Relational Difference. Proposing a Relational Epistemology of Dignity and Fundamental Rights in the Infosphere

Abstract

Methdologically, the “anthropology of digitalization” represents the appropriate perspective from which to re-ontologise or re-epistemologise the infosphere by addressing “relational goods”. In this way, the transformation of the social dimension of being human through digitalisation is taken seriously as an “anthropological revolution” without the reality of artificial intelligence becoming “anthropologised”. The “relational difference” thus constitutes the distinction between human sociality with its basic categories of human dignity and fundamental rights on the one hand and the extension of anthropological categories such as intelligence, subjectivity, intentionality, etc. to the realm of artefacts on the other. In this way, the concept of a person is being conceptually deepened and a materialistically reductive understanding of intelligence and morality is being avoided. Meanwhile, the relational redefinition of human being opens up a new interdisciplinary perspective for the Social Teaching of the Church.