What ends should designers pursue? To what extent should they care about the societal and environmental impact of their work? And why should they care at all? Given the key influence design has on the way people live their lives, designing is fraught with ethical issues. Yet, unlike education or nursing, it lacks widespread professional principles for addressing these issues. Rooted in a communitarian view of design practice, this lively and accessible book examines design through the lens of professions, offering a critical vision that enables practitioners, academics and students of design in all disciplines to reflect on the practice's overarching purposes. Considering how these are connected to others' flourishing and moulded by community interactions, "The Goods of Design" argues for a practice-based approach to cultivate professional ethics; it provides a normative direction that can meaningfully guide professional design activity, both individually and collectively. The volume also looks into the implications work has for the designer's self-growth as a person, offering ways to discover and navigate the complex tensions between personal and professional life.

What is the true purpose of the design profession? What ends should professional designers pursue? Firmly rooted in the design practice, this lively and accessible book offers a critical vision that enables designers and students of design of all disciplines to reflect on the purpose of their profession. This book makes the case that professional designers should contribute to the promotion of others' well-being by designing a world in which people can flourish. Using many examples, it helps practitioners and students to analyse the ethics of the work they are asked to do, and guides them in designing material and immaterial artefacts that are conducive to human flourishing. The book also empowers them to discover and analyse the possible moral consequences of their designs, and to act thereupon. If design is, as Herbert Simon argued, 'concerned with how things ought to be', the influence designers have over the lives of others should not to be taken lightly. The book's timely and original perspective on professional design makes it a required reading for practitioners and students of design, and design scholars.