Future Design: A Pathway to Deep-Time Ethics?

The Anthropocene can be viewed as a stimulus for rethinking the assumptions about ethics underpinning dominant models of the future. A "shallow-time" ethics, whose temporal framing extends at most to the length of human lifespans, helps justify sociopolitical systems rooted in extractivism, logics of infinite economic growth and objectification of the more-than-human. What might a "deep-time" ethics look like—one that offers alternative points of departure in imagining possible and desirable futures? This paper explores this question through the concept of future design, which aims to create temporal bridges between those alive in the present and those not yet born. Through role-play and deliberation, future design aims to cultivate empathy towards future imaginary persons and seeks to identify actions in the present that can help reconcile the needs of the present and the future. Reflecting on fieldwork implementing future design in school settings in Japan, the paper discusses the potential of future design for both intellectual and affective re-orientation towards an ethic of deep time, highlighting both the potential of this approach in facing the 'crisis of the future' and its limitations.