A dignitarian approach to ai ethics: grounding normative principles in human value

Abstract

Introduction: The proliferation of guidelines for artificial intelligence ethics presented a field without a firm philosophical foundation. Current documents offered a disparate collection of principles, often lacking a unified justification for their normative force. This paper confronted that deficiency by proposing a novel dignitarian framework. The objective of this research was to establish a stable and rationally defensible basis for the design, deployment, and governance of AI systems.
Methods: This study employed a conceptual analysis of the Kantian philosophical tradition to define human dignity as an absolute, intrinsic value. This core concept was then formalized into a coherent axiomatic system using elementary set theory and deontic logic. The analysis was based on a critical review of foundational texts in moral philosophy and contemporary AI ethics literature.
Results: A primary normative constraint emerged from this formalization: an AI system's action, a, was morally permissible only if it did not treat any person, p, merely as a means to an end. This was expressed logically as Permissible(a) → ∀p ∈ P, ¬ViolatesDignity(a, p). This principle functioned as a strict deontological limit on any goal-oriented programming.
Conclusions: The proposed framework provided a stable and rationally defensible basis for the design, deployment, and governance of AI systems. It moved the conversation from a list of suggestions to a structured ethical system, contributing to the growing field of computational ethics by offering a clear, implementable, and non-negotiable constraint on AI behavior.