Environmental Ethics in the Built Environment

(3678)
Muhammad Adil Rauf
mpc.adil@gmail.com

REFERENCE BOOKS:
• Ethics and the Built environment by Warwick Fox
• Urban Ethics (Design in the Contemporary City) by Eamonn
Lecture Contents
• 1 – Development of an ethical framework and the built environment
– page 9
• 2 – The planning ethics – page 171
• 3 – Ethics of sustainability – page 189

• Reference book
Ethics for the built environment by Peter Fewings
1- Ethical framework & built environment
• Key points
• ethical principles in the development of the built environment;
• good and bad, right and wrong – various ethical approaches, virtue theory,
• natural law, justice and morality, proportionalism, utilitarianism, and
relativism/situation ethics;
• applications to the built environment.
Components of building science
• Durability
• Architecture
• Convenience
• Engineering – Civil/Struc
• Beauty
• Water Electrical Supply
• Firmness
• Town planning
• Principles of order
• Landscaping • Eurhythmy
• Material Sciences • Symmetry
• Propriety
• Economy
Evolution of urban planning
• Islamic Architecture
• Gothic Architecture
Gothic style with pointed arch,
partially inspired by Islamic
Architecture.
Major inspiration came from
• Ethic to glorify God
• Desire to let light deep into the
building
• Arches , large windows
Cordoba (Qurtuba) Mosque / Cathedral Spain
Urban planning
• Italian Sixteenth century
• Leonardo da Vinci & Michelangelo
• Key Features
• Symbolism
• Religious fervour & down to earth egoism
• Promoting elitism
Ethical drivers of construction
Basis of Ethics – Good & bad, right & wrong
• Essentially ethics is actions that exceed legal compliance
• Virtue ethics – moral approach with a concern for the community
• Plato's Philosophy – Good as an absolute moral value
• Good and Perfect
• Good – timeless, space less, changeless and immutable
• Real world is dominated by time and space dimensions and
compromise
• Perfect match for the needs of the building users may practically
compromise to mitigate harmful effects on others.
Aristotle Virtue theory

• Aristotle believed that ethical knowledge is not only a theoretical

knowledge, but rather that a person must have "experience of the
actions in life" and have been "brought up in fine habits" to become
good. For a person to become virtuous, he can't simply study what
virtue is, but must actually do virtuous things.
Virtue Ethics
Others
• Consequentialist – implication of others
• Egoism - self centered
• Utilitarianism - Jeremy Bentham
• Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that states that the best action is the one
that maximizes utility. "Utility" is defined in various ways, usually in terms of
the well-being of sentient entities.
• Utility as the sum of all pleasure that results from an action, minus the
suffering of anyone involved in the action.
Case Study – Cribbs Causeway shopping mall
• What level of pain will justify the benefit given by planning for shopping mall
• Pleasure to the unemployed
• Pain to neighbours who suffer reduced amenity, more pollution, restricted view
• However
• Extremely popular with shoppers and families
• Lot of pleasure and richness of choice
• There are also traffic jams due to visitors and people get frustrated being trapped in
traffic
• Other small shop owners in the area have lost business due to mall
• However
• More shops gained – More people have leisure and choice
• Factors such as duration, certainty, intensity, richness and extent are balanced positive
• Large minority suffers but on balance there is a gain….. Is it worth doing?
Case Study – Tarbela Dam
• Project
• 260 sq km
• 3702 MW peak
• 341 billion kWh generator over the space of life
• 23% of WAPDA system peak
• Affected people
• 135 villages
• 96,000 people
• Agri land
• Businesses
2- Planning Ethics – Lesson from UK
• Objectives
• Identify and plan land use
• For local community and national infrastructure
• Fair development control system for planning applications
• Arbitration in case of dispute
• Democratic and consultation (Local authorities, Planners, Elected members)
• Local concerns
• May affect houses
• Business values
• Daily life
• Esthetics
Planning Ethics
• Ethical principles of planners derive from both general values of
society and from the planners special responsibility to serve the
public interest.
• Social values often compete with each other. Need to expand choice
and opportunity for all people
• High level of understanding and impartiality in the public interest
• Stakeholder engagements to deal with support and objections
Concerns
• To ensure basic rights …….
• Who should make decisions?
• What skills and ethical standards are valid?
• Should development be better control by central government?
• Should local political loyalties be avoided?
• How democratic decisions can be endorsed technically?
• Should it be more transparent, organic process?
• Are there checks and balances in place to overcome bribery and corruption to
the decision making process?
• Should all the outcome be declared? Economic gain, loss of amenity and others
Basis of planning decisions
• Four Jewels – Reason – Democratic – Community – Nature (Blanco 1995)
• Community
• Equity – equality, need, demand, preference, willingness(to pay)
Road through community
Speed limit
bumps
Parking Restriction

Difficult to park
Difficult access to homes

Children's can play

Safe for pedestrians
Reduced accidents
Pakistani Cities

270,000 pedestrian die every year

3-Sustainable Development
Mutisya & Yarime, 2014
Thank you