Ethics versus Aesthetics in Architecture

There is little doubt that, today, most disciplines are increasingly attentive to ethical questions, but it is in biology and medicine that this phenomenon has become most evident. A new discipline, bioethics, has been conceived to face the troublesome questions raised by recent developments in biomedical sciences. In a matter of a few decades, an increasing number of research centers specializing in bioethics or oriented mainly toward bioethical questions have been created. At the same time, a number of analyses concerning previously unsuspected bioethical problems have been discussed in specialized conferences and diffused in media of every stripe. When considering this phenomenon, one might wonder whether a parallel development in architecture should be expected. Why have we not witnessed the birth and rapid development of a new “archit-ethics” devoted to the analysis and discussion of ethical problems raised by architecture? After all, an increasing number of architects and theoreticians of architecture have convincingly drawn attention to the ethical dimensions of their art. One might think that the absence of such a development is due to the fact that architecture is an art rather than a science, the former being, by its very nature, committed to aesthetical rather than ethical values, as was repeatedly claimed by the advocates of art for art’s sake. However, whether or not we agree with the latter doctrine, this would be to forget that architecture is very different from other arts, since its function is to create places and contexts in which social life goes on. Architect’s works have such an impact on the way people behave that the development of a new field devoted to the analysis of problems associated with this impact does not appear implausible.