Ethics in design (and who you won’t work with)
I read a comment from designer Miles Newlyn where he mentioned he wouldn’t work with zoos or companies involved in warfare. I’ll be writing a chapter in my book about ethical considerations so was wondering about the stance of others. I asked this question on Twitter.
What type of business would you refuse to work with on ethical grounds?
Here are some of the answers that were shared (albeit with a crossover into morals, a point discussed in the comment thread below).
“I stay away from anything I don’t fully understand (and can’t see if they’re beneficial). Financial products are a good example.”
— Richard Baird
“Cigarette branding for obvious ethical implications.”
— Ben Powell
“Extremist religious/movement groups, family.”
— Phil Stringfellow
“Gambling. Their business model should not be dependant on the illness of addiction.”
— Mel
“Online gambling and classified sites/businesses that include an adult services section (i.e. Village Voice Media).”
— Amara Poolswasdi
“Tobacco and religious organisations.”
— Mark Bradford
“Oil/petrochemical, tobacco, companies with shady practices such as Monsanto.”
— Abbas Arezoo
“Anything even remotely to do with the adult entertainment industry.”
— Tim Phelan
“Tobacco and gambling are the two I would never touch.”
— Guy Moorhouse
“Any type of business taking advantage of slave labour in third world countries.”
— Lejla Kuric
“Our ethical policy excludes companies with poor human rights/exploitation or environmental records. Nestle, BP, etc.”
— Dave McCourt
“If you work in the quasi-public sector (as I do) the only business’ you can refuse to work with are those operating illegally or those which can provably ‘bring [your] institution into disrepute’.”
— Gabriel M. Clarke
“I’ve just refused to do pics for an abbatoir training resource *vegetarian shudder* for obvious reasons.”
— Leanne J
“Trophy hunting.”
— Josephine Jost
That last comment reminded me of one company I choose not to do business with.
Has your ethical stance ever ruled out (or won you) a client?
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Update: 14 May 2012
My understanding of the difference between ethics and morals isn’t as good as it could be, so my thanks to Andy and Melissa for offering their help in the comment thread.
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Resources:
Ethics in Graphic Design, a blog by Eileen MacAvery Kane
A quick primer for ethics in design
Crumpled note image via Thinkstock
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34 appreciated comments on “Ethics in design (and who you won’t work with)”
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Hi David,
This is interesting to me because I’m always thinking about the kind of clients/companies I would want to work with, as I sense that working with a particular client would reflect on me in some way or another that may do more harm than good. I realize I still have a ways to go until I graduate before I have to make any big decisions, but it’s a thought that I now see means a lot to other designers as well so I will remain cautious about who I end up working with.
I won’t work with anyone referencing or relating to criminal or illegal activity nor anyone with a bad reputation. Nice to know GoDaddy is known for shooting elephants. That’s inhumane… and sickening.
Anyways, hope all is well.
I won’t work with a client from the adult industry. Apart from that I won’t work with any company who is found to disrespect basic human rights.
It’s disappointing and not at all surprising to see the people in nearly every example here mistake morals for ethics. There are only four instances of ethics-based choices here, while there are eleven instances of choices based on morals, including the example in the introduction (and at least one of the entries listed includes both moral and ethical issues). The example from Gabriel M. Clarke is excellent and highly instructive regarding the distinction between ethics and morals.
There are both common institutional and societal reasons for these mistakes. I invite people to investigate and learn why.
Years ago, one of my first “word of mouth” (via a friend) projects was to set up a website for hunting in Africa (where I was based). It took me two weeks to pluck up the guts to say NO, to what would have been my first paying gig, from someone other than family. I am glad every time I think about it that I said no. Other than that, all the obvious ones, adult related stuff, tobacco and diet ‘miracle’ drugs…actually, more than I realised!
Slave trade? Are there a lot of those types of sites around? Would seem like they would be very underground… well maybe a sex trade website i.e. escort service could be construed as slave trade? Neither of which I’d be involved with.
Others include gambling, general adult (anything my kids or grandmother can’t look at). And then there are any of the types of sites that I think would violate my environmental values.
Jamie, thankfully, the GoDaddy case led me to a better service provider, too. I’d grown tired of the constant upselling and cluttered website. And all is well, thanks.
Juan, how’s the health? I hope the fight’s going as good as it can.
Andy, I don’t think there can be any surprise when definitions are blurred. Particularly when one dictionary listing mentions the other, and the two words are categorised as synonyms.
Ethics: a system of moral principles.
Morals: of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical: moral attitudes.
Generally, it would seem that ethics are more often applied to businesses and professions, whereas morals are more in tune with how a society acts or is expected to. But there seems to be plenty of overlap. It’d be good to know your distinction between the two.
Vanessa, good on you for standing by your principles.
@Andy I suppose you could loosely say that they’re from the consequentialism branch of ethics? Otherwise, yes, they’re moral decisions.
As long as it isn’t illegal, I don’t have a moral standpoint on who I would or wouldn’t work with.
David, I’m trying to hang in there as best as I can. Thanks for asking.
Thanks for also sharing the GoDaddy story. I guess it’s time for me to look for a new host to move my stuff to.
David,
The institutional and societal reasons I mentioned are, in large part, directly related to the fact most people today care so little about morals and ethics that they rely merely on what a dictionary has to say to define their understanding; and few know why or how to to suggest better.
These are crucial, consequential issues that require serious study and deep understanding, yet so few today care. The results are evident and compound year by year. One result is the highly unprofessional profession we have.
@David On a not-directed-at-me aside, (and sorry for the addition; that’ll teach me to refresh), but I would personally consider ethics to be the framework for the morals (the ‘system’ in your definition), not the morals themselves (in which your definition explicitly mentions the concepts of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’). So, the reason why something is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ rather than the statement of ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ itself (e.g., ‘Trophy hunting is wrong’ is the moral, and ‘animal suffering’ may be the ethical framework it hangs off?).
And I’ll stop interjecting, now.
This topic piqued my interest this morning because I find myself knee-deep in political work this year in the States. Fortunately, the work is all for the party that I tend to agree and vote with. However, it’s crossed my mind more than once of what choice I would make should a political party I did not side with would choose to pursue my services. Said services are strictly design work.
David, who do you use for web hosting in lieu of GoDaddy? I’ve moved my client hosting away from them. The elephant shoot is offensive, as is their incredibly sexist ad campaign. I’ve had luck with BlueHost but found it to be quite a bit more costly. Any info you can share would be appreciated.
David,
In answer to your request, I don’t have “my distinction” between morals and ethics and if I did it would be meaningless for anyone else. I hold to “the” distinctions.
Ethics are beholden to or guided by the codified societal strictures: laws and professional codes. Morals are deeper and relate to personal values. There is but a single objective morality: the right of a person to his/her own life and everything that can come of it: his personal property and the results of his efforts, his genius.
Morals distinguish between right and wrong. Ethics distinguish between outward socially appropriate behaviors in practice. Tobacco is legal, so there is nothing unethical about working with a tobacco company. A choice to not work with a tobacco company is a personal values choice based on morals.
If, however, you are a defense lawyer, your choice to defend a murder suspect is *the* ethical one. Providing less than your best efforts to present a defense for an accused murderer would be unethical, despite the fact that you find murder abhorrent.
Andy, admittedly the differences are something I haven’t seriously studied, so thanks very much for sharing those scenarios.
Melissa, no need to apologise at all. I appreciate that you took time out over here.
Juan, Matthew, this blog is hosted by ICDSoft. The cheapest option is probably comparable with GoDaddy (and there’s a 25% discount link in my blog’s footer if it’s of interest).
Here’s a decent tool if you want to know what company hosts other blogs/websites: http://www.whoishostingthis.com/
I recommend keeping your domain registration with a different company from Web hosting. It’ll give you just that little bit extra control should something happen to one or the other.
That leaves me wondering, who ultimately defines the ethical behaviour by which designers work? Our schools? Our design employers? The design organisations that so many aren’t a part of?
Back to the books.
The problem today is, that one never knows exactly what your clients connection is to other corporations or what their personal behaviors are (I.E. Go Daddy story.. )
I work exclusively with small businesses and it is a great deal easier to discover lapses in ethics. Likewise it is also easy for me to get business through my chamber of commerce where I see the client often at chamber meetings and listen to them talking “off the record”. (Especially if it is an occasion when wine or whiskey is served.)
Having said all that, I have never been approached by any business I considered questionable, I guess that is because I don’t travel in those circles and I don’t do mass advertising. I use direct marketing approach and let businesses I would LIKE to work with know that I am available.
Thanks for initiating this conversation. I have been intrigued by the replies I have read.
I propose a slightly different way of seeing the issue to which we apply the label “ethics” and “morality.” I wonder if fundamentally, it all comes down to this: A group of people (organization, company, society, nation, culture, etc.) defines, consciously or otherwise, the rules that determine what is appropriate behavior or actions for individuals within the group to do and not do. On the other side, we have individuals who define within their personal world view their rules of what is appropriate to do or not to do. When an individual interacts with the group and their is a conflict, how do we consciously resolve it as individuals? For me, if my personal rules of what is appropriate to do or not do are strong rules of certainty, then I will not pursue or accept work from groups that violate that personal certainty. The personal challenge is how well do I consciously know the rules I live by that may be challenged by the activities I pursue within the profession.
You can have quiet inward reservations about a client’s professional *or* personal integrity.
But not both.
You may find yourself working on a project for someone who is a great professional and a joy to work with, and you know all along that their project is a daft idea that will never work. And it doesn’t, and there are no hard feelings. And that’s okay.
You may also find yourself clenching your teeth through meetings with the human equivalent of nails on a blackboard, who just for good measure throws little sarcastic snipes at you to remind you who’s boss, but you finish the project because their business is solid and they will do what it takes to make it a success. And they do.
On the other hand, you may have a client who makes increasingly absurd excuses for not giving you their content, despite writing content for a living. Or you have a client who instructs you – this being an exact quote – “think of something and I’ll get some money out to you”, meaning “just make something for fun and I’ll throw some cash your way – we’re pals, after all!”
In those cases both the personal and professional ethics are absent.
Ultimately you need to evaluate each situation and decide whether your concerns are simply your own personality clashing with someone who isn’t quite like you, or if it’s a matter of conduct as well as conscience.
David,
Your last comment/question is astute. The answer is varied and manifold, but a short answer is that competent professionals need no codified code of ethics to constrain them because their moral core and deep industry understanding makes ethical and unethical boundaries abundantly clear.
In a largely disorganized profession like the design profession, some organizations attempt to codify codes of ethics, but as I’ve pointed out before, they invariably amount to irrational, unworkable, undefinable standards and are therefore useless. A profession’s code of ethics can only be properly codified if the profession is top-down controlled and regulated. This is not so with design.
I am in business to make a profit, which to some people’s beliefs makes me a part of the problem. However, as individuals have the right to choose what products and services they use I am happy to work with any company, product or service that is legal in the country in which my company is based (presently the UK).
I feel that any other position is a damning judgement on the level of control of the individual and I’m uncomfortable with that and to where it leads.
Anthony
I actually think Andy’s definition of ethics is restricted. Ethics are not “beholden to or guided by the codified societal strictures” such as “laws and professional codes”. Ethics are not limited to or guided by societal stricture at all, because “ethics” is a just a branch of philosophy (coloquially called moral philosophy, amusingly). Even ethical systems and codes are not guided by society. It is the acceptance of an ethical system that is guided by whatever ethical system the majority of people in a society happen to follow. For example, the ethics of intrinsic value validates a hedonistic lifestyle (where the intrinsic value is found in pleasure, and subsequently the only instrinsic ‘good’ or ‘right’ is pursuit of pleasure) regardless of what that pleasure is. As an extreme example, murder may be pleasurable and therefore ‘good’ and ‘right’ within that framework. However, the larger society or community is governed by a legal framework, in which murder is ‘bad’ and ‘wrong’, so there is little-to-no acceptance of that particular ethical system by the majority ethical system. Basically, when it comes to acceptance of an ethical system, majority rules. We already have multiple ethical systems in place in our lives (the law and professional codes are good examples of systems that are compatible with one another) because of the societal structure we are born into, which are constantly reinforced/indoctrinated, so it can be difficult (or, impossible some say) to look at anything without bias.
The idea of “objective morality” (or, universal morality) is also ultimately questionable, because this would be claiming that there is a fixed ethical system that can always apply for everyone (although, honestly, I only say that because I come from a position of moral nihilism). And Andy’s statement: “Tobacco is legal, so there is nothing unethical about working with a tobacco company” could more correctly phrased to say: “Tobacco is legal, so there is nothing illegal about working with a tobacco company” because you’re already giving primacy to the ethical framework of the law in that statement. To make the phrase more universal, it could become: “Tobacco is ethical, so there is nothing unethical about working with tobacco”. Whether it is actually ‘ethical’ or ‘unethical’ depends upon the code of ethics a person subscribes to, and whether their decision to work with the tobacco company is consistent (ethical) or not (unethical) within that framework.
I agree with Andy; since design is not regulated (unlike, say, the medical profession), it becomes difficult to enforce a code of ethics (unless it is voluntary self-regulation, like joining an organisation). Regulation means that the medical profession uses the legal system and professional censure to control the actions of those in the profession. The design world has no such means of control, which is why there may be censure from fellow professionals or wider society, but no legal consequences. And since legal consequences are generally what cause people to toe a particular line…
My personal shorthand: Morals distinguish between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Ethical systems provide the reasons for why those things are right and wrong. Ethics is the logic (systemisation and defence) of ethical systems. And meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics try to understand the formation of those systems.
That was longer than I intended it to be.
Basically, everyone should look into the subject of ethics a bit, because it is incredibly fascinating!
WOW………… Plato’s (not Pandora’s) box has been opened!
I must say this discourse is fascinating! But have we answered the question? If no one designed web sites for porn or gambling if no one created ads for cigarette companies, if we never designed packaging for genetically modified foods, would we create a better world? Or would those things be sent underground and still flourish?
I don’t know that street gangs, cocaine dealers, pimps or companies that harvest old growth forests advertise yet they flourish! Everyone in the United States has eaten genetically modified foods whether they know it or not. Life goes on here in Los Angeles even though people in Japan still have no housing after the Tsunami, and Banks and financial institutions continue to play games.
Designers can be powerful movers and shakers! We have a powerful tool to create change. So to me it is not about “Who would you NOT work for?” the question is “What company or non profit would you do Pro Bono work for, just for the sake of ethics (or morals)!? and then….why haven’t you done it?
Good post, interesting to see peoples response on this topic.
I find this subject interesting but as a student one of the things I’m concerned about is when we should start questioning which briefs we take on. All of ours are purely hypothetical at the minute so I don’t have much trouble answering them, however recently Occupy Design urged students not to answer a hypothetical D&AD student awards brief. I’m interested to know whether agencies look at a student’s moral compass when looking through a portfolio or accept that it is out of their control?
@Abbas Arezoo Do you drive a car?
Melissa,
I appreciate that you admit to being a nihilist, as your response very clearly demonstrate for all of us the consequences of moral nihilism. We should all take note.
Anything that is to me immoral, or unethical.
Most of the already listed ones… Tobacco companies, trophy hunting, anyone who has links to slave/sex trade, adult companies of any kind, anything that contradicts my personal belief system because what is the point of having one if I sacrifice it for the sake of money?? Maybe that makes me picky and/or naive but I don’t think I could live with myself!
I would find it difficult to do anything related to religion, not just because of an ethical stance, but more so because I feel that I could not/would not design well for that market (being an atheist). I know they have every right to exist, no matter how against them I am, and feel that they deserve a designer that will truly care about what they are designing. Frankly, I think my personal feelings toward the subject matter would cloud my ability to create a successful design. The ethical part is that I would not want my name associated with organized religion in any way.
Ethics in design is the way YOU conduct yourself with your business and the way you conduct yourself with your clients. If you are willing to skirt the law in your business by using copyrighted material or over or under charge for services, are you not unethical? If you enter into an agreement with legal companies or persons and do not try to cheat or steal from this arrangement this is considered ethical. Everything else is a moral choice, big pharma or tobacco or alcohol is a moral obstacle for some. As religion or abortion clinics or politicians are as well. Ethics has more to do with a designers legalities, integrity, and morality all rolled into one.
A lot of people on this board go for the easy examples…what about fudging it or cutting corners or looking the other way. Or, saying that you did something when you really didn’t in an interview for fear of not getting business or a job. I have met a lot of designers who have no clue when it comes to honesty or integrity and are willing to skirt the small stuff to make a buck or lie to get a job. These same designers post on forums how they couldn’t work on this or that but in reality they have no ethos or integrity to speak of. Which is worse or is it a wash?
BTW…long time no speak David…i fondly remember the discussions on myspace design forums…that is for another time.
Hi Scott, that was back when I just took up self-employment. Seems like a long time ago. I hope business has been good for you since then.
Thanks very much for continuing the debate here, folks. Plenty for me to think about before I mention the topic for print.
Hi David.
Bit of a storm blowing on Twitter and Facebook about Billboards currently all over Dublin for Youth Defence’s anti-abortion campaign and I was reminded of this post. I am not saying the issue should not be discussed, it is a very important, but I think this campaign is more shock and fear than information. The designers and those who hire them, on whatever side of the argument they be on, should at least have the brains to treat the issue seriously and sensitively and not just be out for the sensationalism. I know that somewhere there is someone thinking ‘hey brilliant, look at how many people are talking about or campaign’ but personally it’s not how I would like to do it.
I wasn’t aware of the campaign, Steven. Thanks for mentioning it. So I found this article on Huffington Post with an interesting comment thread. I agree. It’s not how I’d do it. In fact, as I’m not anti-abortion I wouldn’t do it any way.
Like you already wrote, “Any type of business taking advantage of slave labour in third world countries.”
And anything related to beers, because of personal experiences with alcoholics, I know there´s other worse substances, that I wouldn’t work either, but specially with that one.
And our studio is in Vancouver, Canada (www.yworld.com) , we just work on a project, but I think that all of us would answer the same about the third world countries.
I couldn’t be involved in an organisation that offers abortion. Since I work in child protection and the human services sector, my hands will not be bloodied with the death of an innocent baby, whatever the circumstance. There is no excuse or reasoning adequate enough to kill a baby. Human beings are so so selfish. Our society is horrified at Hitler and Stalin’s responsibility for genocide but turn their eyes away from an obvious travesty.
When you were a child it was black and white. Abortion would be horrific to a child, it should be to adults too. The value of life never changes, but I guess our excuses and compassion does.