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The ethics of wicked problems: an exegesis

For nearly all the most urgent issues confronting humanity today, there is neither consensus about how to address them nor clarity on how tackling them might further compound existing inequality, erode democratic capacities and accelerate environmental decline. Urgent issues of climate change, rapid...

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Autor principal: Chan, Jeffrey K. H.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Nature Singapore 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9847445/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36684826
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s42532-022-00137-3
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author Chan, Jeffrey K. H.
author_facet Chan, Jeffrey K. H.
author_sort Chan, Jeffrey K. H.
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description For nearly all the most urgent issues confronting humanity today, there is neither consensus about how to address them nor clarity on how tackling them might further compound existing inequality, erode democratic capacities and accelerate environmental decline. Urgent issues of climate change, rapid urbanization and public health are teeming with wicked problems. Even so, their prospective solutions may nevertheless exacerbate these problems and bring about new ones. Taming any one of these wicked problems with planning and public policy tools presumes making decisions on ethical questions such as what to tame and what to ignore, who or what to prioritize in the solution, or conversely, who or what should bear the costs and risks, and how to strike a balance between uncertain benefits and probable harms. Despite the saliency of ethics in the formulation of wicked problems and how they are tamed, the ethics of wicked problems has remained woefully under-developed ever since (Rittel and Webber, Policy Sci 4:155–169, 1973) publication nearly five decades ago. In this article, each of the ten properties of the wicked problem, following their original sequence, will be examined in relation to ethics. What is the moral significance of each of these properties? How does explicating their moral content advance present understanding of wicked problems? And how might this study of ten properties in relation to ethics enable planners to avoid moral blindspots and pitfalls that often accompany wicked problems? Finally, how can the ethics of wicked problems aspire new planning ideals?
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spelling pubmed-98474452023-01-18 The ethics of wicked problems: an exegesis Chan, Jeffrey K. H. Socioecol Pract Res Research Article For nearly all the most urgent issues confronting humanity today, there is neither consensus about how to address them nor clarity on how tackling them might further compound existing inequality, erode democratic capacities and accelerate environmental decline. Urgent issues of climate change, rapid urbanization and public health are teeming with wicked problems. Even so, their prospective solutions may nevertheless exacerbate these problems and bring about new ones. Taming any one of these wicked problems with planning and public policy tools presumes making decisions on ethical questions such as what to tame and what to ignore, who or what to prioritize in the solution, or conversely, who or what should bear the costs and risks, and how to strike a balance between uncertain benefits and probable harms. Despite the saliency of ethics in the formulation of wicked problems and how they are tamed, the ethics of wicked problems has remained woefully under-developed ever since (Rittel and Webber, Policy Sci 4:155–169, 1973) publication nearly five decades ago. In this article, each of the ten properties of the wicked problem, following their original sequence, will be examined in relation to ethics. What is the moral significance of each of these properties? How does explicating their moral content advance present understanding of wicked problems? And how might this study of ten properties in relation to ethics enable planners to avoid moral blindspots and pitfalls that often accompany wicked problems? Finally, how can the ethics of wicked problems aspire new planning ideals? Springer Nature Singapore 2023-01-18 2023 /pmc/articles/PMC9847445/ /pubmed/36684826 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s42532-022-00137-3 Text en © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023, Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law. This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.
spellingShingle Research Article
Chan, Jeffrey K. H.
The ethics of wicked problems: an exegesis
title The ethics of wicked problems: an exegesis
title_full The ethics of wicked problems: an exegesis
title_fullStr The ethics of wicked problems: an exegesis
title_full_unstemmed The ethics of wicked problems: an exegesis
title_short The ethics of wicked problems: an exegesis
title_sort ethics of wicked problems: an exegesis
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9847445/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36684826
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s42532-022-00137-3
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