The Ethics of Architecture

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Kingwell
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Le Corbusier ◽  
Basic Material ◽  
Fair Trading ◽  
Environmental Friendliness ◽  
Architectural Practice ◽  
Jane Jacobs ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
Lewis Mumford

The Ethics of Architecture offers a short and approachable scholarly introduction to a timely question: In a world of increasing population density, how does one construct habitable spaces that promote social goals like health, happiness, environmental friendliness, and justice? What are the special ethical obligations assumed by architects? Because their work creates the basic material conditions that make all other human activity possible, architects and their associates in building enjoy vast influence on how we all live, work, play, worship, and think. With this influence comes tremendous, and not always examined, responsibility. This book addresses the range of ethical issues that architects face, with a broad understanding of ethics. Beyond strictly professional duties—transparency, technical competence, fair trading—lie more profound issues that move into aesthetic, political, and existential realms. Does an architect have a duty to create art, if not always beautiful art? Should an architect feel obliged to serve a community and not simply the client? Is social justice a possible orientation for architectural practice? Is there such a thing as feeling compelled to “shelter being” in architectural work? By taking these usually abstract questions into the region of physical creation, the book attempts a concrete reformulation of “architectural ethics” as a matter of deep reflection on the architect’s role as both citizen and caretaker. Thinkers and makers discussed include Le Corbusier, Martin Heidegger, Lewis Mumford, Rem Koolhaas, Jane Jacobs, Arthur Danto, and John Rawls. An added preface addresses architectural issues arising during and after the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

Game Analysis on Problem of Food Safety in the Agricultural Products Supply Chain

2010 ◽  
Vol 20-23 ◽  
pp. 1040-1045 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheng Hua Shi ◽  
Zi Lai Sun ◽  
Kun Jing Dong
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Food Safety ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Agricultural Products ◽  
Basic Material ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Survival And Development ◽  
The Game Theory ◽  
The Government ◽  
Material Conditions

Food is the most basic material conditions of survival and development of human society, its security situation is relation to the health and safety of consumer directly. This paper analyze the reasons of causing problems of food quality and safety in the agricultural products supply chain from the perspective of the game theory as well as the government incentive and regulatory mechanisms affect the decision-making of farmers and food producers respectively. In the game between crop growers - farmers and food producers, the government play the outsider role and should give farmers subsidies to encourage them to grow high-quality green crops, as far as possible to ensure food safety from the source. In the game between producers and regulators, the government, as the game participant, should be asked to improve the supervision efficiency and the control ability to prevent unqualified food products entering the market.

Designing the Person: Sociological Assumptions Embodied within the Architecture of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Le Corbusier

2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-162
Author(s):  
Clare Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Le Corbusier ◽  
Western Society ◽  
Architectural Practice ◽  
Individual Person ◽  
Interesting Insight ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Insight Into

This essay presents a comparative study of the sociological assumptions implicit, and to some extent explicit, in the work of two famous architects, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Le Corbusier. The inhabitant implied through the architectural practice of Le Corbusier resembles Elias's homo clausus (closed person), the mode of self experience viewed by Elias as the dominant one in Western society and one which sees the individual person as a ‘thinking subject’ and the starting point of knowledge. Mackintosh's designs, in contrast, imply individual people closer to Elias‘s homines aperti, social beings who are shaped through social interaction and interdependence. This paper demonstrates how, as well as fulfilling social, cultural and political needs, architecture carries, within in its designs, certain assumptions about how people and how they do, and should, live. The adoption of an Eliasian perspective provides an interesting insight into how these assumptions can shape self-experience and social interaction in the buildings of each architect.

scholarly journals Flying Car Transportation System: Advances, Techniques, and Challenges

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaofeng pan ◽  
Mohamed-Slim Alouini
Keyword(s):  
Public Transportation ◽  
Traffic Congestion ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Transportation Systems ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Environmental Friendliness ◽  
Safety Issues ◽  
Inherent Nature ◽  
Car Transportation

In order to fulfill transportation demands, people have well-explored ground, waterborne, and high-altitude spaces (HAS) for transportation purposes, as well as the underground space under cities (namely, subway systems). However, due to the increased burdens of population and urbanization in recent decades, huge pressures on public transportation and freight traffic are introduced to cities, plaguing the governors and constraining the development of economics. By observing the fact that near-ground space (NGS) has rarely been utilized, researchers and practitioners started to re-examine, propose and develop flying cars, which are not a totally novel idea, aiming at solving the traffic congestion problem and releasing the strains of cities. Flying cars completely differ from traditional grounded transportation systems, where automobiles/trains are suffering track limitations and are also different from the air flights in HAS for long-distance transfer. Therefore, while observing the lack of specific literature on flying cars and flying car transportation systems (FCTS), this paper is motivated to study the advances, techniques, and challenges of FCTS imposed by the inherent nature of NGS transportation and to devise useful proposals for facilitating the construction and commercialization of FCTS, as well as to facilitate the readers understanding of the incoming FCTS. We first introduce the increased requirements for transportation and address the advantages of flying cars. Next, a brief overview of the developing history of flying cars is presented in view of both timeline and technique categories. Then, we discuss and compare the state of the art in the design of flying cars, including take-off \& landing (TOL) modes, pilot modes, operation modes, and power types, which are respectively related to the adaptability, flexibility & comfort, stability & complexity, environmental friendliness of flying cars. Additionally, since large-scale operations of flying cars can improve the aforementioned transportation problem, we also introduce the designs of FCTS, including path and trajectory planning, supporting facilities and commercial designs. Finally, we discuss the challenges which might be faced while developing and commercializing FCTS from three aspects: safety issues, commercial issues, and ethical issues.

scholarly journals The responsibility of architecture: beauty, justice and the call of care

2020 ◽  
Vol Supp (29) ◽  
pp. 152-175
Author(s):  
H.A. Auret ◽  
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Church Architecture ◽  
Architectural Practice ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Relationship

In contemporary architectural practice, it seems impossible to establish common consensus regarding the merits or definition of architectural beauty. Moreover, the ancient links between “the just” and “the beautiful” have been severed. This article argues that the dissociation between beauty and justice may well be rooted in the unquestioning way in which we habitually fall back on established aesthetic tropes when considering the notion of architectural beauty. In response, it challenges the value and appropriateness of such aesthetic assertions by recalling Martin Heidegger’s formulation of human life as an event of emplaced care, and human contemplation as a form of “inceptual thinking”. This article then briefly discusses the relationship between this kind of inceptual beauty and the notion of justice, as put forward by John Rawls. Interwoven with these philosophical positions, the text refers to the historical development of church architecture as interpretive device.

Space in Critical Communication Studies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donovan Conley
Keyword(s):  
Marshall Mcluhan ◽  
Jane Jacobs ◽  
Michel De Certeau ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
Walter Ong ◽  
Spatial Consciousness ◽  
Fredric Jameson ◽  
Lewis Mumford ◽  
Edward Soja ◽  
Fernand Braudel

Few concerns in critical-cultural approaches to communication intersect with as many adjacent fields of inquiry as does “space.” To talk about space is to share a conversation with philosophers (Henri Lefebvre, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Edward Casey, Bruno Latour, Manuel DeLanda), critical geographers (Derek Gregory, David Harvey, Edward Soja, Doreen Massey), historians (Fernand Braudel, Michel de Certeau), sociologists (Pierre Bourdieu, Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs), literary and cultural theorists (Fredric Jameson, Meaghan Morris, Tony Bennett, Lawrence Grossberg, Timothy Morton), media ecologists (Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong, James Carey), political theorists (Jane Bennett, Nigel Thrift), and rhetoricians (Carole Blair, Greg Dickinson, Joan Faber McAlister, Jenny Rice, Nathaniel Rivers, Thomas Rickert). To talk about space is thus to talk with a plenitude of others about a plenitude of social practices, landscapes, mediums, objects, and configurations, but at bottom a concern with space is a concern with the kinds and qualities of relations between and among bodies and things. To be concerned with space is to be invested in the emergent scenery of arrangement, how groupings of bodies come to assume particular shapes and orderings and not others. The “how” question, in turn, is the question of communication as it leads to issues of influence and pressure: of the historical processes that shape our habits and modes of persuasion and constellations of power. Communication and space converge where the “how” of influence meets the “where” of historical emergence. While we have always lived and acted in importantly spatial ways, however, the critical-spatial consciousness that pervades the humanities today is itself a recent historical emergence.

The Yanomamö of the Mississippi Valley? Some Reflections on Larson (1972), Gibson (1974), and Mississippian Period Warfare in the Southeastern United States

1981 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 909-916 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Bruce Dickson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South America ◽  
Sandy Loam ◽  
Southeastern United States ◽  
Ontological Argument ◽  
Basic Material ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Lower Mississippi Valley ◽  
Mississippian Period ◽  
Material Conditions

Larson's (1972) hypothesis that warfare during the Mississippian period in the Southeast was primarily a struggle over the fertile silt and sandy loam bottomland soils is summarized. This is then contrasted with Gibson's (1974) thesis that, at least in the Lower Mississippi Valley, warfare was caused by the "asymmetrical" nature of the kinship systems found there. Such systems led to status decline over several generations and forced individuals to attempt to offset the decline by achieving success in warfare. The Larson-Gibson dispute is essentially an ontological argument which pits the materialist's view of reality against that of the idealist. This dispute is compared to a similar one between Harris (1971, 1974, 1977, 1979) and Lizot (1977) concerning the explanation of Yamomamo warfare in South America. Following this, the basic material conditions of Mississippian warfare are suggested. The importance of mechanisms such as Gibson has proposed for understanding Mississippian warfare at the "tactical" level is recognized. Finally, primacy is given to Larson"s materialism at the "strategic" level.

Architectural Ethics

2005 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Ray
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Relationship Building ◽  
First Century ◽  
Managerial Values ◽  
Architectural Practice ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Face ◽  
Twenty First Century

The practice of architecture, a discipline that is inescapably contingent on the particular, but that is also required by society in some way to represent an ideal, raises a number of specific ethical issues. Following an essay by the philosopher Thomas Nagel, this paper argues that it is intrinsic to professional judgement that this involves the prioritizing of unquantifiable ‘goods’. A twentieth-century case study is examined, which exhibits the choices made by a well-known architect. The changed nature of architectural practice in the United Kingdom in the twenty-first century is then described, whereby the privilege of making such judgements has been severely limited by the substitution of managerial values for professional values. In the face of different ethical imperatives – most obviously to design responsibly within pressing ecological concerns – it is argued that the task for architects now is to re-establish a context within which sound judgements can be made, which of course implies a degree of professional trust. Their ability to balance managerial values (technical competence for example) with ethical decision-making is what may prove to be most valuable. There are implications for architectural education, which in the past has either pretended to be a science or has retreated into aesthetic speculation, providing training in the skills of persuasion rather than relationship-building. The conclusion is that ethical thinking is inescapable for the profession of architecture in the twenty-first century.

Productively losing control, or how Architecture can inspire translation ethics

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-239
Author(s):  
Georgios Floros
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Architectural Practice ◽  
Guiding Principle ◽  
Functional Aspects ◽  
Translation Ethics

Abstract In this article, an attempt is made to view Architecture as a source of inspiration for translation ethics. First, it is argued that Architecture is not a discipline that is as distant from translation studies as it might seem at first sight. Second, the example of the Wyly Theater in Dallas is discussed in an attempt to summarize contemporary concerns in architectural practice: “productively losing control,” a motto used by Prince-Ramus (2009), is then applied to translation ethics and the paper goes on to explore possible parallels between how a building may function within its surroundings and how texts may function within a social context. More specifically, it is shown that selected functional aspects of the Wyly Theater might form a guiding principle for teaching how to resolve ethical issues in the translation of politically sensitive texts taken from the Greek and Cypriot contexts.

Responsibility Ethics, Shared Understandings, and Moral Communities

Hypatia ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Card
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Social Reform ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Moral Communities ◽  
Henry Sidgwick ◽  
Responsibility Ethics ◽  
Situated Practice ◽  
Shared Understandings

Margaret Walker's Moral Understandings offers an “expressive-collaborative,” culturally situated, practice—based picture of morality, critical of a “theoretical-juridical” picture in most prefeminist moral philosophy since Henry Sidgwick. This essay compares her approach to ethics with that of John Rawls, another exemplar of the “theoretical-juridical” model, and asks how Walker's approach would apply to several ethical issues, including interaction with (other) animals, social reform and revolution, and basic human rights.

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