Definition
The modification of a system by its own exceptions: a recurring failure changes the rule, category, workflow, or authority that produced it. It is the counterpart of exception absorption, which handles each case and changes nothing.
It matters because most contestability regimes measure whether a case was resolved, which is the weaker capacity. Exception learning is measured by whether the failure changed the evidentiary rule, the ontology, the authority, or the allocation of burden. The deepest Ethotechnic sequence runs residual → signal → standing → correction → institutional revision, and only the final step is learning.
The capacity this process exercises is structural corrigibility: repeated failures can modify the machinery that produces them. A system that handles challenges well and has no mechanism by which challenges alter upstream design has reversed decisions and changed nothing about the delegation.
Tests that show it is in place
- A recurring exception changes a policy, category, workflow, or authority object, not only the case.
- An aggregated exception pattern reaches a review trigger and produces a decision.
- The institution can name the last exception that changed an upstream rule.
Evidence to keep
- Artifact: A rule, category, or authority object whose state history shows changes triggered by exception patterns.
- Behavior: A challenge volume feeding a policy review and changing the policy's state.
- Metric: Share of exception classes that produced an upstream object change.
References
- Exception learning · Theory
- Corrective learning eval · Eval