Ethics - What is Good?

Ethics - What is Good?

Extension on consumerism.

Consider ethics to highlight and strengthen my research question  "what makes a good brand image"

How to be a "good" visual communicator based on ancient greek philosophies. 

First things first manifesto - Ken Garland 1964

Explains waste of talent back then by taking on consumerist driven jobs, like advertising washing detergents and dog foods.

Republished in Adbuster, an anti capitalist journal, changed original manifesto to something more political. 

It suggests that designers are encouraging people to get into debt by promoting credit card through there persuasive creative skill sets, cigarettes kill people, sneakers are produced by workers who get paid penny's and the product is sold on for hundreds of dollars. 

"Consumerism is running uncontested" Adbuster suggests use your talents to destroy capitalism, they suggest the only ethical designer is the anti capitalist/anti consumerist designer.

Victor Papanek 

He suggests things aren't created to benefit the world, its for the profit margins and finical advantage for big business's.

He suggests a theory called the Design Problem. 

Designers never really consider the real issue there addressing, just concentrate on promoting the product and not considering its background, how its made and its effect on the environment or social factors.

How do we determine what is good?

Consider these aspects to create ethically sound branding or what makes good brand image.  

Subjective Relativism

There are no universal moral norms of right and wrong

All persons decide right and wrong for themselves

What if everyone in society does everything they see is the right thing to do? Things would turn into chaos. 

Cultural Relativism

The ethical theory that whats right or wrong depends on place and/or time

Different cultures have different views on things so an obvious clash can happen, so all cultural view points need to be considered to achieve an overall brand image that suites multiple audiences.

Divine 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 impressions

Kantianism (Deontological ethics)

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) a German philosopher. 

He suggests that:

Peoples decisions within life should be based on moral rules.

Therefor its important that our actions are based on appropriate moral rules

To determine when a moral rule is appropriate he proposed two categorical imperatives 

Two formulations of the Categorical Imperative

Act only from rules that you can at the same time universalize (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 ends in themselves, and never only as a means to and end (If you use people for your own benefit that is not moral)

Utilitarianism, or Consequentialist approach to ethics (John Stuart Mill)

Principle of utility 

An action is right to the extent that it increases the total happiness of the affected parties (Target audience, and company your rebranding would be a consideration here when it comes to successful branding)

An action is wrong to the extent that it decreases the total happiness of 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 & accepted to the extent that it increases the total happiness of the affected parties.

The great happiness principle is applied to moral rules.

Similar to Kantianism - both are based on rules

But Kantianism uses the categorical imperative to decide which rules to follow. 

All commercial work isn't unethical, Adbusters paint a very negative picture of it and its slightly contradictory considering the people making these statements are very financially well off from making these statements & arguments. 

Criteria for a workable Ethical Theory?

Moral decisions and rules

Based on logic decisions and reasoning

Come from facts and commonly held or shared values

Cultural neutral 

Benefits the world & planet rather than promote obvious harm

Advertising is not Evil.

Consider the effects on everything I produce based on social, environmental and political issues.

Thoughts from this lecture to influence my practice
As with the lecture on consumerism I see lots of opportunity within analysing key points made in this lecture on ethics and the last lecture on consumerism as a good starting point for highlighting key points on what could potentially go towards "creating a good brand image" and will help form a basis to answering this essay question.