This is the first post in a series concerning the proper use of technology and is meant to act as a threshing floor for my Bachelor of Arts thesis. I was inspired to write about this topic from a homily, given by Cardinal Ratzinger at Regensburg and published in the book “In the Beginning….": A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall, concerning the Catholic understanding of the nature of man. In that homily, Benedict said “The fate of all of us depends on whether this moral dignity of the human person can be defended in the world of technology, with all its possibilities.” This statement has inspired me to explore how the dignity of the human person - that he is made in the image and likeness of God - could be defended in our age. Of course, the “world of technology” is much too large to be properly covered in a Bachelor thesis, so I have decided to limit the scope strictly to electro-mechanical augmentations, such as prosthetic limbs, artificial eyes, and brain interfaces. (Yes, they all exist.)
In my next post, I plan on giving a little historical background as well as a little bit of the structure that my paper will be taking. Until next time!