The Object of Nightingales: design values for a meaningful material culture

This paper will be published in the Design and Culture journal (Berg, Oxford) in 2012. It provides a consideration of design values that are congruent with age-old understandings of human meaning as well as with contemporary notions of sustainability. Critique of naturalistic materialism and its relationship to un-sustainable interpretations of progress and growth is followed by a consideration of practical, social and personal meaning and their relationship to human values. A basis for meaningful values emerges for ethical judgment and design decision-making. The result is a basis for design and production that aligns more closely with sustainable principles and with deeper understandings of human flourishing.

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