Ethics in Futures Studies

Exploration of Roles and Importance of

Ethical Values in Futures Studies

Falona Oluwarotimi Akintan

“This essay presents some information on what ethical values are, defines and lists some

important professional ethics, and also states some importance of these ethics to the field of

futures studies.”

Turun kauppakorkeakoulu • Turku School of Economics

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EXPLORATION OF ROLES AND IMPORTANCE OF ETHICAL

VALUES IN FUTURES STUDIES

Falona Oluwarotimi Akintan

Student Number: 506682

FUTUS1 Ethics of Futures Studies

Dr. Anita Rubin

January 31, 2014


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Table of content

Introduction……………………………………………………………… 4

Ethics – Definition and Related Concepts ………………………………... 5

Theories and Types of Ethics …………………………………………….. 6

Professional Ethics………………………………………………………... 13

Futurists Professional Ethics and code of conduct ……………………….. 10

Roles of ethical values in Futures Studies …………………………………14

Importance of ethical values in Futures Studies ………………………….. 15

Conclusion…………………………………………………………….........16

Reference


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INTRODUCTION

The discussion of ethical values in futures studies is yet a newly emerging

development, just as the field itself, when compared with other related fields. There has been

some certain discussions in literatures on relating important issues in futures studies such as

the nature of knowledge about the future, futures methodology, and ethical issues in futures

studies which is of more newly concern and which all contributes in a way or the other to the

quality, validity and credibility of futures studies and its research outcomes. The roles of

ethics and relating values in every human endeavor cannot be over emphasized; from

business to organization development, from schools walls to home(s) dining tables, there

have been several discussions in respect to the importance as to the moral obligations of

every individual in relating to norms, core values and beliefs.

Futurist such as Wendell Bell who through his work sought to understand societies in

terms of their changes by identifying the connections between futures studies, sociology and

related concepts developed unique efforts based on the importance of ethical principles to

guide human responsibility in the present and the future. Scholar such as Bell among others

have immensely contributed to the discussion on importance of ethics and ethical code of

conduct in futures studies, and which their works and ideas will serve as a baseline and

guidelines for this report.

This report tries to briefly showcase some contributive insight on the concept of

ethics based on several academic opinions and works, and also goes a little bit further in

highlighting some professional ethical values, and ethical values in futures studies in terms of

roles with quick pinpoints on their importance to futures studies.


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ETHICS – DEFINITION AND RELATED CONCEPT

A general knowledge about ethics has it that ethics which can be sometimes referred

to as philosophical ethics, moral theory or moral philosophy depending on the context of its

usage, is understood to be a branch of philosophy that deals with the definition and

recommendation of the concepts of right and wrong conduct which is often targeted at

addressing issues relating to moral diversity and value judgments. The term often relates to

investigating the best ways humans should live and act in some particular instances or

circumstances while seeking to find answers to questions surrounding all concepts of human

morality.

Ethics, as widely accepted is defined to be moral principles that govern a person’s or

group’s behavior. Often times referred to in another form as morality as indicated by

the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, it is explained or known to be the branch of

knowledge that deals with moral principles. It entails the basic concepts and fundamental

principles of decent human conduct and includes study of universal values as the essential

equality of all human, their natural rights, obedience to stipulated

laws, concerns for health, safety and the natural environment on whole.

In contrast to the above explained, religion, law, moral, tradition, and etiquette are

different speculations of the actual pining down a particular explanation of what ethics really

mean or ought to be. Several expressions tends to equate ethics with feelings, which

shouldn’t be; in that feelings are known to recoil from doing what is right and hence

frequently deviates from what is ethical. Also, neither should ethics be associated with

religion, even though most religions advocates high standards, but if seen from this

perspective, it will only be attributed to religious people. Ethics applies as much as to the


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behaviors of atheist and also to religious devotees. Following the law also does not implies

ethicality, even though the law incorporates ethical standards in its proceedings, just like the

above stated, laws can deviate from what is ethical. Also on the contrary, doing what is

generally accepted by a society isn’t also being ethical, as it has been evident from past

experience of certain societies, a case of Nazi Germany as an intriguing example of such

scenario.

In addition to close acceptance of what ethics is or should be, an adaption from Paul

and Elder (2006), of the Foundation for Critical Thinking define ethics as a set of concepts

and principles that guide us in determining what behavior helps or harms sentient creatures,

which is often not treated as a stand-alone concept but being confused with social

conventions and other concepts as stated previously. Therefore, ethics which can mean

several things in English should be seen as a certain standard set so answers questions

pertaining ethical concerns. It may also be used to characterize the justification of right and

wrong conducts in some specific spheres, either examined philosophically as per business

ethic or ethical theory.

THEORY AND TYPES OF ETHICS

The three main types of ethical theories are the consequentialist theories,

deontological theories and virtue theories. The different types of stated theories are given rise

to due to different view as to which type of ethical statement is the most fundamental one.

They are briefly explained below.

Consequentialist Theories: It stipulates that fundamental ethical judgment involves claims

about which states of affairs are said to be intrinsically bad or good. A widely known type of


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this theory is utilitarianism which comes in different versions. While some versions maintain

that the only thing that is intrinsically good, or good in itself, is pleasure, and the only thing

that is intrinsically bad is pain. Other versions of utilitarianism maintain that happiness is

intrinsically good and unhappiness intrinsically bad. Given an account of what states are

intrinsically good and what states are intrinsically bad, the utilitarian claims that the rightness

of an action is related to the good or badness of its consequences.

Deontological Theories: It holds that statements about what one ought to do cannot be

explained in terms of statements about the goodness and badness of consequences.

Supporters of this approach often advocates and argue that individuals have rights, which are

wrong to violate simply on the grounds that doing so will lead to a better balance of good

states of affairs over bad states of affairs.

Virtue Theories: This theories distinction and deontological theories does not seem as great

as that between either of them, on the one hand, and consequentialist theories on the other.

Seemingly that for any moral rule, one can postulate a corresponding, virtuous trait of

character, and vice versa, and if that can be done, then the implications of a given virtue

theory with regard to what one ought to do will coincide with the implications of the

corresponding deontological theory as the case may be.

Deontological theories is often associated with mostly religion and all related, while virtue

theories examples can be found with the Greeks, and the consequentialist theories are

relatively new with utilitarianism development attributed to Jeremy Bentham.


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Following the insight from (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics#cite_note-

iep.utm.edu-1) and also in accordance to http://www.iep.utm.edu/ethics/, a brief sectioned

summary of the four major areas of study of ethics is divided into are highlighted below.

Meta-ethics: This is about the theoretical meaning and reference of moral

propositions and how their truth values may be determined. It is curious about meta-

ethical question which is abstract and relates to a wide range of more specific

practical questions by tending to know how we understand, know about and our the

meaning we perceive about what is right or wrong.

Normative ethics: Is about the practical means of determining a moral course of

action and it involves getting a ground as per moral standards in regulating what is a

wrong and right conduct. It can be sometimes referred to as been more prescriptive,

rather than descriptive.

Applied ethics: It draws upon ethical theory in order to ask what a person is obligated

to do in some very specific situation, or within some particular domain of action. It

consists of the analysis of specific, controversial moral issues such as abortion,

animal rights, or euthanasia and in recent years issues relating to it have been

subdivided into convenient groups such as medical ethics, business

ethics, environmental ethics, and sexual ethics.

Descriptive ethics: It offers a value free approach to ethics, also known as

comparative ethics, which is the study of people's beliefs about morality. It is an

empirical investigation of people's moral beliefs and seeks to gather particular

information about how people live and draw general conclusions based on observed

patterns, thereby putting it on the less philosophical end of the spectrum. Its study

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics#cite_note-iep.utm.edu-1


http://www.iep.utm.edu/ethics/


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may include ethical codes, informal theories of etiquette, and practices in arbitration

and law.

PROFESSIONAL ETHICS

From general understanding, professional ethics comprises of the personal,

organizational and corporate behavioral standards expected of professionals. It’s a term

attributed to how the usage of acquired knowledge should be governed when providing

services to the public which are often considered as moral issues. As illustrated by

Strahlendorf (2013), over the years, professional ethics has become more important as people

become more specialized in their occupations, the issues become much more complex – and

hard, while professional bodies have increasingly been at work developing, revising and

refining professional codes of ethics.

Leading from above explained, Strahlendorf (2013) defined professional ethics as a

tool that helps a professional choose what to do when faced with a problem at work that

raises a moral issue, by inducting the prescriptive professional ethics approach to enhance

choice making. They are referred to as the virtues, values, prescriptions, or proscriptions that

define proper behavior for a professional, which includes codes of conduct that defines the

exemplary and prohibited behavior towards the people they are providing service to, (Bell

1996)

Another perspective to professional ethics as suggested by Airaksinen (2003),

introduces the concept as a field of applied ethics whose purpose is to define, clarify, and

criticize professional work and its typical values. According to Airaksinen (2003), there are


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three different types of professional ethics which can be understood in three different ways,

as explained below.

The first perspective which is termed social psychology is a code of values and norms

which guides practical decisions in situations when they are made by professionals. Thus,

makes it more or less explicit and conscious determinant of action. The second type was

explained as set of fully idealized values whose purpose is to explicate the best possible

world in which the given profession could be working. While the last professional ethics is

said to be a philosophical discipline, under which normal philosophical ethics are being

applied to professional decisions, planning and actions in order to evaluate, criticize, and

develop them.

On the whole, it should be understood that professional ethics covers more issues than

law does, given that ethical issues tends to be more harder than to identify than legal issues.

Subsequently, several trends in philosophical professional ethics can be distinguished as

quandary ethics, the key concepts of professionalism which can be scrutinized by

philosophical conceptual analysis, and the last one which is the most fruitful focuses on

historical world of professional life in terms of context and the environment in which all

professional activities take place.

FUTURISTS PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND CODE OF CONDUCT

There have been quite few identifiable academic texts available on professional ethics

relating to futurists and their code of conducts, judging from the recent nature of the practice

in relation to the profession popularity among higher academic institutions. However,

pioneers such as Bell and Flechtheim have given some foundational insights on what


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subsequent works on ethics relating to futures studies can be built on. Thus, it will be ideal to

provide some insights on some ideas presented in different texts as to what is meant by

futurists’ professional ethics and code of conduct, presented through the following

explanations.

Relating with Hejazi (2011) opinion, Futurists can be regarded as ethical as far as

their conducts are in conformity with the standards and grounds of professional moralities.

According to Hejazi, a theory of conduct may be used to define Futurists ethical behaviors,

which studies what is right, wrong, obligated, permitted, things that are more than what

duties requires, and including opposite of things. It also tends to provide answers to questions

relating to “how an individual should act as a Futurist”, and “Why”?, thereby helping to

create ground in debating on what should be the morals rules for Futurists.

There have been several questions raised as to how professional ethics should be

approached, probably through using a conservative approach, or how to practice and

implement foresight knowledge, or rather using relative approach in defining professional

ethics reflecting on imposed ideas and what to choose by choice. Therefore, in guidance to

reflecting on what futurists professional ethical codes are, a suggestion by Jackson (2010),

explains that the professional body believes people are basically good and wanting to

contribute to a better world, that everyone has something to contribute and are inspired,

engaged and enabled them to do so, recognizes and respect everyone as unique people and

try to help them use all of their talents at all times, and also encourage everyone futurists

work with to treat others in a similar fashion.

In the second edition of his book, “Foundations of Futures Studies”, Bell (1996) dealt

with the ethical foundations of futures studies, which he termed as the grounds underlining


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the core values that defines desirable futures and make the purposes of human action morally

possible and right. He highlighted the needs of professional ethics as seen from the

perspective that objective and critical analysis of the moral dimension in decision making

and policy making is possible and can be made a part of the futurists’ professional role. Also,

he pointed out the fact of a ripe time for a formal code of ethics for futurist to be

implemented.

Adapted from bells opinion and ethical philosophy, below are some guidelines stating

some ethical code of futurists which he considered as considerations preliminary to

formulating professional code.

Futurists as professional just as every other professional apart from normal ethical

principles of research are obligated to adopt honesty, respect, trustworthiness etc., and

carrying out their roles as professionals, considering that the ethical code of futures

researchers or futurists should be more demanding

Following the general purpose of futures studies, futurists should have a special

responsibility in the developing and promoting the common ethical code of the

humankind (e.g. democracy and sustainable development). They should engage in

work that benefits humankind and be more concerned with public interest.

As in academia, futurists are obligated to search for the truth, test ideas empirically

and logically as far as possible relating to reporting research works honestly.

Futurists as consultants should avoid some unethical behaviors such as placing self-interest

above that of the client, withholding information and padding expenses, violating

confidentiality, and thus adopt the emerging code of ethics for policy analysts as a serving

guideline for their occupied role.


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ROLES OF ETHICAL VALUES IN FUTURES STUDIES

As explained by Hejazi (2011), Malaska (2001) believed that Futures Studies is a

value-related oriented field of inquiry, because it aims at being explicit in values and

highlights value differences rather that fixed values. It also questions concerns about what are

the proper means to a given end in the sense of technical or instrumental rationality and what

are the possible good ends well worth of promoting and pursuing. Since the future is the only

place where one can make and influence with decisions and choices, and thus requiring value

discussions and considerations which in a way play a very big role in terms of one’s

perception of the future.

Ethical values play a major role when futurist as professionals finds themselves in

situations where routine methods and traditional ways of ethical conducts based on intuitions

seems not to be working as perceived, (Rubin, 2013). As explained by Rubin (2013), the first

role that values plays is in the selection of idealized outcomes as well as the means to achieve

them. Values plays so many roles in terms of how futurist approach phenomena relating to

the future, be it in terms of predictability as to how an event will occur in the future,

transformability in determining how much things that has happened and happening now will

affect things in the future and also in terms of desirability envisioning value considerations in

relation to the society as per individual identity, globalization with increasing heterogeneity

of society and the veracity of futures knowledge in connection with social and economic

safety and certainty, viewed majorly as the challenges of ethics for futurists.

Some other roles that ethical values plays in futures studies which is seen as being

vital for futurist to be done because he/she must, perceived normativity as a central aspect of

futures and ethics and which are intermingled with futurists values and preferences and as


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such cannot be ignored but used as an instrument to strip futures studies of any messianic

inclinations, (Serra 2006). Inclining with above stated, Serra (2006) explains the roles that

ethics plays in futures studies through the introduction of advocating “The Ethical Low

Profile Approach to the Future”, consisting three guidance principles encompassing first

humility, developing positive intension harmless to the future and accepting the fact of

failure as possibility and as such learn from mistakes and prevent repeating them.

On the other hand, Poli (2011) explains the connection between ethics and futures

studies by first understanding that values requires the dimension of the future, hence

insinuating that the future is a constitutive dimension of ethics. According to (Poli 2011),

who stated the two roles of values as orienting behaviors and serving as criteria for the

evaluation of such behavior. These two are explained to be kept separate in that the behavior

being referred to follows two different logics.

Additionally, some other role of ethical values according to Bell (1996) is to reinforce

the responsibilities to peers and clients already existing in some parts of the futurist

community in other to encourage the improvement of professional excellence of futurists

while giving explicit support to the highest standards of ethical behaviors.

IMPORTANCE OF ETHICAL VALUES IN FUTURES STUDIES

According to Bell (1996), among the roles of futurists are to examine values,

objectively access them, and explore the meaning of good society, which all in a way points

out values in futures studies are as important as every other aspects relating to the field. The

statement indicates that before any futurist can assume the above stated roles, he/she must

have a good awareness of ethical obligations and there importance to value related issues.


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Although it hasn’t been explicitly stated in any literature as to how important ethical values

are to the futures studies practice and field. However, some insights can be drawn from some

literatures which have written something on it or closely related.

The first indication of such importance of ethics to futures studies is stressed in the

statement made by Bell (1996), that “all ethical deliberation is futures oriented”, and also that

“Morality are the firing force behind people doing things, and the goals of doing such are

always in the future”, thus thinking ethics wise contains some futures thinking. In addition to

this, ethics theories such as contractarianist, utilitarianist, and deontological all contains an

inherent futures orientation, and thus implies that both are equally much or less important to

each other and goes hand in hand.

Moving on from the above, although both terms proceeds in different ways, each one

in its own dimension and direction, ethics and futures studies as earlier indicated needs each

other (Poli 2011). The usefulness and importance of ethics and futures to each other as

insinuated by Poli (2011), can be firstly viewed in terms of futures studies acting as an

instrument used in dealing with ethical problems in different ways such as, by firstly

entreating problems relating to values in foresight exercises, values understandably requires a

dimension of the future which in a way connects both phenomena together and can be

explained as such that entities such as people are morally oriented towards the future, and of

which all its actions are in a way futures oriented and thus making future and ethics which is

human related a constitutive dimension of each other. Thirdly, ethics in a way became a

deontological code of the profession instrument of delimiting and protecting professional

activities such as the case of a futurist as a professional and clients against possible

misbehaviors and understanding on both sides.


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Ethical codes of professional conduct on the whole are generally important and

adaptively important to futures studies in terms of serving as guidance in reminding of

specific professional responsibilities. They also help in providing valuable direction for new

and aspiring young members of the profession who intend behaving ethically but may not

know what is expected of them because their limited experiences has not properly prepared

them in addressing difficult ethical situations as well as appropriate handling, as in-sighted by

Bell (1996).

CONCLUSION

Although it’s relatively recent to discussing ethics in futures studies’, judging from

the fact that futures studies its self is almost a relatively new academic field. However,

Hejazi (2011) believes that futuring cannot be separated from ethics. Ethics which can be

said to be pre-existing prior to studying the future as proven to be an inherent aspect of

foresight studies and both are invariably equally important to each other as previously

discussed. Ethical values play several fundamental roles in the continuous shaping of the

future, although there hasn’t be any categorically stated or outlined ethical codes for futurist,

some pioneers in the field have been able to provide some guiding insights serving as

foundation upon which it can be done, and thus posing a challenge to all professional

presently practicing as futurists. Conclusively, the whole concept of the importance of ethical

values to futures studies cannot be totally covered at this point, but it is justifiably important

to establish that ethical values are as important to futures studies as every other aspects of the

field even though it is being understudied, have a long way to go in strengthening the

qualification and standardization of futurist as professionals just as their counterparts.


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REFERENCE

Airaksinen, T. (2003). The philosophy of professional ethics. EOLSS, UNESCO.

Alireza Hejazi (2011). <http://www.wfs.org/content/futurists%E2%80%99-professional-

ethics> retrieved 04.01.2014.

Anita Rubin., 2013, The Meaning of Value Consideration in Futures Studies: Lecture presentation, Otavan Opiston Osuuskunta, Turku.

Anita Rubin., 2013, New, Better Human Beings? : The Role of Values in Futures Studies, Lecture presentation, Otavan Opiston Osuuskunta, Turku. Audi, Robert, ed. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. 2nd. ed., Cambridge, UK:

Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: A Peer-Reviewed Academic Resource.

<http://www.iep.utm.edu/ethics/ >, retrieved

Jordi Serra., 2006, Reflections: Ethical obligations and futures studies, Futures v. 38(05), p.

367–369.

Malaska, Pentti (2001). A futures research outline of a post-modern idea of progress, Futures,

33, 225–243.

Paul, Richard; Elder, Linda 2006. The Miniature Guide to Understanding the Foundations of

Ethical Reasoning. United States: Foundation for Critical Thinking Free Press.

Peter Strahlendorf., 2013, Professional Ethics, Ryerson University, School of Occupational

and Public Health, Session No. 714, p. 1-9

Professional Ethics. (<http://www.buzzle.com/articles/professional-ethics.html>, retrieved

05.01.2014.

Roberto Poli., 2011, Ethics and futures studies, Int. J. Management Concepts and

Philosophy, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd v. 5(4), p. 403-410.

What is Ethics? <http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/dicision/whatisethics.html>, retrieved

05.01.2014.

Wendell, Bell (1996) Foundations of Futures Studies: Values, Objectivity, and the Good

Society. Transaction Publishers, New Jersey

Wikipedia (2014). Ethics, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics#cite_note-iep.utm.edu-1 ,

retrieved 04.01.2014.

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http://www.wfs.org/content/futurists%E2%80%99-professional-ethics

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Wikipedia (2014). Ethics, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(ethics), retrieved 04.01.2014.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(ethics)

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