ABSTRACT
With his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si', Pope Francis set up a milestone within the tradition of Catholic social teaching. The document fully acknowledges the ethical significance of anthropogenic climate change and in response develops its multi-level programme of integral ecology. In opposition to the exploitation of nature as a value-neutral means for human ends, the encyclical confirms the intrinsic value of non-human creatures, ecosystems and the whole world. However, this diverging attribution of equally intrinsic values raises questions concerning their respective meaning and practical relevance, and their coherence with regard to the special dignity of human beings as God's image. On a first level, those questions affect the relation between human and non-human life. On a second level, a more general question asks what constitutes such intrinsic value of living organisms as distinct from the apparently homogeneous mass of valueless matter. If evolution is to move from valueless matter to intrinsically valued life without a categorical jump, understanding their relation demands reflection. To provide a possible framework for both levels, this chapter will follow Latour's epistemological distinction of matter and materiality and deepen the understanding with Whitehead's panexperiential ontology.
