Recovering Human Inheritance in Organisations and Society: An Exploration of David Armstrong's “Ethical Imagination”

This article examines closely, explores, and expands upon David Armstrong's idea of the ethical imagination in psychodynamically informed consultation and systems thinking. In his article, published in Organisational & Social Dynamics in 2017, Armstrong sought to recover, and to renew attention towards, the early emphasis of the field on the restoration of human agency in institutional settings. Armstrong challenged the field to broaden its perspective on the dilemmas it seeks to tackle and to “rediscover and re-own the active voice” so as to help people, institutions, and society at large develop more humanely and productively.

Using a case study and reference to theoretical work, this article further characterises the experience and role of imagination in organisational consultation, and explores and advances the “ethical” dimensions of Armstrong's concept. The article concludes by arguing that in the context of the current crises that threaten humanity (e.g. climate change, dehumanising technological innovation), the field of systems psychodynamics needs to devise novel theories, techniques, and, as Armstrong urges, “new forms of group and organisational life”, that recover and revitalise foundational aspects of what makes us human: the capacity to think, the capacity to feel, and the capacity to integrate.