world virally. this is an emanse power that designed have created. What could happen if this power of message could be used to make changes with in the social set up?

It is argued that the designer and creative have nothing to do with the choices that companies make regarding the ethics and fairness of there product and how it is sold as well as were and how it is produced.

Adbusters work applies loosely to the theory that tried to formulate and broad anti-capitalis design with the though that design 'could save the world' do to the power it has. In the book above, Papanek makes the same augment that is present through the manifesto. Through this book there is a cry for ethics.

This quote is a very extreme version, He sees a grand use for designers in wanting them to use their talents for subjects that can change the world and how we live with in society.

He made this example of a car. The car company it had been directed at had issues concerinig a bumper that had been deemed as un safe. he made this cars bumper out of wood and beer cans costing him no more than 50$ to make the pint that s****

Creatives just tinker with the tip of the iceberg. They do not use there skills in real and effective ways. 

You can't just escape capitalism as it is the state we live in and have been brought up in.

Even though we have to be a part of this society and work for the things we need, it is still possible to make choices about your work that can lessen the impact regarding ethics.

Subjective Relativism

– There are no universal moral norms of right and wrong.

– All persons decide right and wrong for themselves.

Cultural Relativism

–The ethical theory that what’s right or wrong depends on place and/or time.

(If everyone does it and thats what is the norm then it is ok).

Divine Command Theory

–Good actions are aligned with the will of God.

–Bad actions are contrary to the will of God.

–The holy book helps make the decisions.

(Religion determines the choices you make)

I. Kant (philosiphere)
the things that determine us from animals is the though process of meaning and self deliberation. He was one of the first people that tried to work out how we decide what is ethical and what isn't.

the categorical imperative:

Act only from moral rules that you can at the same time universalise.

If you act on a moral rule that would cause problems if everyone followed it then your

actions are not moral.

(For example, if you chose never to give to charity, what would happen ice everyone did the

same and nobody gave to charity. sometime in your life you would be reliant on some kind

charitable act, so it unethical to not return this.)

-what action you take means and if others can repeat this act willingly.

Act so that you always treat both yourself and other people as ends in themselves, and

never only as a means to an end.

–If you use people for your own benefit that is not moral

Similar to Kant.
his augment was how much emotion your action achieves. It is based of the use that you action has with in society. If it increases general happiness, then it is ethical. if in decreases general happiness then its is bad and unethical. However sometimes you can do something you think is good, however it turns out bad and vise-versa.

If you don't tell the truth then you are unethical, however this does not always work for the best.

The social contract.

Thomas Hobbes (1603-1679) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

An agreement between individuals held together by common interest

Avoids society degenerating into the ‘state of nature’ or the ‘war of all against all’ (Hobbes)

“Morality consists in the set of rules, governing how people are to treat one another, that rational people will agree to accept, for their mutual benefit, on the condition that others follow those rules as well.”

We trade some of our liberty for a stable society.

The augment that is everyone did what everyone wants, then everyone will just compete with each other and screw each other over. We need a social contact that makes it cable to live together with equal and fair surroundings and possibilities.

What you have here is a formulation on how you can perceive what is good or not. have a workable yet ethical theory.

SOCIALLY AND ECOLOGICALLY RESPONSIBLE DESIGN.

Behind the generalisation, was genially design as a vehicle to help save society. He was against the 1st world  designers that are educated going to  3rd world country and being deemed as a kind of God who would help with a problem and then disappear again.

NOT DESIGN OF INDIVIDUAL GAIN / BUT FOR GREATER GAIN.

He suggests that ethical practice should be a part of your work, while you are working to gain money, devote 10% of your time to charitable and ethical causes. It doesn't ether how this 10 percent is included, it could be 1 day out of 10 or 1 year out of 10.


THINGS TO REMEMBER

The assets of the worlds top three billionaires are greater than those of the poorest 600 million on the planet

More than a third of the worlds population (2.8 billion)live on less than two dollars a day

1.2 billion live on less than one dollar a day

In 2002 34.6 million Americans lived below the official poverty line (8.5 million of those had jobs!) Black American Poverty double that of whites

Per capita income in sub-Saharan Africa =$490

Per capita subsidy for European cows = $913