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.

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.