Human Dignity
Every principle of Catholic social teaching starts here. The Church sees in every person “the living image of God himself,” each one having received “an incomparable and inalienable dignity from God himself” (Compendium, no. 105). That dignity comes from God, so no employer, government, market, or illness can confer it or take it away.
The whole of the Church’s social doctrine “develops from the principle that affirms the inviolable dignity of the human person” (Compendium, no. 107), and society exists for the person: “the social order and its development must invariably work to the benefit of the human person” (Compendium, no. 132). When a law, a system or a machine treats a person as a means to someone else’s end, this is the principle it offends. The pieces below take it into the news.
Quotations are from the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, 2004), cited by paragraph number.
From The Catholic Citizen
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The Proof That Belongs to Everyone
A mathematician says an AI company may have trained on his unpublished notes. Catholic teaching on who owns knowledge and who owns the proof.
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The Work That Ships Nothing
The Church ranks the worker above the output. Uber cut 3,300 coordination roles. What Catholic social teaching says about automation and work.
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A Machine Cannot Bear Moral Responsibility
A machine has no conscience and so bears no moral responsibility, tested against the UN and Red Cross appeal on autonomous weapons. The Catholic Citizen.
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Human Dignity Is Not Conferred by Usefulness
Human dignity is a gift that precedes ability and cannot be earned, tested against automated resume screening in American hiring. The Catholic Citizen.