What is it about?
This study proposes the concept of meaning-imparting distinctions to facilitate a dialogue among analogue and digital researchers on the design of ethical programmes. Drawing from Niklas Luhmann's theory of meaning producing systems, we offer three warnings about ethical programmes. They can be impaired by artificial exclusions, convenient fictions and derailments of thinking. The capacity to learn is a requirement for ethical programming. We propose three guidelines for such learning with a focus on the following distinctions: changing/unchanging; conditions/consequences; means/ends; thinking process/bodily perceptions.
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Why is it important?
With the advent of artificial moral agents, there are urgent calls for smart technology to be designed more ethically.
Perspectives
Niklas Luhmann's theorizing on meaning-imparting distinctions can make it easier for analogue and digital researchers to work together so that better ethical programmes could be designed for smart technologies.
Diane Laflamme
Université du Québec à Montréal (École de travail social)
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Be warned: what counts as ethics is reformatted when ethical programmes are digitized, Information Technology and People, May 2026, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1108/itp-12-2025-1940.
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