COP lecture- ethics-what is good?

First things first- garland 1964
argues that visual communicators and creators in comtempary society in 80s wasting talent by taking jobs such as advertising toothpaste and cigarettes. Use your talent don't waste them on trivial jobs that don't benefit society.

Manifesto was re published in adjusters in 2000. Tells us that we are told that we should use our talents for advertising. if your encouraging people to buy credit cards with your talents, you are encouraging people to get themselves into debt.
participating n a system thats brain washing people?

Ken Garland, Kalle Lasn, Rick Poyner

anti capitalism designer, anti consumerist designer
culture jamming- use skills to promote political cause.
detournment
advertising puts a meme in our heads that we can't forget
'im lovin it' is a meme.
advertising design- advertising for things you don't need to impress people that dont care-papernick- were all contributing to making the world un ethical
papenek beer can automobile can bumper 1971- home made bumper that was safer than the original.

how do we determine what is good?
subjective relativeism 
-There are no universal moral norms of eight and wrong
-All persons decide right and wrong for themselves
cultural relativism
-the ethical theory that what is righ for wrong depends on the place and time
devine command theory
-good actions are aligned with the will of god
-bad actions are contrary to the will of god
-the holy book helps make the decisions

Kantianism (deological ethics)
-Immanuel kant (1724-1804) a german philosopher 
-peoples wills should be based on moral rules
-therefore its important that our actions are based on appropriate moral rules
-to determine when a moral rule is appropriate kant proposed to categorical imperatives.

Two formulations of the categorical imperative
-act only from moral rules that you can at the same time universalise
-if you act on a moral rule that would cause problems if everyone followed it then your actions are not moral

-act so that you always treat both yourself and other people as end in themselves and never only as a means to an end.
-if you use people for your own benefit that is not moral.

Utilitarianism, or consequentialist ethics (john stuart mill)
principle of utility
-an action is right to the extent that it increases the total happiness of the affected parties
- an action is wrong to the extent that it decreases the total happiess on the affected parties
-happiness may have many definitions such as: advantage, benefit, good or pleasure
Rules are based on the principle of utility
-a rule is right to the extent that it increases the total happened of the affected parties 
-the greatest happiness principle is applies to moral rules
Similar to kantianism-both pertain to rules 
-but kantianism uses the categorial imperative to decide which rules to follow.

Social contract theory
-thomas hobbes (1603-1679) and jean-jaques rousseau (1712-1778)
-an agreement between individuals held together by common interest
-avoids society degenerating into the state of nature or the war of all against all
-morality consists in the set of riles governing how people are the rest one another that rational people will agree to accept for their mutual benefit on the condition that other follow those rules as well. 
-we trade some of our liberty for a stable society.
ripping up the current social contract and replacing it with a new one but would only work if everyone bought into it

Toolbox of moral/ethical theories
whether presented with problems that are easy or difficult to solve the four workable ethics theories
-kantianism
-act utilitarianism
-rile utilitarianism
-social contact theory
could provide us with possible solutions to many of problems that ae raised by the first things first manifesto


critera for a workable ethical theory?
-moral decisions and rules
-based on logical reasoning
-come from facts and commonly held or shares values
-culturally neutral
-treat everyone equally
aim for socially and ecologically responsible design

paperken radio- not just something that can be made cheep and sold to poorer people- its designed to be made from things that are freely available that people can make for them selves. powered by elephant dung. - treated people as end not means to an end.