A Multi-Disciplinary Analysis of Catholic Social Teaching with Implications for Engineering and Technology

Abstract

In this article we view Catholic Social Teaching (CST) in the larger context of history, culture, philosophy and theology, and social services, and consider three perspectives on its modern instantiation: social science and economics, modal and non-monotonic logics, and second-order cybernetics. We then apply these perspectives to questions of interest in the field of software engineering and issues of digital (or network) security as well as intellectual property. In each application scenario, there are potential conflicts between the rights and dignity of differing individuals and groups. We conclude that CST allows for ethical navigation of such conflicts and offers many helpful insights.

Keywords

• engineering
• catholic social teaching
• artificial intelligence
• cybernetics
• theology
• computing
• philosophy
• logic