Ethics in Design Education, but different: Practicing the Practical Turn

Design education has looked for different approaches to teaching ethics and ethical behaviour. In this paper I want to add an approach that is coming from the collaboration between design research and philosophy of technology. Philosophy of Technology has produced a substantive amount of theories and reflections about the impacts of technology and innovations on our daily lives and social behaviours. To make the reflections from philosophy of technology more tangible for design engineering students we experimented over the years with different tools and practical approaches in order to integrate these perspectives directly in the design process. In analogy with the empirical turn before, we named this closer integration with design ‘the Practical Turn in Philosophy of Technology’. My argument now is that by using these insights, one can cultivate ethical reflection with design engineering students by directly informing their design process in what I call ‘practicing the practical turn’.
In this paper I will show this approach alongside the results of a one week workshop with a group of students from the University of Antwerp in the context of responsible design for public space.