Designers, Morality and the AK-47 https://shar.es/1LfGIl #designethics #ux #design
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Starting a separate branch here: I've had a lot of conversations with game developers recently around VR and addiction. Their response is often "the only way to be successful is to keep people hooked so they will never stop playing." That's where ethics and design clash.
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There are lots of interesting examples, especially regarding pleasure for sale and ethics. What are the ethics for: a vodka distillery, a bar owner, a bartender... all three design things with the intent for profit based on pleasure that is known to be addictive.
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That's where informed consent and agency comes into play. I recommend you read up on Capability Approach, a relatively new branch of moral philosophy that explores ethics as a function of what capabilities are granted / enabled in the end-user: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/capability-approach/ …
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Example: restaurant is responsible for ensuring the food is not unsafe and is obtained through ethical means, the "designer" for is properly informing the customer and granting their wants and needs, and the customer for knowing and communicating their own limits (allergies etc)
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One of the big issues with this larger conversation is the term "ethics" is being used in a diffuse and not very precise way. Ethics is an academic discipline, not a general set of rules to follow. Our industry needs an ethics, as in a methodology.
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Perhaps we should think about changing the terminology? "Ethics" is a loaded and ambiguous term - but what if we spoke about "mutual responsibility" and focused on clarity of who is responsible for what?
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Funny. I am having a conversation with a colleague about that exact issue. "Ethics" is not an ambiguous term - it's actually very specific - but the way people use it, and its interplay with "morals" is a significant communication challenge.
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