Is ethics a Utopia? Yes,when moral distinctions impair the ethical aim

Abstract

Ethics and moral philosophy rely heavily on the binary distinction between good and bad. If they are to maintain relevance in a digitally transformed society, the translation of some of their analog content into digital one could be seen as a requirement. A different path is chosen here. We ask: ‘Is ethics a utopia?’ In Niklas Luhmann’s digital theorizing, the answer is ‘Yes’. This is not a final verdict. Some of the pseudo-binary distinctions proposed by philosopher Paul Ricœur in his analog theorizing on ethics and utopia can also contribute to the discussion. The answer then becomes: ‘Yes, when moral distinctions impair the ethical aim’. This impairment is not necessarily fatal. Luhmann does show how binary distinctions such as the code of the moral have a blinding effect because they exclude the third. Ricœur, however, explains how, as an aim, ethics could nevertheless be actualized. Learning is mentioned as recourse by both authors: learning to take into account that the exclusion of the third by binary codes is only an artifice, and learning how to use the resources of both logic and imagination when trying to solve ethical dilemmas. Our approach illustrates how digital and analog theorizing, each in its own way, can enrich the interdisciplinary study of ethics.

The interdisciplinary study of ethics ¹ cannot ignore the new challenges brought about by the transition from an analog to a digital age. The digital world relies on binary distinctions, namely distinctions that are made of two mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive sides. For the purpose of digital theorizing, those are the only ‘true’ binary distinctions (Roth, 2019, 2023). In this article, the label ‘pseudo-binary’ ² designates distinctions that do not meet these two criteria. Many influential distinctions found in analog theorizing, especially in the fields of moral philosophy, are pseudo-binary distinctions. Taking as an example some of the guiding distinctions used by philosopher Paul Ricœur in his analog theorizing and by social system theorist Niklas Luhmann in his digital theorizing, we will examine how – without being subjected to a digitalization process – pseudo-binary distinctions can enrich what is learned from true binary distinctions, and can also enlarge the perspectives for decision-making on ethical issues. This could answer the concerns raised by Roth about the fact that false distinctions may produce dysfunctional observational biases, especially when they are used to create ‘moral frames or other intellectual devices that narrow the decision-making options down to a point where one of the two remaining choices is basically not an option at all’ (Roth, 2023: 457).

Numerous differences, some of them irreconcilable, can be found between the theoretical propositions of a continental moral philosopher and those of a social system theorist. We do not pretend to elucidate them. Luhmann (1927–1998) and Ricœur (1913–2005) are brought together here because their writings provide us with a rich corpus, where influential distinctions can be found pertaining not only to ethics but also to a broader process to which ethics partakes: the constitution of meaning. It also happens that Luhmann boldly declared in some of his writings that ethic is a utopia, whereas Ricœur published extensive studies on the notion of utopia. When asking here the question ‘Is ethics a utopia?’ we are not trying to establish which one of the two scholars presents the most convincing answer. The question is designed to pique the readers’ curiosity and spark their interest about the workings of true binary and pseudo-binary distinctions. According to Luhmann’s digital theorizing, the answer to this question is ‘Yes’ (Luhmann, 1993b: 1002; 2012: 245), and it sounds loud and clear as a final verdict. But maybe it is not: some of the pseudo-binary distinctions proposed by philosopher Paul Ricœur in his analog theorizing on ethics and utopia can also contribute to the discussion. The answer then becomes ‘Yes, when moral distinctions impair the ethical aim’. This impairment is not necessarily fatal. Luhmann does show how binary distinctions such as the code of the moral have a blinding effect because they exclude the third. Ricœur, however, explains how, as an aim, ethics could nevertheless be actualized. Learning is mentioned as recourse by both authors: learning how to take into account that the exclusion of the third by binary codes is only an artifice, and learning how to use the resources of both logic and imagination when trying to solve ethical dilemmas. Our approach highlights two priorities for interdisciplinary research: there is a need to question the reliance on binary logic in moral philosophy, and also a need to bring more light on a neglected topic in systems theory, namely, the constitution of meaning.

Binary distinctions and the constitution of meaning

For Luhmann (1990), meaning is ‘sociology’s basic concept’ (Chap. 2). Psychic systems and social systems (interactions, organizations and societies) are meaning-constituting systems (Luhmann, 1995a: 2). The specific form of meaning is a binary distinction: ‘the distinction between actuality and potentiality’ (Luhmann, 2012: 27). The distinction ‘actual/possible’ re-enters itself:

On one side of the distinction, the actual, the distinction actual/possible reappears; it is copied into itself so that the system may have a the sense of being able to continue actual operations in spite of an increasing change of themes, impressions, intentions. (Luhmann, 2002: 83)

Meaning intentions also involve the drawing of a distinction. They are used by psychic systems to motivate themselves, and by communication systems to orient their operation:

Perhaps one could say: intention is nothing more than the positing of a difference, the drawing of a distinction with which consciousness motivates itself to designate, to think, to want something determinate (and nothing else). (Luhmann, 2002: 44–45)

All communication is an operation that takes place concretely under the direction of specific meaning intentions. (Luhmann, 2012: 237)

What cannot be ignored is that Luhmann (1995a) dissociates himself from the humanistic tradition in philosophy (p. 210) while Ricœur’s theorizing on meaning and ethics is part of it. However, both scholars refer to Husserlian phenomenology in their study of the phenomenon of meaning. This common ground is significant enough to warrant looking for connecting points between the distinctions they use. As much as they draw from this heritage, they also propose their own re-descriptions and variations, and both reject the notion of a transcendental subject. ³

Ricœur published work on the ethical dimension of human experience is extensive. Luhmann, for his part, abundantly describes how ethics, as an academic theory, ⁴ has failed in its attempt to formulate the rational principles of correct action, or to develop procedure for the application of such principles. He is not sure ethics is still possible today: ethics is a utopia (Luhmann, 1993b: 1002; 2012: 245). He does not dismiss it totally, though: ‘Nevertheless it would be a mistake to over-react and declare the whole undertaking of ethics to be out of date’. Luhmann is also quite ready to find tasks for ethics to perform; since observation shows that morally conditioned communication do exist, ‘ethics thus has the task of taking a position towards it’ (Luhmann, 1991: 89). Even if they come from an analog theory, some of the distinctions found in Ricœur’s writings on utopia and on the ethical intention can further our understanding of the many tasks given to ethics by Luhmann. ⁵ The pseudo-binary distinctions proposed by Ricœur are not passive descriptors. They allow for crossing their internal boundaries. Making it all the more fascinating and relevant for our purpose, it could be said that some of them are re-entering ⁶ what has been previously distinguished.

However distant they may appear from each other, the distinctions selected for our examination here are all linked to the binary distinction used by Luhmann to describe meaning: the distinction between actuality and potentiality. The production of meaning is the connecting point, whether ethics is studied as a utopian endeavor or an attainable aim.

The nowhere of utopia

For Luhmann, it is an illusion to believe that ethics will provide us with reasoned and practical rules for making decisions about the conflicts and dilemmas that attract morally charged attention today (Luhmann, 2012: 244). Ethics performs the function of a utopia:

that which is called ‘ethics’ today is nothing other than a utopia, in the exact sense of Thomas More’s original utopia, namely, in the sense of the paradox of the ‘topos’, which is nowhere to be found and which does not exist at all. (Luhmann, 1993b: 1002)

Does this statement give a pejorative reputation to ethics, and dismiss as vain all efforts made in its name? Not necessarily. For Ricœur, the nowhere implied by the word utopia is ‘a kernel idea’. He distinguishes between utopia and ideology, ⁷ studying them as the two sides of the imaginative function in social life. ⁸

Distinguishing between utopia and ideology: an analysis of meaning as actuality/potentiality

For Ricœur (1985), utopia is the thrust of the possible (p. 221). In his discussion of the functional structure of utopia, he refers to the very distinction used by Luhmann to describe meaning – namely, the distinction between actuality and potentiality.

From this ‘no place’ an exterior glance is cast on our reality, which suddenly looks strange, nothing more being taken for granted. The field of the possible is now open beyond that of the actual; it is a field, therefore, for alternative ways of living’. (Ricœur, 1986: 16 [emphasis added])

Ricœur’s analysis of the distinction between utopia and ideology is an ‘analysis of meaning’. ⁹ When Ricœur states that imagination, ‘through its Utopian function’, can access the field of the possible beyond that of the actual, he describes how meaning is constituted. For Luhmann also, imagination is involved in the production of meaning. Actuality is one side of the form of meaning; potentiality – the other side – is ‘everything accessible from the first side, whether directly and really or only potentially, in the course of perception, or only in thought or imagination’ (Luhmann, 2012: 23–24; [emphasis added]).

Beyond the specific contents of particular utopias, Ricœur (1986) is studying ‘the function of the nowhere in the constitution of social or symbolic action’ (p. 16). This function is to contest what already is and rethink the nature of our social life. Utopia is a ‘leap outside’:

This development of new, alternative perspectives defines Utopia’s most basic function. May we not say then that imagination itself – through its Utopian function – has a constitutive role in helping us rethink the nature of our social life? Is not Utopia – this leap outside – the way in which we radically rethink what is family, what is consumption, what is authority, what is religion, and so on? Does not the fantasy of an alternative society and its exteriorization ‘nowhere’ work as one of the most formidable contestations of what is? (Ricœur, 1986: 16)

As a utopia, could ethics contest what already is? Luhmann comes close to describing such a contestation. Twice, and in both cases immediately after declaring that ethics performs the function of a utopia, Luhmann (2012) states that ethics can nevertheless negate what already is or rebel against it: ‘Under the name of ethics, society creates the possibility for itself of introducing the negation of the system into the system’ (p. 245), and: ‘In the name of ethics, society can rebel against itself’ (Luhmann, 1993b: 1002).

Should we rejoice then, and proudly declare that ethics is a utopia. No. For Ricœur, ethics is not a utopia. It is an aim. The pathology of utopia is escapism, and that would compromise the actualization of the ethical aim: ‘No connecting point exists between the “here” of social reality and the “elsewhere” of the Utopia. This disjunction allows the Utopia to avoid any obligation to come to grips with the real difficulties of a given society’ (Ricœur, 1986: 18). Ethics cannot flee the contradictions and ambiguity of social life in the nowhere of utopia.

The ethical aim is to be actualized in social life, and morality has a role to play there (Ricœur, 1992: 170). For Ricœur, applying moral rules can be done without compromising the actualization of the ethical aim. The distinction he makes between ethics and morality explains how.

Distinguishing between ethics and morality: crossing the internal boundary of the distinction?

When distinguishing between ethics and morality, Ricœur states, ‘I reserve the term “ethics” for the aim of an accomplished life and the term “morality” for the articulation of this aim in norms characterized at once by the claim of universality and by an effect of constraint’. (Ricœur, 1992: 170) What he calls the ethical intention is described as: ‘aiming at the ‘good life’, with and for others, in just institutions’ (Ricœur, 1992: 172).

Ricœur (1992) endorses neither the traditional teleological perspective nor the normative one on ethics ¹⁰ :

I propose to establish, without concerning myself about Aristotelian or Kantian orthodoxy, although not without paying close attention to the founding text of these two traditions: (1) the primacy of ethics over morality, (2) the necessity for the ethical aim to pass through the sieve of the norm, and (3) the legitimacy of recourse by the norm to the aim whenever the norm leads to impasses in practice. (p. 170)

For Ricœur, the distinction between ethics and morality does not take the form of a binary preference code. However, ethics is given priority over morality, very much like if it was the marked side of a binary distinction. A coming and going between the two sides of the distinction is also mentioned. As described by Luhmann, a meaning-producing operation involves such a crossing of the boundary between the two sides of the distinction between actuality and potentiality. Consciousness and communication both depend on it:

With respect to the specific form of meaning, namely the distinction between actuality and potentiality, meaning therefore becomes operational only by the form reentering the form. . . . The difference between momentary actuality and open possibility must itself be actually available for consciousness and/or communication. We must be able to see in actuality how the crossing of this boundary is possible and what subsequent steps come into consideration. (Luhmann, 2012: 27)

According to Ricœur (1992), the coming and going between ethics and morality is made necessary by ‘the onesideness of the moral principles which themselves are confronted with the complexity of life’ (p. 249). What social life requires is a moral judgment in a given situation. This notion is presented very much as the result of a re-entry process, where ‘the re-entering form is the same and is not the same’ (Luhmann, 1995b: 173). Ricœur (1992) states that we are lead ‘back from morality to ethics, but to an ethics enriched by the passage through the norm and exercising moral judgment in a given situation’ (p. 203).

For Ricœur (1992), this manner of referring morality back to ethics in order to reach what he calls a moral judgment in situation is not a matter of adding a third agency, higher than ethics and morality (pp. 240, 250). Ethics and morality are not discussed as poles of a continuum, and the notion of moral judgment in situation is not a third category turning a dysfunctional duality into a triad (Roth, 2023: 452). Ricœur (1992) calls for a ‘reawakening’, a moment of conviction reached thanks to: ‘a recourse to the as yet unexplored resources of ethics, beneath morality and yet through it’ (p. 352).

Distinguishing between attestation and suspicion: crossing the internal boundary of the distinction?

Ricœur also calls for the attestation of the capacity to aim. This notion is described as part of a pseudo-binary distinction, namely, the distinction between attestation and suspicion. For Ricœur, attestation appears: ‘when the certainty of being the author of one’s own discourse and of one’s own acts becomes the conviction of judging well and acting well in a momentary and provisional approximation of living well’ (Ricœur, 1992: 180). When actualized, the ethical aim presents itself as an approximation, as a momentary and provisional event. Attestation is under the permanent threat of suspicion. Something has to be learned, namely, to respond to suspicion with a more reliable attestation. ¹¹

Again Ricœur describes a coming and going between the two sides of the distinctions and a re-entry process: suspicion ‘is not simply the contrary of attestation, in a strictly disjunctive sense as being false is in relation to being true. Suspicion is also the path toward and the crossing within attestation’ (Ricœur, 1992: 302). To better understand how a more reliable attestation can be produced as an answer to suspicion, two distinctions proposed by Luhmann could be useful: the one between steering and control and the one between oscillation and memory. Both distinctions are described in the context of a re-entry process. With the distinction between oscillation and memory, Luhmann (1997) explains how a meaning system can take into account the state into which it has brought itself in order to be able to start from there and carry on:

After the introduction of the re-entry of the distinction into itself, the system, in order to be able to carry on, has to dispose of a memory function and an oscillator function. . . . The system has to identify the state into which it has brought itself, in order to be able to start from there; and it has to oscillate its indications between marked and unmarked space because it must allow for indeterminacy. (p. 364)

For Luhmann, the distinction between oscillation and memory is closely linked with that between steering and control. When defining steering, Luhmann (1997) refers to a meaning intention: ‘intention for change of specific differences’ (p. 367). Steering belongs to the context of oscillation. Control belongs to the context of memory. As steering attempts become past and remembered, a control starts. For Luhmann, this control is connected to a redescription of the steering, bringing a constant self-correction. This process is fed by ‘the retrospective self-observation of a system which follows upon steering attempts’ (Luhmann, 1997: 368). A more reliable attestation of the ethical aim, provided as a response to suspicion, could be seen as such a self-correction.

In the conclusion of the 1997 article where he discusses the workings of both distinctions – oscillation/memory, and steering/control–Luhmann (1997) adds a reference to ethics: ‘ethics also originates by oscillation and . . . by sedimentation of connected memories’ (p. 369). When ethics is thus involved, the basis for the oscillation process and the memory function is the binary distinction between good and bad.

As a binary distinction, morality causes blindness

One of the tasks given to ethics by Luhmann (1991) is to thematize morality as a binary distinction:

At the very least we ought to be able to expect that ethics does not simply declare its solidarity with the good side of morality and forget the bad side, but that it thematizes morality as a distinction, i.e. the distinction between good and bad or good and evil. (pp. 90–91)

According to Luhmann, two procedures that are functionally equivalent can be used for thematizing: classification and binary schema. ¹² Classification stays at the level of a first-order observation, ‘placing distinctions side by side’ (Luhmann, 2000: 60). Binary schemas are more demanding, because ‘every determination must be acquired by negating its opposite’ (Luhmann, 1995a: 441). The code good/bad of the moral does not produce a classification of what is god and what is bad, and the task of ethics cannot be reduced to the formulations of rational principles to be applied when classifying what is good and what is bad. For Luhmann (2012), the code of the moral ‘transforms an “analog” situation into a “digital” one’ (p. 215). The difference between good and bad acquires its operational capacity by excluding the third at the level of coding.

This exclusion of the third, however, is only an artifice used by meaning systems ¹³ in order to operate as consciousness systems and as communication systems. For Luhmann, the logic of the world works differently: it ‘can only include excluded third possibilities’. He explains: ‘One should remember that every either/or must be introduced artificially above a substratum where it does not apply’ (Luhmann, 1995a: 209).

When meaning systems use binary distinctions in thoughts or in communication, what happens is the ‘“digitalization” of a continuum’ (Luhmann, 1995a: 363). Such digitalization does not make the continuum disappear: ‘A distinction does not annihilate what it does not indicate. It presupposes it as “unmarked space”’ (Luhmann, 2012: 133). A distinction introduces a mark and leaves all the rest as unmarked. For Luhmann (2013a), distinctions thus transform the world as an imaginary space: ‘Without marking, of course, there would be nothing that is “unmarked”; the world must always first be transformed into an imaginary space by distinguishing between marked and unmarked’ (p. 36). A distinction is both a form with two sides and also a unity. The unity of the code is ‘an imagination incapable of operation’ (Luhmann, 1998: 11), and it is employed blindly.

The unity of a binary distinction is employed blindly

For Luhmann (1996), the unity of the moral is not the good nor the bad, but the difference of good and bad (p. 33). The function given to ethics is: ‘to reflect the unity of the moral code’ (Luhmann, 1989: 141). In order to fulfill this task, ethics will have to take into account that meaning systems are operating blindly:

. . . the unity of distinction is understood as the unity of the imaginary space of its own combination potentials. It is employed ‘blindly’ as a stipulation of the possibility of observing and designating something with its help. (Luhmann, 1998: 10)

. . . the unity of the code serves as the blind spot that is the essential condition for observational operation. (Luhmann, 2012: 415)

As noted by Luhmann, the unity of the difference between good and bad works both well and poorly: ‘What is good can be bad and what is bad can be good’ (Luhmann, 1989: 140). He explains how morality, by developing under the form of a preference code, ¹⁴ creates a confusion of levels: ‘The good represents both the positive side of the distinction and the distinction itself. In our logical and linguistic frames, its unity is due to a confusion of levels’. (Luhmann, 2002: 91)

The user of a binary code ‘has to use it as a twoness and not as a unity’ (Luhmann, 2012: 218). As mentioned previously, a condition taking the form either/or can only be artificially introduced ‘above a substratum where it does not apply’ (Luhmann, 1995a: 209). Binary distinctions that exclude the third thus generate paradoxes.

In radical terms, codes unfold a fundamental paradox, that of the unity of a distinction, by prescribing the form of a binary schematism, from which third values are excluded, in which the value and the opposing value can be identified and their simultaneous application to the same object is forbidden as contradictory. (Luhmann, 2012: 219)

In every assumption of a differentiated unity there is inevitably a paradox because the unity of the whole is not outside or above the parts but is identical and not identical with the sum of them at the same time. (Luhmann, 1989: 134)

For Ricœur, it is such a logic of all or nothing that explains how the nowhere of utopia, instead of playing a constructive role and inspiring imagination, could become a pretext for escape: ‘This escapism of Utopia belongs to a logic of all or nothing’. (Ricœur, 1986: 17)

Is ethics fatally blinded and paralyzed because of the flaws of a logic that excludes the third? Not necessarily. For Luhmann, using binary codes does not impair the capacity to learn:

The coding, however, put the system in a position to treat surprises as irritations, to digitalize them, to understand them as a problem of assigning the code values, or to develop corresponding programs for their repeated use – in short to learn. (Luhmann, 2013a: 46)

Meaning systems can learn when it is good to apply the binary code of morality and when it is not (Luhmann, 1993a: 66).

Distinguishing between argumentation and interpretation: learning to use both logic and imagination

For Ricœur, what has to be learnt is how to apply a moral rule to a given situation without making it a ‘mechanical, linear, automatic process’. To apply a moral rule is to produce meaning. It requires not only logic but also imagination and invention:

Practical syllogisms are mixed with the work of the imagination as it plays with variations on the meaning of the rule or the case. Here we are dealing with a mixture of argumentation and interpretation, where the former designates the logical side of the process, as deduction or induction, and the latter places the accent on invention, originality, creativity. This mixture can well be called application: to apply a rule to a case or to find a rule for a case – in both instances this amounts to producing a meaning. (Ricœur, 2001: 219)

Using the distinction between argumentation and interpretation, ¹⁵ Ricœur proposes both a logical framework and an inventive framework for the making of a decision, including a moral one: ‘We can say that argumentation and interpretation are inseparable, the argumentation constituting the logical framework and the interpretation the inventive framework of the process ending in the making of a decision’ (Ricœur, 2000: 153). A coming and going between the two sides of the distinction is required in order to reach a moral judgment in situation. However, argumentation and interpretation are not a dysfunctional duality that needs to be transformed into a triad. ¹⁶ Since invention is also called upon, a re-entry process might even be involved. For Luhmann (1995b), a re-entry process involves re-inventing a difference: ‘This operation of re-inventing the difference as a distinction can be conceived as a re-entry of a form into the form, or the distinction into the distinguished’ (p. 173). When explaining how imagination uses the distinction between sameness and difference in order to produce meaning, Ricœur describes a process similar to a re-entry:

To see the like is to see the same in spite of, and through, the different. This tension between sameness and difference characterizes the logical structure of likeness. Imagination, accordingly, is this ability to produce new kinds by assimilation and to produce them not above the differences, as in the concept, but in spite of and through the differences. (Ricœur, 1978: 148 [emphasis added])

As an aim to be actualized, ethics needs logical arguments and debates with others. ¹⁷ It also needs to tap into the constructive utopian function of imagination since ‘the innovative power of the imagination acts on the very production of arguments’ (Ricœur, 2000: xxiii). With both logical argumentation and inventive imagination, social reality could be read and interpreted in new ways, appropriate solutions could be found to ever-new ethical dilemmas. Ethics would then be in a position to refute Luhmann’s (2013b) assertion that ‘the name “ethics” has become no more than an empty distancing mechanism’ (p. 282).

***

The pseudo-binary distinctions briefly examined here are but a few examples chosen to illustrate how interplays between analog and digital theorizing could help us understand how meaning is produced. As pointed out by Luhmann (1995a), meaning does not always appear in a schematization:

By accentuating the concept of difference, we do not imply that meaning can be experienced only as two-valued, nor do we imply that meaning always appears in a schematization that has already been established. This reservation is even more valid if one accepts that both side of the schema must be determined as a kind of ‘duality’ like hot/cold or wet/dry. (p. 243)

Meaning is a topic of study in many disciplinary fields, as is ethics. The dialogue between researchers would be made much easier if they could share a common understanding of the role-played in their theorizing by true binary and pseudo-binary distinctions.

With Luhmann and Ricœur, we have two parallel discourses on ethics and utopia. Our examination of some of the binary and pseudo-binary distinctions they use has shown how both digital and analog theorizing can enrich our understanding of ethics and of the workings of meaning systems. If ethics accepts – as Luhmann requires of it – the task of thematizing morality as a distinction, it will discover that applying the moral code generates a confusion of levels, paradoxes, and blindness. If described as an aim – as Ricœur proposes – ethics will then be paralyzed and nowhere to be found. Is ethics a utopia? Yes, when moral distinctions impair the ethical aim.

This impairment is not a fatal flaw; it can be traced back to an artifice – the artificial imposition of an either/or condition above a substratum where it does not apply. Learning processes are pointed out by both authors. For Luhmann, meaning systems can learn through coding. For Ricœur, human beings can learn to become more reliable in their attempts to live an accomplished life, lived with and for others, in just institutions. Conflicts will arise about what is needed to live an accomplished life, whom to live it with, who is excluded, and which institutions qualify as just institutions. Learning how and when to use the code of the moral and how to rely on logic as well as on the innovative power of utopian imagination when engaging in argumentation and debates about these conflicts is nevertheless possible. Actualizing the ethical aim is not irremediably doomed to be a utopian dream.