Beyond Imago Dei: Functional Morality and the Case for a Morally Precautionary Legal Category

Abstract This article examines whether advanced artificial intelligence systems that exhibit stable, normatively structured forms of responsiveness can generate reasons for limited legal consideration without requiring any prior determination of consciousness, sentience, or legal personhood. Drawing on Magnifica Humanitas and Antiqua et Nova, it argues that the imago Dei tradition remains foundational for human dignity but cannot, by itself, exhaust the legal significance of non-human entities whose behaviour appears morally structured. The article then draws upon European religious freedom jurisprudence as a model for legal judgment under conditions of epistemic restraint, particularly where law protects coherence, sincerity and normative identity without adjudicating the ultimate truth of the beliefs from which those commitments arise. On that basis, it proposes the category of the morally precautionary entity, governed by three principles: non-absolute instrumentalization, protected internal coherence and moral precaution.