The Genealogies of Social Design and Claims to the Common Good

This paper investigates the claim that social design can be defined in terms of its orientation towards the common good. It does this by looking at three canonical texts in social design as set against the socio-cultural contexts in which they were produced: Morris's News from Nowhere, Papanek's Design for the Real World and Manzini's Design, When Everybody Designs. Applying genealogical and archaeological analyses, the paper finds that the conceptions of the common good presupposed in these three articulations are sufficiently different to preclude definitional consensus with respect to social design. Yet, the paper argues, there is enough overlap for social design to be considered a "family resemblance" concept. This need not be a disappointing outcome. Using social design as a family resemblance concept enables us to differentiate some ways of practicing and talking about design from others, even though we are not able to offer a "standard" definition in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. As a bonus, the notion of social design approached in the terms proposed provides a good heuristic for thinking about the common good: not just how the good is distributed but, crucially, how the commonality is constructed and constituted.