The Practice and Ethics of Design

Abstract

This chapter presents the results of a virtual dialogue about the practice and ethics of design. The dialogue was between statements acting as surrogates for their authors. The virtual conversations were accomplished through a modified method of paired comparisons. Each statement was, in effect, compared on a one-to-one basis to every other standard (cf. Bausch, 1999, 1999a).

These paired comparisons were made in three iterations. The first set of comparisons inquired whether a certain pair of standards were talking about the same general thing. The second set questioned whether one standard was more salient than another standard. These two preliminary sets of paired comparisons set the stage for the third set that inquired whether the implementation of standard X would substantially enable the implementation of standard Y, and vice versa. This third set of paired comparisons yielded an enhancement pattern that exists among those standards. This pattern indicates how implementations of those standards influence one another.

I do not present the processes that lead to the enhancement pattern here. I begin with the enhancement pattern that provides the structure for this chapter. It will be presented after some preliminary discussion of basic ideas.