Designer's Ethical Responsibility and Ethical Design

Abstract

Design affects the entire lifespan of a product. Humans design ideas in their environments, especially to meet their own needs. People come to design ideas and abilities from various objects and events in nature, and use these to increase their design capabilities. With the increase in human population, proliferation of product needs, and the dangerous use of products, the ethical risks have increased. The risks within unethical designs have now reached all levels of human life. Products have been introduced to the market without considering their ethics, and in many of them, only the material purpose has been pursued, instead of the benefit to humanity. This research focused on the goal of the product designers, which is to design and develop a product, while contributing to the awareness that the product needs to be subjected to both risk and ethical analyses as with all other requirements. The dominant task of this study is to enable designers and their designs to develop their own ethical discourse and concepts. In doing so, the most forward aim is to not damage humans, but to design what is useful. The impact on the designer is to have ethical responsibility for their designs.

COVID-19 pandemic reveals challenges in engineering ethics education

“…Technical ethics concerns making technical decisions such as the selection of component materials and fabrication methods, while weighing risk factors in order to achieve values such as quality, safety, and efficiency (Roddis 1993 ; McLean 1993 ; Vanderburg 1995 ; Pantazidou and Nair 1999 ; Fleischmann 2004 ; Bucciarelli 2008 ; Wang 2017 ). This is the sphere of ethics that most engineers are familiar with because it concerns engineers making technical decisions regarding the engineering products they are working on (Roddis 1993 ; McLean 1993 ; Vanderburg 1995 ; Herkert 2001 ; Bucciarelli 2008 ; Doing 2012 ; Wang 2017 ; Atak and Şik 2019 ). The principles of technical ethics are best laid out in the various codes and standards of each technical discipline (McLean 1993 ).…”

“…We define technical ethics as the sphere of ethics pertaining to how engineering products are designed and produced (Roddis 1993 ; McLean 1993 ; Vanderburg 1995 ; Pantazidou and Nair 1999 ; Stephan 2001 ; Herkert 2001 ; Fleischmann 2004 ; Bucciarelli 2008 ; Doing 2012 ; Wang 2017 ; Atak and Şik 2019 ). Ethical design and production require promoting outcomes such as safety, quality, and efficiency throughout the technical processes of design and production.…”

“…Ethical design and production require promoting outcomes such as safety, quality, and efficiency throughout the technical processes of design and production. We define professional ethics as the sphere of ethics pertaining to how engineers interact with individuals and groups as part of their work (Roddis 1993 ; Ladd 1980 ; McLean 1993 ; Devon 1999 ; Herkert 2001 ; Fleischmann 2004 ; Bucciarelli 2008 ; Stappenbelt 2013 ; Farahani and Farahani 2014 ; Atak and Şik 2019 ; Snieder and Zhu 2020 ). Ethical conduct in the profession requires treating clients, suppliers, and other engineers in ways that conform to professional standards such as integrity, conflicts of interest, non-discrimination, and equity.…”

“…In addition, technical ethics and professional ethics are necessary for the success and advancement of the engineering profession because they each deal with a different aspect of engineering practice, such as product quality or safety and harmonious interactions between engineers, clients, and others (Herkert 2001 ). However, while engineering programs successfully focus on technical (Lynch and Kline 2000 ; Herkert 2001 ; Atak and Şik 2019 ) and professional (Colby and Sullivan 2008 ; Basart and Serra 2013 ; Bairaktarova and Woodcock 2015 ) ethics, there is increasing evidence that many engineering students and engineers do not sufficiently engage with social ethics (Cech 2014 ; Bairaktarova and Woodcock 2015 ; Bairaktarova and Woodcock 2017 ). This lack of engagement with social ethics could have significant consequences because engineering decisions and products might perpetuate unequal social structures and practices for disadvantaged and minoritized groups in engineering education and beyond (Faulkner 2000 ; Cech 2014 ).…”

A Scoping Review of Ontologies Relevant to Design Strategies in Response to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

“…Socially responsive design (SRD II) aims to improve equitable arrangements among stakeholders to ensure the effective delivery of design for social change and to make proper contributions to addressing societal goals in a sustainable way [119], while SRD responds to all stakeholders and investigates the consequences of design that positively impacts on societal aspirations and expectations, health, and lifestyle [120]. Ethical design (ED') emphasizes that designers should have a responsibility to take ethical requirements of product design into account through conducting risk and ethical analyses and countermeasures of the designed products [121]. Design anthropology (DA) comprises both business sense and social responsibility to develop a product through conducting with users or potential users for articulating the everyday practices, symbolic meanings, and forms of sociality with the product [122].…”