Hypothetical vs Categorical Imperative
Artful Design Reflection #8
From Confucius:
Zilu spent the night at Shimen. (In the morning) the gatekeeper asked him, “Where do you come from?” Zilu said, “I come from (the house of) Mr. Kong.” (The gate keeper) responded, “Is he (not) the one who knows the futility (of doing something) yet does it anyway.”
To keep doing what seems to be impossible can be seemed as stubborn and stupid, but if the subject itself is related to moral values, who get to decide what is truly right or wrong? When we do something for its intrinsic value, the doing itself is less important than the acknowledgement and commitment that the intrinsic value is the right thing to stick to.
On the other side, for hypothetical imperative, the focus is more on ways to get from point A to point B. More energy is spent on doing and strategizing, than thinking and reflecting. The problem is — how do you know that we are exactly at A, and how know for sure that B is the right place to go?
It seems like much reflections should be spent at where we are right now, where we want to go to, and then the last question would be how to get there. What does that mean as a designer?
Most of my designer training is on empathy. To see the water. To help people understand their emotions and feelings behind their words and actions. Empathy is something I learned as a kid. My grandma taught me to think in others’ shoes. To care for others’ feelings. My mom taught me to observe, to listen for details and to discern the subtleness.
But in recent months, I started to realize that empathy itself stands on top of self understanding and biases. First and foremost, I need to know who I am, where I stand, my background and my identity. Otherwise, what I think what others feel is just stereotypical assumptions. And this self-reflection is biggest part of equity design practices.
With equity design, we are more aware of our own biases and our own water.
Going back to the graph above. Equity and empathy help us figure out where we are, whatever A is.
B is more tricky. It’s a lot more philosophical. Philosophers like Confucius can pick a stand of what he thinks is the B, and then stick to it. For most people, the social contract, aka, common sense, is an easy to way to see B, such as being honest, being nice to people, and etc.
Last but not least, the process is iterative. There are many ways to go from A to B, from A to A, and from B to B. That’s where technology lies, to help people get to places, go faster or slower, go in cars or in fiber wifi.
“Design as the embodied conscience of technology.”