JOURNAL: Week 1

WEEK ONE

Why a Journal?
CLASS REQUIREMENTS for PLS 508 state that we have to keep a log of our personal reflections during the progress of our studies to help stimulate an internal dialogue. The most important thing, the syllabus states, is that it be a personal documentation process, not just a log. The purpose, I take it, is to summarize on a weekly basis where the course takes me. To paraphrase Steinbeck, I'm not documenting the trip I take, but where the trip takes me. In other words, this is the beginning of developing a more overt process of ethical decision making--in the words of Terry L. Cooper, a design approach.

From the perspective of my life long career in graphic design, that makes sense to me. The whole idea of approaching problem solving from a rational, process-based perspective sorts well with my training and experience. It's not that being a designer prepares one to approach all problems rationally. Indeed, I'd make the case that such an approach lacks humanity, that touch of irrationality that often allows for truly creative and unique solution finding. What the design process does is allow designers to frame problems in such a way as to clarify them and refine understanding so as to encourage creative thinking. It is more problem finding than problem solving. Problem solving often implies that there is one best solution. Clearly, this is rarely the case. There is a tendency in humans to think this way, however, and that must be resisted consciously. By making the dimensions of a problem more explicit, one can begin to widen the scope of key issues, to use inductive reasoning to arrive at a more complete understanding. Only then can a truly creative mind begin to consider solutions.
The design process in art is a dynamic process in the sense that it is self-perpetuating. It is often broken down to varying levels of detail, depending on the source. Generally, though it involves the following four phases:
1. Problem Definition: summarize the problem dimensions, identify terms, research, analyze, redefine, etc.

2. Iteration: take mental inventory, make connections, prioritize characteristics, establish targets, brainstorm

3. Problem Solution: redefine, narrow down, critique, select, implement, etc.

4. Feedback: appraise, refine, reimplement, etc.

Being a professional designer or artist from a rational perspective, not only means being willing to abandon preconceptions and look at each situation with fresh eyes and an open mind, it also means being willing to channel one's feelings and intuitions in an explicit manner that may be at odds with these normally implicit pathways to knowledge. Rather than leaping to conclusions, which is often endemic to holistic thinking and Gestalt, a procedural approach leads the designer where artistic minds do not easily go. It wakes them from the sleep of reason by first moving mindsets toward the verbal, making the nonverbal explicit in the process. Design is the triumph of rationality over the inchoate.

Design also implies not being married to any one solution. The inclusion of feedback means that not only is there an element of isometric control, but that the process is a never-ending one. Solutions can only ever be approximations of the ideal. Therefore, their value is relative and is a partial reflection of the process that created them. One solution is likely to be interchangeable with any other (with varying results.) Only after many years of experience with this kind of overt thinking is it possible to shortcut the solution process. Moving from explicit to implicit forms of processing represents a kind of mastery that is difficult to come by and inconsistent in its results. Nevertheless, the process still undergirds the results. The best designers can switch hats interchangeably. Moreover, results are subjugated to process, in keeping with the post-modernist ethos of esthetics. For the creative-minded, the proverbial journey is more important than the destination. Zen rules.

What Lies Within
That having been said, the obvious comparisons between art and ethics are somewhat direct. Ethics also represents the application of reason to a broader area of human concerns, specifically morality. Like artists, ethicist must learn to balance the need for logic with other more "fuzzy" concerns. While reason is a necessary adjunct to moral decision making, reason without emotion lacks conviction. Reason without character is morally dangerous. Like artists, what ethical decision makers bring to the table is even more important to the process than the process itself. In two words, humanity matters. To quote Emerson, "what lies behind us and lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us." By the same token, without reason, decision-making is blind. Thus, an overt process, as in esthetics, makes sense in such complex contexts.

Furthermore, the process is a dynamic, ongoing one, informed by feedback and subject to refinement. If ethics is in fact "a science of human intentionality," then an overt process makes good sense. Ethical decision-making is an active process, involving uncertainty and ambiguity. Limits of time and information likewise limit the inherent rationality of solutions. Ethical solutions are, at best, approximations of the ideal. Meanwhile, conflicting responsibilities and roles impinge on the process further reducing the effectiveness of the process. Defining problems, iterating and testing problem solutions and refining them in the ethical context provides decision-makers with not just better solutions, but also with defensible rationales as to how they arrive at decisions. This allows them to move, like artists, from a level of pure expression to one of analysis and, ultimately, synthesis in the sense of self-creation. The ultimate product of our existence is the essence of who we are.
Questions become broader, ultimately, we must ask "who am I?"

That is where the so-called "design process" of ethical decision-making provides a model of progressive self-examination and identity-forming. In an ethical sense, we design ourselves in the process of solving problems. The process is a developmental one. Cooper calls the resulting internal/external orientation the "ethical identity" of the decision-maker. Like art, ethical decision-making is defined by the learned skills that are associated with its practice. As artists develop their oeuvre, they come to be defined more by their methods than their products. Likewise, as one progresses in increasing levels of ambiguity and complexity in ethics, the ultimate result is the character of the decision-maker. Great artists are made, not born, through experience, willingness to learn, great effort and methodical application of the principles of design. The artist is the ultimate product of his or her own efforts. Ethical decision-makers, are also a product of their own making. That is something to be admired. That is why I aspire to it: to find something greater that is within me.