Category: Key Ideas

The idea that there are general ethical principles which can be applied in response to any encountered situation.

The idea that we should choose our courses of action by considering which route will produce the best consequences. The right thing to do is the thing which promises the best outcome, even if this means that we might have to undertake activity which is ethically problematic to achieve these consequences. The ends justify the means.

The idea that there are consistent ethical rules, duties and obligations which remain valid in all situations. We should act in accordance with these principles, even if the foreseeable consequences might be undesirable.

Ethics comes to life in the real world when we encounter others. For some philosophers of ethics (Emmanuel Levinas for example) the awareness that we share our world with other beings who are like us in some ways and differ from us in other ways, and who make demands of us simply by existing, is the ground-zero foundation of ethics. Is there a difference between the face to face encounter with others, and the vague awareness that others exist somewhere out there in the world?

A strong sense not simply that a course of action is right, but that we should feel compelled to take this course of action, and should feel guilt if we fail to do so.

To act against one’s better judgement. Knowing what the right thing to do is, yet still choosing not to do it.

The act of designing is the act of bringing new possibilities into being by conceiving of novel configurations of existing elements within given contexts. In this sense, the fundamental act of design is the extension of potentiality. At the same time, design constantly involves the conscious act of choosing not to bring other potentialities into actuality. The experience of designing is the experience of encountering the possibility of some-thing both being and not being. When we design, we are constantly faced with choices to either attempt to bring this or that thing into being, or to suppress, inhibit or deny its being.

The recognition that there are diverse and conflicting perspectives on complex ethical issues, and that there is value and validity in this diversity. Different people can rationally examine the same situation and come to very different conclusions. A pluralist perspective holds that this diversity is not a problem to be resolved. Recognising difference can spur us on to reach deeper understanding.