Design and Emergent Ethical Crises
- Submitting institution
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Edinburgh Napier University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 1313316
- Type
- C - Chapter in book
- DOI
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- Book title
- Ethics in Design and Communication
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- ISBN
- 9781350077003
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- February
- Year of publication
- 2020
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The research presented in this peer-reviewed book chapter, published as part of the Bloomsbury edited collection “Ethics in Design and Communication: Critical Perspectives” makes an important contribution to knowledge in the field by advancing an original argument correlating design activity with ethical crisis.The chapter draws together literature from crisis studies, design studies and philosophy to present the argument that design’s foundational operation of the extension of potentiality – the act of bringing new possibilities into being – necessarily generates ethical crises as designers bring situations into reality which extend beyond the boundaries of our existing moral frameworks. The chapter presents two broad possible responses to this recognition that design causes ethical crises: reactive moral regulation, or proactive embrace of the opportunity and possibility of crisis in the extension of potentiality and therefore of the realm of the ethical. Crisis offers opportunity and threat equally: the potentiality for both darkness and light. Embracing this dualistic ethicality of design exposes us more fully to the simultaneous possibilities for both good and bad. The chapter concludes by proposing that the wisest course of action for design is to consciously and deeply invest in knowledge and mastery of the design process in order to be able to more effectively control and manipulate the full spectrum of potentiality, and through this to find ourselves better equipped and prepared to negotiate the possibilities of crises as they are produced.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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