Special Issue: Ethics In/Of/For Design

As design increasingly positions itself as a discipline that can help address pressing societal challenges (e.g., migration, climate crisis, the impact of AI), revitalizing the scholarly discussion on design ethics becomes inevitable. Surprisingly though, the scholarly discussion on design ethics remains rather vague, scattered, and theoretically underdeveloped (Chan, 2018). This is partially due to the broadness and complexity of the field and partially due to a lack of discourse on the normative orientations of design that originates from within the discipline (vs. through the gaze of other disciplines).

In the context of this call, we frame design ethics as an invitation to care and argue against reducing it to a methodology, framework, checklist, toolkit, or an afterthought. This broad framing highlights that ‘ethics’ can carry multiple meanings in different contexts (e.g. responsible, critical, democratic) and can be approached from various theoretical perspectives (e.g. historical, cultural, speculative). Consequently, we recognize the need for a nuanced and reflexive discussion on how design and ethics are intertwined. For this, we aim to look back on design, as a discipline and profession, with critical historical awareness, while also looking forward with cautious optimism. We welcome both theoretical papers that unpack specific conceptual perspectives and practice-based explorations (e.g. in communities, organizations, policy-making).

We invite the submission of papers focusing on but not restricted to:

1. Responsible research and innovation: What are the ethical and societal implications of designing for innovation (processes, strategies, artifacts)? How to nurture ethical awareness and accountability in design practices for technological innovation?
2. Ethics of design methods and practices: What are the main challenges facing the methods of design as designers take up increasingly strategic roles (e.g. as social or systemic designers) in addressing complex social issues? How to stimulate critical engagement with design methods?
3. The Ethics of influence: What are the ethical dimensions of using behavioral science insights, such as nudging and persuasion, in guiding people’s behavior?
4. The ethics of collaboration: What are the main questions concerning power, agency, and positionality that design should recognize and address in inter- and transdisciplinary settings that it increasingly operates in? How to stimualte such ethical awareness and political agency?
5. Ethics in education: What role could and should Ethics play in Design education? And what are the specifics of Design education in contrast to, e.g., Engineering education?
6. Aesthetics of design: How are the materiality of design (e.g., images, prototypes, graphics) and our perceptions of the world intertwined? What does this aesthetics say about design as a discipline?
7. Ethics for social and climate justice: How does design prevent and perpetuate social inequalities and the exploitation of natural resources?

The topical issue “Ethics in / of / for Design” is organized in collaboration with the Special Interest Group “Design Ethics” of the Design Research Society (DRS). The idea for this issue was born when preparing a “Design Ethics” track for the DRS 2024 conference. However, the call is open for all scholars who want to contribute to the debate.