Ethical Contract
Difficulty Level:
Method Overview
Ethical Contract is part of the Ethics for Designers Toolkit consisting of a worksheet, designed for a team of designers and stakeholders to list their main ethical objectives, responsibilities, main design goal and sign to commit to these above listed items. This method continues based on Ethical Disclaimer.
Framework of ethics used:
deontological
pragmatist
Method Intentions:
Getting Started
You will need:
Materials: Ethical Disclaimer Worksheet, Worksheet, pens
Participants: Design team, stakeholders
Steps:
Using the worksheet, follow the process (Gipsen, 2017):
- Explain your disclaimer to all involved stakeholders.
- Go through the unethical situations and collect important ethical themes. Collectively define these themes for this project.
- Discuss who is responsible for each situation. Write everyone’s responsibilities down.
- Formulate three main ethical objectives everyone agrees on. Make sure everyone knows what they mean.
- Write down (an updated version of) the design goal as agreed upon by all stakeholders.
- Place your signatures to commit to the design goal and ethical objectives.
Further Reading
Jet Gispen. 2017. Ethical Contract. https://www.ethicsfordesigners.com/ethical-contract.
Categories of tools and skills required by designers: https://www.ethicsfordesigners.com/skills
Other tools in the Toolkit: https://www.ethicsfordesigners.com/tools
Citation
This methods microsite is based off of analysis which is available in a preprint manuscript. Feel free to review our methodology and other details! We welcome your comments and feedback ! Please also use this form if you would like to suggest a method as an addition to the collection!