Navigating the Nexus of ethical standards and moral values
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12626868 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Teresa Hammerschmidt (0000-0003-2164-3825, University of Bamberg, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Publication date | 2025-03-24 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Ethics and Information Technology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1388-1957 • E-ISSN: 1572-8439 |
| Publisher | Springer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s10676-025-09826-5 |
| OpenAlex | W4409338860 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 87 |
This study examines how ethical standards established by stakeholders such as developers and policymakers provide top-down guidance aligned with deontological ethics or utilitarian goals. It also highlights a complementary bottom-up approach, rooted in virtue ethics, in which individuals engage in ethical deliberations shaped by their moral values. Both approaches have limitations, and, at times, ethical standards can clash with moral values, thus blurring lines of responsibilities. Deontological principles may offer a structured framework, but often lack adaptability to diverse cultural contexts; bottom-up approaches foster intrinsic moral intentions, but universal applicability may be challenging, thus raising moral dilemmas. Through a theoretical literature review, this study explains how different ontological and normative ethical perceptions lead to moral dilemmas in various AI application scenarios (e.g., algorithmically managed platforms, crime detection systems, medical AI assistants). It addresses top-down and bottom-up approaches that may help account for moral dilemmas ethically. The study discusses the balance between top-down regulatory frameworks and bottom-up community-driven ethics to navigate the complex ethical landscape of AI applications, whose increasing capabilities alter expectations of AI’s agency and morality. This study calls for holistic and multi-objective ethical frameworks that incorporate diverse normative ethical perspectives and recognizes context-specific ontologies throughout the AI lifecycle. It emphasizes a nuanced and context-specific combination of top-down standards (e.g., regulatory oversight, clear guidelines) and bottom-up fostering of moral values (e.g., by improving ethical knowledge). This tailored and ongoing reflection of ethical standards and moral values accounts for an ethical development, deployment, and utilization of AI technologies
Engineering ethics · Environmental ethics · Ethical values · Nexus (standard · Social science · Sociology · Computer Science · Engineering · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI · Ethics in Business and Education · Ethics in medical practice · Philosophy
Shaping technology/building society
Managing Artificial Intelligence
The effects of moral judgment and moral identity on moral behavior
The Ethics of AI Ethics
The Nature, Importance, and Difficulty of Machine Ethics
Incorporating Ethics into Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Qualitative Content Analysis
Ethical Implications and Accountability of Algorithms
Artificial Intelligence, Responsibility Attribution, and a Relational Justification of Explainability
Whose morality? Which rationality? Challenging artificial intelligence as a remedy for the lack of moral enhancement
AI recruitment algorithms and the dehumanization problem
Can the predictive processing model of the mind ameliorate the value-alignment problem
Moral sensitivity and the limits of artificial moral agents
Understanding responsibility in Responsible AI. Dianoetic virtues and the hard problem of context
The possibility of deliberate norm-adherence in AI
A critical perspective on guidelines for responsible and trustworthy artificial intelligence
A Comparative Defense of Self-initiated Prospective Moral Answerability for Autonomous Robot harm
Artificial Moral Responsibility
Human moral reasoning types in autonomous vehicle moral dilemma
An Ethical Inquiry of the Effect of Cockpit Automation on the Responsibilities of Airline Pilots
The Ethical Implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) For Meaningful Work
The Implications of Diverse Human Moral Foundations for Assessing the Ethicality of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence and Declined Guilt
Accountability in artificial intelligence
Operationalising AI ethics
On the moral status of social robots
What to Expect From IEEE 7000
Materiality, Sociomateriality, and Socio-Technical Systems
Posthumanist Performativity
Artificial Intelligence and Impression Management
AI in interpreting
Understanding perception of algorithmic decisions
The sociomateriality of organisational life
Patiency is not a virtue
Artificial intelligence ethics by design. Evaluating public perception on the importance of ethical design principles of artificial intelligence
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |