Law, Morality and Digital Ethics

Compares the discussions on the relations between law and morality in classical legal philosophy to the current debates within European institutions on law and digital ethics.

• Draws on classics of legal philosophy as well as EU policy documents on the relation between law and ethics-morality
• Takes an original (Foucault-inspired) problematization approach to the classical debates about the relation between law and morality
• Engages with and expands upon H.L.A. Hart’s categorization of law and morality relations and with Jeremy Waldron’s account of the Rule of Law
• Compares the traditional debates in legal philosophy to the current initiatives in the European Union about Artificial Intelligence and digital ethics, thus providing new perspectives on both
• Offers a legal-philosophical critique of the drawbacks of the increasing invocation of ethics as an alternative way of regulating and governing emerging digital technologies

Invocations of ethics in legal, policy and academic discourses about the governance of digital technologies such as the European Union’s strategy on Artificial Intelligence (AI), recall traditional debates in legal philosophy about the relationship between law and morality. Since ethics has acquired an institutional dimension with dedicated advisory bodies, expert groups and committees, new dynamics have, however, emerged in these debates. Its discourses address the relation between law and morality not, like in the past, within the field of legal theory or jurisprudence, but from the perspective of this institutionalized ethics, which is reflected in new kinds of relations drawn between law and ethics.

By comparing traditional and contemporary debates on this theme and emphasizing the importance of institutional and procedural aspects of the rule of law, the book highlights some undesirable consequences emerging from the institutionalization process and discursive practices of digital ethics, including the delegitimization of citizens by expert-based initiatives and the lack of the checks and balances guarantees of traditional rulemaking.