"What is the true purpose of the design profession? What ends should professional designers pursue? Firmly rooted in the design practice, this lively and accessible book offers a critical vision that enables designers and students of design of all disciplines to reflect on the purpose of their profession. This book makes the case that professional designers should contribute to the promotion of others' well-being by designing a world in which people can flourish. Using many examples, it helps practitioners and students to analyse the ethics of the work they are asked to do, and guides them in designing material and immaterial artefacts that are conducive to human flourishing. The book also empowers them to discover and analyse the possible moral consequences of their designs, and to act thereupon. If design is, as Herbert Simon argued, 'concerned with how things ought to be', the influence designers have over the lives of others should not to be taken lightly"--.

• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Figures
• Introduction and Overview
  • Aligning Our View About Design
  • Aligning Our View About Ethics
  • Who Is This Book For?
  • Plan for the Book
  • Notes
• Part I: The Design Profession
  • 1 Design, Designers, and Normativity
    • Conditions and Epistemic Boundaries for Design
    • Two Views of Design Activity
    • The Normative Dimension of Design Outcomes
    • Notes
  • 2 Professions as Moral Projects
    • Occupations and Professions
    • Two Key Elements Beyond Competence
    • Professionalism and Its Discontents
    • Professional Ethics in a Nutshell
    • Doesn’t Design Need a Code of Ethics?
    • Notes
  • 3 Is Design a Profession?
    • The Cognitive Element
    • The Public Service Element
    • Design Profession or Design Professions?
    • Notes
  • 4 Necessary Objections and a Call to Action
    • First Objection: Manipulation
    • Reply to the Objection of Manipulation
    • Second Objection: Consumerism
    • Reply to the Objection of Consumerism
    • Third Objection: Unintended Consequences
    • Unintended Consequences Revisited: Taming the Uncertainty
    • Where Ethics and Design Meet
    • Notes
• Part II: An Inquiry into Design Professional Ethics
  • 5 Charting an Inquiry into Design Professional Ethics
    • Charting the Ground for the Inquiry
    • A Direction for the Inquiry
    • The Need for Broadness
    • Limitations, Difficulties, and Perspectives
    • Notes
  • 6 A Philosophical Foundation for Our Inquiry
    • A Primer to Virtue Ethics
    • Alternative Approaches: Principle-based Ethics
    • Enter Alasdair MacIntyre
    • Notes
• Part III: Toward a Practice-Centred Design Professional Ethics
  • 7 Uncovering a Purpose for Design
    • From Design Practice to Overarching Purpose
    • Design as a MacIntyrean Practice
    • A Key Contribution: Extending Abilities and Powers
    • Design’s Purpose and the Flourishing of Others
    • From Powers to Capabilities
    • Reflections around the Telos of Design
    • Regulative Ideals as Internalised Guidelines for Action
    • Notes
  • 8 The Full Circle
    • Design and the Virtues
    • Responsibility as a Virtue
    • Empathy and Moral Imagination
    • Design Complexity and Practical Wisdom
    • Two Objections: ‘Responsivity’ and Paternalism
    • Notes
  • 9 Flourishing and Enduring as a Designer
    • Institutions and External Goods: Tensions and Corruption
    • Constancy, Integrity, and Compartmentalisation
    • Closing Remarks and Connections
    • Notes
• Coda: Teaching Design Professional Ethics
  • How to Foster the Development of Ethical Expertise
  • Connections with Design Methodology
  • Notes
• Further Reading
  • Design and Policy Making
  • Participatory Design and Emerging Roles for Design
  • Consumption and the Anthropocene
  • Philosophy and Studies of Technology
  • Design Ethics
  • General Introductions to Ethics
  • Virtue Ethics
  • Applied Topics Analysed from a Virtue Ethical Perspective
  • The Capability Approach
  • Capabilities and Design
• Bibliography
• Index