FORMING A CULTURE OF INTEGRITY AS A COMPONENT OF DESIGN EDUCATION

The article offers a philosophical–educational justification of a culture of integrity as a key component of design education and considers twenty-first-century design as a life-creating (world-making) practice that shapes everyday scenarios, models of interaction, norms and institutions–ranging from material artefacts and services to organizational structures and digital interfaces. The purpose of the study is to philosophically and educationally understand the culture of integrity as the core of the life-creating training of a modern designer, as well as to identify ethical, methodological, and socio-institutional aspects that determine the nature of responsible design in the face of environmental, social, and informational challenges. It shows that this potential unfolds amid ecological, social, and informational crises, where locally “efficient” solutions trigger cumulative resource depletion and technological lock-ins, while the creation of new technologies is complicated by the unpredictability of their social “life cycle” and the multi-level interaction of actors.Hence, beyond instrumental competences, practical wisdom and ethical reflection on long-term consequences are required.The article focuses on the philosophical–educational framework for cultivating integrity: Aristotle’s virtue ethics–the acquisition of stable dispositions through action and the choice of the mean–and the understanding of design as a practice with internal goods that must be protected from the dominance of external rewards (A. MacIntyre). It is argued that a culture of integrity should be the core of the framework for educating designers. It is conceived as a combination of inner character virtues with organized learning practice, studio repetition and public argumentation of decisions, the formation of stable dispositions through action, and the safeguarding of the internal goods of practice against the pressure of external incentives. The article concludes that a culture of integrity, integrated into educational practices, is a necessary condition for the responsible formation of just and sustainable forms of common life. The purpose of the study is to philosophically and educationally understand the culture of integrity as the core of the life-creating training of a modern designer, as well as to identify ethical, methodological, and socio-institutional aspects that determine the nature of responsible design in the face of environmental, social, and informational challenges.