Moral Agents and Patients If humans are moral persons in virtue of their possession certain qualities

(other than being human), moral persons, in principle, can either be human or non-human. Non human
moral persons, in this regard, would refer to those possessing the defining features of being a moral
person but not of being a human being. They may include animals, aliens, and artificial entities like
corporations and intelligent machines. A more more general division among moral persons, however, is
the one based on whether moral persons act as sources or as receivers of morally evaluable actions.
Moral persons, regardless of whether they are human or non-human, are either the ones performing
such actions or those to whom such actions are being done. Moral persons, in this consideration, are
distinguished into moral agents and moral patients (or moral recipients) (see Floridi 2011, 184; Haksar
1998, 5632). When moral persons act as the sources of morally evaluable actions, in that they are the
doers of such actions, they are classified as moral agents. But when they act as the receivers of such
actions, in that such actions are done to them, they are classified as moral patients. When a person, say
Juan, helps another person in need, say Maria, Juan is the moral agent while Maria is the moral patient.
The distinction and relation between moral patients and moral agents can also be explained in terms of
the possession of moral rights and duties. In general, moral agents perform morally evaluable actions
because it is their moral duty to do so; while morally8 evaluable actions are done to moral patients
because it is their moral right that such actions be done to them. For instance, parents, as moral agents,
take care of their young children for it is their moral obligation to do so; while these children, as moral
patients, are taken care of by their parents because it is their moral right to receive such care from their
parents. Thus when one’s rights are being respected, he/she acts as a moral patient, but when one
performs one’s moral duties, he/she acts as a moral agent. In the example above, the parents act as
moral agents because they are performing their moral duties, while the children act as moral patients
because their right is being respected. In another context, however, it may be the other way around.
When parents are already weak due to old age, their grown-up children can take care of them. Here, it is
the children who are acting as moral agents, and the parents as moral patients.