Niels van Dijk – författare

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.

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.

This book applies a novel conflict-based approach to the notions of `idea', `concept', `invention' and `immateriality' in the legal regime of intellectual property rights by turning to the adversarial legal practices in which they occur. In doing so, it provides extensive ethnographies of the courts and law firms, and tackles classical questions in legal doctrine about the immaterial nature of intellectual property rights from a thoroughly new perspective. The book follows the legal proceedings of disputes in patent, copyright and trademark law as they circulate from the sites of enterprises, through the offices of law firms, the court registry, the courtroom and the judge's office, until they finally arrive at judgment. In this way, the central matters of a dispute are gradually transformed into immaterial works, inventions, or signs through the ceaseless `material' operations of legal practices. This analysis sheds light on how seemingly abstract philosophical notions are rendered workable as concrete legal concepts with important consequences. Grounds of the Immaterial offers an inventive and refreshing take on intellectual property rights which will be valued by academics and students in philosophy, legal theory, legal anthropology and intellectual property.