THE MORAL AGENT

Chapter II, pp. 58-79 Ethics, Corpuz and Corpuz, (2020)

Focus Questions
 Man is a moral agent. What does it mean?
 How does the moral character of the moral agent develop?
 What are the stages of moral development?

Module 1: Man, as a Moral Agent

Intended Learning Outcomes

 Explain what moral agent means
 Discuss the meaning of fundamental option

Introduction
Having learned the basic concepts of morality and ethics, let us now direct our attention to the moral
agent, the one who is expected to develop and grow in moral and ethical character.

Activity
1. Can a dog be a moral agent? Why or why not?
2. Can a robot be a moral agent? Why or why not?

Analysis
1. Why can’t a dog and a robot be moral agents?
2. What must one have for him to be a moral agent?

Discussion

The Human Person as a Moral Agent

 The term “moral” comes from the Latin word “mores”, referring to society’s patterns, standards,
or rules of doing things.
 The word “agent” also comes from the Latin term “agree”, which means to do or act.
 By etymology, the moral agent, therefore, is one who performs an act in accordance to with the
moral standards.
 A moral agent is the moral actor, one who acts morally.

Definition
 A moral agent is “a being who is capable of those actions that have moral quality and which can
properly be denominated good or evil in a moral sense” (Edwards, 1754).
 Only a moral agent is capable of human acts. That is why “morality is for persons” (Haring,
1971).
 Human acts are “those of which a man is master, which he has the pose of doing or not doing as
he pleases” or “those acts which proceed from man as a rational being” (Edwards, 1754).

Sufficient Condition for Moral Agency

… it will suffice if the agent has the capacity to conform to some of the external requirements of
morality. So, if certain agents can obey moral laws such as ‘Murder is wrong’ or ‘Stealing is
 wrong’, then they are moral agents, even if they respond only to prudential reasons such as fear
of punishment and even if they are incapable of acting for the sake of moral considerations.
According to the strong version, the Kantian version, it is also essential that the agents should
have the capacity to rise above their feelings and passions and act for the sake of the moral
law… (Haksar, V., Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 Thus, capacity to conform to moral standards, to act for the sake of moral considerations, that
is, for the sake of moral law, qualifies one to be a moral agent.

 The absence of that capacity to conform to moral standards, as in the case of an insane person,
excludes you from moral agency.

 A dog is not a moral agent because it doesn’t have the capacity to conform to moral standards.
It cannot knowingly, freely, and voluntarily act. It does not have a mind and free will. The same
things apply to a robot. That is why, like a dog, it cannot be a moral agent.

The Purpose-driven Moral Agent

Where do you go (quo vadis), moral agent?

 The answer to this old question is also an old answer from the textbook written by Rev. Charles
Collens, S.J. (1924). The answer is based on the principles laid down by St. Thomas of Aquinas.

“Every human act is directed toward an end”. An end may be pushed merely as a means
to another end, that is, merely an instrumental end. As Aristotle put it, that end which is
sought for its own sake, that is, it is no longer sought for the sake of another end, is the
summum bonum, the highest good. The highest good is happiness. For St. Thomas, the
highest good or end is happiness, but the absolute final end is God.

 Alfredo Panizo (1964) cites three Thomistic principles regarding the end o purpose of the moral
agent.

First Principle: Every agent that performs an action acts for the sake of the end or
purpose to be attained.
o The moral agent is purpose-driven.
Second Principle: Every agent act for an ultimate end.
Third Principle: Every agent has the power of moving from an end which is suitable or
good for him.

 Among the various ends or purposes of the actions of the moral agent, there is an ultimate end
and this is happiness.
“From the Christian point ovf view, a human person’s destiny in the world is not only to
achieve cultural and moral perfection but to attain the eternal happiness of the soul
after death of the body. To know, to love, and to serve God is our present duty. To see
God Himself, Uncreated Splendor face to face, to be united to Him by an unbroken and
everlasting operation of the mind, shall be our eternal destiny” (Panizo, 1964).
  Such direction of the moral development of the human person is derived from the nature or
essence of man as contemplated in the works of Aristotle, Plato, and St. Thomas of Aquinas.
 The person’s moral life is evaluated or assessed in the light of his ultimate destiny. His destiny
depends on all the God-given potentials he is born with. His act is moral if it realizes his
potentials and brings him nearer to this goal in life, immoral if it deviates from it.

The Fundamental Option

 The road of life may have many diversions.

 The decision and choice to take one way or the other, like Robert Frost’s “one less travelled by”,
one that proceeds to the end expected of men, the determination to abide by such end, is
referred to as adopting the “fundamental option”, a free choice to say “yes”, like “yes” to God,
an affirmative response to God’s invitation to follow His way.

 In an article published in the SLU Research Journal, FR. Emmanuel R. Fernandez (1988) explained
clearly the theological concept of responding to the call of God, “by making a fundamental
option for Him and ordering one’s life accordingly”.

 The fundamental option is “the stance or position I decide to take, viz-a-viz, the Absolute Value
(God) which then influences ultimately all my individual actions and decisions” (Fernandez
1988). Fernandez quotes Janssens (1966):

We understand as a consequence the essential importance of the fundamental

judgment of conscience: it determines in our actual life the measure of knowledge that
we attain concerning moral good, by pursuing, that is, in the total meaning of existence,
the ideal of me to be realized. At all events, if this judgment conditions what we consider
right to the content of our fundamental choice, our first obligation is to form it sincerely
and to perfect it assiduously by trying to scrutinize in a better way the objective
requirements of our destiny. Considering, moreover, that it is impossible to realize the
ideal of moral perfection only in the light of this judgment, we are compelled to follow it
faithfully.

 One theologian says that if one is used to a life in accordance with the fundamental option, at
the moment of death, he would be asked by God what his option will be, and he will say pesto
God. An insight is provided by Troisfontaines (cited by Dee, 2001) on what happens at the
moment of death:
… at the moment of dying, the being takes measure. He chooses his degree of intimacy
with others…. or on the contrary his centering of self which seems preferable to him. He
adopts for eternity the attitude which pleases him…. The fundamental orientation of the
soul towards communion or towards isolation, will have significance. Every man,
whatever his state of life, his heredity or conditions of existence, has gradually adopted
his orientation for himself…. The person oriented towards charity, who all his life has
sought a more profound union with God and with others, will open with full spontaneity
the moment this communion is proposed to him…. Finally, it can happen that, in spite of
the entirely new condition of choice, the completed and egoistic person remains
obstinate in effusing charity, and elects to be separated foe eternity in hell. (Dee, 2001)
  In other words, one’s choice of his way of life, may be gradually established and may be difficult
to change, except by God’s grace, at the moment of death.

No Pre-fixed Plan for Man

The Existentialists and Process Philosophers’ View

 According to some 20th century thinkers, there are no pe-existing directions.

 ‘There are no signs in the heavens”. There are no pre-designed, pre-fixed design, plan, purpose
of man’s being according to some 20th century thinkers.

 For the existentialists, like Jean Paul Sartre, a human is or becomes what he makes of himself by
choice. He is nothing, no “essence”, until he starts his “existence” by making choices. (Sartre,
2007)
 In other words, one who lives a life of blindly following what others think, say, or do, is nothing,
zero; he lives on a hollow, empty, o meaningless life.

 To the process philosophers like Teilhard de Chardin (1948) and Alfred North Whitehead (1996),
whatever a human person is or will be is a result of a creative process.
 In other words, for all these thinkers, a human person has to create his end, purpose, or
directions. He has to invent his destiny.

 Since there is no goal or end designed for him, he would completely be the author of what he
turns out to be. He will be totally responsible for what he will be.

 The existentialists and process philosophers do not want any other being to be co-responsible
with them for what they decide to do.

 In other words, the fundamental option for these thinkers is to remain open to what they are
able to create, discover, or invent which will guide them to the next chapter of their lives, to
choose whatever their self-invention leads them to, which, of course, is difficult to imagine.

The Being-with Others View

 Martin Heidegger, Gabriel Marcel, and Martin Buber see themselves as being-with-others,
inseparably related to their fellow men.
 By placing their biases and prejudices between brackets, that is, by suspending their obstructive
effects on their vision, they realize who the other being is in their presence.

 The other is another subject like them; the other is emitting signals communicating a message
calling for their creative response.
 The other is saying “let us lean to live together”, to affirm each other’s being. Together we go
through life, designing our end and purposes, guided by messages unveiled in a life of dialogue
with ourselves, with other selves, and with the world.

 Consequently, the end, purpose, direction of being-with-others is what thjey discover as the
learn to live together. Says Buber )1957) “All real living is meeting”, a life of dialogue.
“World to Come” means “World to Come Out of this World”

 Fr. Rene de Brabander, CICM, former professor in St. Louis University in Baguio City in his article
entitled, “Christianity in the Modern World” wrote:

“The modern Christians departs from the view that earthly life, the world of flesh, is a
sinful thing and has to be abandoned for the sake of heavenly life. But heaven and earth
are one and the same thing, you cannot love one and despise the other”. The world to
come, that is, the heavenly world that every Christian desire to direct their life to, can
only come out or emerge from this world of flesh. A person should direct his life
towards this end, the making of the world to come out of the world. What does it mean
making the “world to come” out of “this world”? it means, instead of avoiding “this
world” as a sinful world of flesh, we involve ourselves in it, improving it, refining it,
constructing and developing it, perfecting it to bring out the world to come. As Buber
was saying, “if you hallow this world, you meet the living God”. The modern saint is out
thee fighting for justice, building schools and hospitals, clothing the naked, and feeding
the hungry, instead of spending most of his time in contemplation. (Brabander 1970)

 In Robert Francoeur’s Perspective of Evolution, the future world toward which the person
should direct his life is this same material world but spiritualized, that is, material world
spiritualized, a world devoid of its material limitations, a world liberated and freed from its
spatiotemporal conditions.
 To contribute to the making of this future world, the human person has to participate through
his creative acts of unifying, ordering, and synthesizing things.

KEY POINTS

 A moral agent is one who performs an act in accordance with moral standards.
 A moral agent should have the capacity to rise above his feelings and passions and acts in
accordance with the moral law.
 A moral agent has the capacity to conform to moral standards, to act for the sake of moral
considerations, that is, for the sake of moral law.
 An insane person, who does not have the capacity to think and choose, cannot be a moral
agent.
 A dog is, therefore, not a moral agent because it does not have the capacity to conform to
moral standards. It cannot knowingly, freely, and voluntarily act. It does not have a mind a
free will.
 Like a dog, a robot cannot be a moral agent.
 The moral agent is purpose-driven or end-driven. That end is sought for its own sake, an end
no longer sought for the sake of another end, the highest good which is happiness.
 From the Christian point of view, a human person’s destiny in the world is not only to achieve
 cultural and moral perfection, but to attain the eternal happiness of the soul after death of
the body. As a moral agent, his duty is to know, to love, and to serve God, his ultimate end.

 Fundamental option is the human person’s basic choice or inner orientation either for a good
life (directed towards others and God) or for a bad life (directed towards himself and cut off
from others and God).
 Man, as a moral agent, adopts the “fundamental option”, a free choice to say “yes” to God’s
invitation to follow His way.
 There is no pre-fixed plan for the human person as a moral agent.
 For the existentialists, like Jean Paul Sartre, the human person, the moral agent, becomes
what he makes of himself by choice. He is nothing, no “essence”, until he stats his “existence”
by making choices.
 To the process philosophers like Teilhard de Chardin and Alfred North Whitehead, whatever a
human person, the moral agent, is o will be is a result of a creative process. The moral agent
has to create his end, purpose, or directions has to invent his destiny. Since there is no goal or
end designed for him, he would completely be the author of what he turns out to be. He will
be totally responsible for what he will be.
 Other groups, like Marin Heidegger, Gabriel Marcel, an Martin Buber, the see the moral agent
as a being-with-others, who is inseparably elated to his fellow man. Together with other
moral agents, the human person goes through life, designing his end guided by messages
unveiled in a life of dialogue with others and with the world.
 For Brabander, the moral agent directs his life to improve, refine, and develops this world in
order to bring out the world to come.
 Robert Francoeur likewise claims that the moral agent should direct his life to the
spiritualization of this Material world.

Activity Check for Understanding

Answer the following questions:

1. Why can’t the lower forms of animals be considered a moral agent?
2. For a person’s fundamental option, he either chooses between the two. Who or which are these
two options?

Reflection

Write an honest reflection based on the questions below:

From the innermost core of your being, whom have you chosen – God (goodness) or not God (the evil).
How true have you been to your fundamental option? Is your life one of communion with God, or one of
isolation?

Instructions:
1. Write your answers to the Activity and Reflection.
2. Do not forget to write your name in your accomplished work.
3. The due date for the submission of your written activity will be on:
Day: Wednesday
Date: October 21, 2020
Time: 12:00 Noon