ABSTRACT
The concept of ethical designer, within a virtue ethics standpoint, comprehended as ethical agency, is extended to the entity of the design firm. Since design firms are legally responsible and hence accountable entities, the very nature of conduct and character in design must be approached in a different manner. Design ethics has to be addressed at both levels: the designer and the design firm. Thus, questions related to the ethical distance between the design firm and designers as singularities constituting the firm must be directly addressed since the firm is legally able to exist as real as a person does. Individuals can escape personal responsibility by acting according to the created firm’s persona; indeed, designers can always say that they are not personally responsible since they acted on behalf of the firm.
