Ethical modalities of architecture. There are three typical candidate modalities of ethics in architecture. For one, there is the establishment of criteria for ethical norms of the enterprise such as architects in practice may observe. For example, architects can craft designs in ways that lower the likelihood of cost overruns and enhance safety. In an interpersonal vein, architects can represent their work honestly to clients or contractors. Another modality—beyond enterprise-defined ethical norms—is pursuit of criteria to gauge architects as moral agents broadly producing or doing good or bad in the world. For example, architects may create objects that uplift or constrain individual users and inhabitants; other architects may promote social utility by designing housing for those in need of shelter. Finally, there is the modality of seeking criteria to judge architectural objects as morally good or bad insofar as they directly produce pleasure or pain. As an indirect example, a hospital design is intended to facilitate the minimizing of pain, by fostering environmental conditions conducive to excellence in health care and patient well-being. As a more direct case, a bus shelter is intended to reduce exposure to the elements and corresponding discomfort. This last candidate may be attractive if we see architecture primarily as a product rather than as a practice; it is noxious if we are unwilling to assign moral values to artifacts as we do to actions or their properties. A built structure might be inhumane in that it is bleak or uninhabitable, though it does not follow that the structure itself bears inhumane values. 