The ethics of wicked problems: an exegesis.

Abstract

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?