Design as a School of Ethics: A Hegelian Approach to Moral Life in Designers

نوع مقاله : مقاله علمی- پژوهشی

نویسندگان

1 دانشجوی دکتری طراحی صنعتی، دانشگاه هنر اسلامی تبریز، تبریز، ایران.

2 دانشیار گروه طراحی صنعتی، دانشگاه هنر اسلامی تبریز، تبریز، ایران.

3 استاد گروه روانشناسی تربیتی، دانشگاه شیراز، شیراز، ایران.

4 استادیار گروه فلسفه و اخلاق، دانشگاه صنعتی آیندهوون، آیندهوون، هلند.

چکیده

This article interprets design not merely as a technical activity but as a site for the realization of ethical life in Hegel’s sense. Its theoretical framework builds on Hegel’s tripartite ethical model, right (recht), morality (moralität), and ethical Life (sittlichkeit), to show how design experience, when situated in institutional roles, mediation of value tensions, and practices of mutual recognition, contributes to the actualization of freedom and responsibility in the social sphere. Methodologically, the study adopts an interpretive–analytical approach, drawing on a close reading of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and major commentaries, brought into dialogue with contemporary literature on design ethics. Findings indicate that the legal and institutional structuring of design, while necessary as the formal ground of freedom, remains insufficient unless complemented by the internalization of responsibility at the individual level and its further embedding within social and professional institutions. Only through this progression can design approach what Hegel conceptualized as “freedom realized in the world of human institutions.” The analysis further reveals that ethical tensions, arising from conflicting stakeholder demands or gaps between individual ideals and institutional realities, are not peripheral but constitutive drivers of moral reflection in design practice. Yet the same institutional structures that enable recognition and accountability may also impose constraints that limit the scope of freedom’s realization. The study concludes that design can serve as a formative arena of ethical life, where freedom, duty, and mutual recognition are historically and socially shaped and reinterpreted. This reframing provides a conceptual foundation for future research on how design experience both reflects and shapes moral life within diverse institutional contexts.

کلیدواژه‌ها

موضوعات

عنوان مقاله [English]

Design as a School of Ethics: A Hegelian Approach to Moral Life in Designers

نویسندگان [English]

  • Mahshid Barani 1
  • Seyyed Ali Faregh 2
  • Ahad Shahhoseini 2
  • Mahboubeh Alborzi 3
  • Gunter Bombaerts 4
1 PhD Candidate, Department of Industrial Design, Tabriz Islamic Art University, Tabriz, Iran.
2 Associate Professor, Department of Industrial Design, Tabriz Islamic Art University, Tabriz, Iran.
3 Professor, Department of Educational Psychology, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran.
4 Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy & Ethics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
چکیده [English]

This article interprets design not merely as a technical activity but as a site for the realization of ethical life in Hegel’s sense. Its theoretical framework builds on Hegel’s tripartite ethical model, right (recht), morality (moralität), and ethical Life (sittlichkeit), to show how design experience, when situated in institutional roles, mediation of value tensions, and practices of mutual recognition, contributes to the actualization of freedom and responsibility in the social sphere. Methodologically, the study adopts an interpretive–analytical approach, drawing on a close reading of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and major commentaries, brought into dialogue with contemporary literature on design ethics. Findings indicate that the legal and institutional structuring of design, while necessary as the formal ground of freedom, remains insufficient unless complemented by the internalization of responsibility at the individual level and its further embedding within social and professional institutions. Only through this progression can design approach what Hegel conceptualized as “freedom realized in the world of human institutions.” The analysis further reveals that ethical tensions, arising from conflicting stakeholder demands or gaps between individual ideals and institutional realities, are not peripheral but constitutive drivers of moral reflection in design practice. Yet the same institutional structures that enable recognition and accountability may also impose constraints that limit the scope of freedom’s realization. The study concludes that design can serve as a formative arena of ethical life, where freedom, duty, and mutual recognition are historically and socially shaped and reinterpreted. This reframing provides a conceptual foundation for future research on how design experience both reflects and shapes moral life within diverse institutional contexts.

کلیدواژه‌ها [English]

  • Moral Development
  • Hegelian Ethics
  • Moral Life
  • Design Experience
  • Situated Moral Subjectivity
  • Experiential Learning

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