MAN AS A MORAL AGENT

Reporters

Angeline Charles Silerio Melboy

Realubit Mirinda
INTRODUCTION
A moral agent is one who performs an act
in accordance with moral standards. A
moral agent is the moral actor, one who
acts morally.

Only a moral agent is capable of human

acts. That’s why “morality is for persons.”

A moral agent should have the capacity

to rise above their feelings and passions
and act for the sake of the moral law….
The Human Person as a Moral Agent
“Moral” come from the Latin
“mores,” referring to society’s
patterns, standards, rules of
doing things.
“Agent” comes from Latin
“agree,” to do, act.
Moral agent
- Is the one who performs an
act in accordance with
moral standards.
- The moral actor, one who
acts morally.
“A moral agent being who is
capable of those actions that
have moral quality and which
can be properly denominated
by good or evil in a moral
sense”
(Edwards, 1754)
Human acts are “those of
which a man is master, which
he has the power of doing or
not doing as he pleases” or
“those acts which proceed
from man as a rational being”
(Edwards, 1754)
 What is a sufficient condition
for moral agency?
According to the
If the agent has If certain agents
Kantian version, it is
the capacity to can obey moral Even if they are
essential that the
conform to some laws such as incapable of
agents should have
of the external ‘Murder is wrong’ acting for the
the capacity to rise
requirements of or ‘Stealing is sake of moral
above their feelings
morality. wrong’, then they considerations.
and passions and act
are moral agents.
for the sake of the
moral law.
 Capacity to A dos is not a
conform to moral The absence of moral agent
standards is to that capacity to because it
act for the sake conform to moral doesn’t have the Same things
of moral standards, as a capacity to apply to robots
considerations is case of an conform to moral since its like the
for the sake of insane person, standards. It dog, it cannot be
moral law, excludes you cannot a moral agent.
qualifies one to from moral knowingly, freely,
be a moral agency. and voluntarily
agent. act.
 No Pre-fixed Plan for Man
According to some 20th
He/she will be totally
century thinkers, there are no
responsible for what he/she
predesigned, prefixed plan,
will be.
purpose of man's being.

One who lives a life of blindly The existentialists and process

following what others think, say philosophers do not want any
and do is nothing, zero: other co-being to be co-
he/she lives a hollow, empty responsible with them for what
or meaningless life. they decide to do.
 No Pre-fixed Plan for Man
Other groups like Martin
Consequently, the end,
Heidegger, Gabriel Marcel
purpose, or direction of being-
and Martin Buber see
with others is what they learn
themselves as being-with
to live together
others, inseparably related to
their fellow man

The other is another subject

like them, the other is emitting
signals communicating a "All real living is meeting" , a
message calling for their life of dialogue.
creative response. The other is
saying "let us learn to live
together" to affirm each other's
being.
World To Come Means World to Come Out Of This
World
Fr. Rene De Brabander, CICM, former professor in St. Louis University wrote an
article entitled, "Christianity in the Modern World" The modern christian departs
from the view that earthly life, the world of flesh, is a sinful thing and has to be
abandoned for the sake heavenly life.

"If you hallow this world, you meet the living God". Buber said. The modern saint is
out there fighting for justice, building schools and hospitals, clothing the naked,
and feeding the hungry instead of spending the most of his time in contemplation.

In Robert Francoeur's Perspective of Evolution, the future world toward which a

person should direct his/her life is the same material world but spiritualized, that is
material world spiritualized, a world devoid of its conditions. To contribute to the
making of this future world the human person has to participate through his/her
creative acts of unifying, ordering, and synthesizing things.
THANK YOU!