From an ethics of the eyes to ethics of the bodies: Rethinking ethics in design research through sensory practices

Within this paper, we develop what we describe as an ethics of the bodies, which operationalises how design researchers and design students can deal with ethics through embodied reflections. Contrasting an “ethics of the eyes” and an ethics of the bodies, we argue that there are benefits when developing and using a sensory practice as an ethical approach when conducting design research in order to deal with ethics in situ and reflecting ethical dimensions that can be slippery to grasp. Based on an analysis of two empirical examples from design research projects, the paper contributes an approach for how design researchers, and students in design education, can work methodologically to activate a sensory approach to ethics by developing an ethics of the bodies.

Highlights:
•Developing an ethics of the bodies provides a sensory reflective approach to ethics.
•Some types of ethics shall be reflected and handled in situ.
•Design students must learn to handle ethics through an embodied scholarship.
•Treating doubt as positive can motivate a search for ethical understanding.