Link: http://www.etc-architect.com/?p=326
From ETC-Architect
Some month ago I got interested on the ethics around architecture and discovered that apart from some group that claim to represent all architects very little is published in the English spoken world. I also reached out to other nations and their architects that are proud to have a very detailed set of business ethics, but are less inclined to discuss this in English spoken forums. While I know only a handful of languages myself a network of native speakers and translation API often help to get the view of other cultures.
When I asked in my network in 25 separate discussions (to avoid cultural pressure) about the most important ethical topic I got most often: Honour, Integrity, Sustainability, Family, Honesty, social responsibility, senority and beauty. All these answers came from architects with a minimum of 15 years experience and when confronted with the outcome with the result of another group they all told me that the other groups must be full of unethical people. At the second group that returned honour as the most ethical thing I was shocked myself when they told me to stop kidding that another group chose integrity as anything near to ethics.
Parallel to my own research I also locked at the academic research, which was disappointing as it always started from one set of methodology. The same is usually true for the 5000+ ethic groups that represent the sole global set of ethics. Additional to those there are also some people that judge ethics only applicable to their view of the world. In my research I also quickly discovered the source of ethics in each culture. In America ethics is often seen as a cornerstone of a a profession and the responsibility of the association belonging to the group (no profession without a code of ethics).In other countries professional ethics is part of the culture and in others ethics is part of the class you are in as an architect. They are fine with different ethics for different groups.
Ethics as such are based on (or a mix) of:
- outcomes
- intent
- approach
- principles
- moral law (often very strict)
- pragmatic thinking
- society demands
- law
- common obligations
- philosophy
- religion & divine justice
- lack of religion
- family
- tradition
- …. and a lot more
So given so much difference I have seen the only two workable models. The first one consists of 3 layers:
The core layer that all cultures agree on is built on Loyalty, Truthfulness (not the same as honesty), Skill and Respect.
The middle layer builds on ethics common to 2 or more cultures such as equality, sustainability, social responsibility, class law, seniority, …
The outer layer finally reflects the national ethical setup.
The second option and one that is often followed is to impose your own ethics on other cultures. This is mainly done by western companies and organisations.
So if you work globally either you force everyone to follow your ethics or you will have to adopt your own mix of the cultures you are working together with.
As I progress in this journey through ethics I will amend my findings.
