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Glossary of Key Terms in Magnifica Humanitas
Some readers meet Magnifica Humanitas through unfamiliar terms drawn from Catholic social teaching, ethics, technology, and Scripture. A glossary can make the document easier to approach without flattening its meaning.
Human dignity
Human dignity means the worth of every person before usefulness, productivity, wealth, health, status, or technical ability.
In the encyclical, dignity is the measure by which technological progress must be judged.
Common good, solidarity, and subsidiarity
The common good concerns the conditions that allow people and communities to flourish. Solidarity means recognising shared responsibility for one another, especially the vulnerable.
Subsidiarity means decisions should not be needlessly removed from the people and communities affected by them.
Discernment and responsibility
Discernment is careful moral judgement. It asks not only what can be done, but what should be done and what kind of person or society a choice forms.
Responsibility means that human beings remain accountable for the systems they design, deploy, use, fund, and tolerate.
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