MODULE 2

LESSON I
THE MORAL AGENT

INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of the lesson, the students will be able to:

⮚ To explain what moral agent means

⮚ To discuss the meaning of the fundamental option

INTRODUCTION
After learning the basic concepts of morality and ethics, let us now turn our
attention to the in moral agent who is expected to develop in moral and ethical
character.
ACTIVITY 1:

1. Can a dog be a moral agent? Why or Why not?

2. Can a robot be a moral agent?
ANALYSIS

1. Why can’t a dog and a robot be moral agents?

• Because moral actors are capable of human behaviors, whereas dogs are capable of savage
ones. They lack will and brains. They act instinctively. But animals can be taught.
2. What must a moral agent have for him/her to be a moral agent
• A moral actor is able to distinguish between good and evil and is responsible for his or her
actions. Moral actors must avoid causing unwarranted damage. Traditionally, moral agency is
only given to those who can be held accountable.
ABSTRACTION

The human Person as a Moral Agent

 “Moral “ comes from the Latin “mores”, referring to society’s patterns, standards, rules of
doing things. “ Agent” comes from Latin “agere”, to do, act. 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.
A moral agent is a “being who is capable of those actions that have moral quality and
which can be properly denominated good or evil in the moral sense.”(Edwards, 1754) Only a
moral agent is capable of human acts. That’s why “morality is for persons,” ( Haring, 1971) As
will be discussed later, 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, 1974)c
What is sufficient condition for moral agency
…It will suffice it 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 eve 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)
Capacity to conform to moral standards, to act for the sake of moral considerations, that
is, for the sake of moral law, qualities 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, therefore, 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
freewill. The same things apply to a robot that is why like the dog, it cannot be a moral agent
The Purpose-driven Moral Agent
Where do you go ( quo vadis), moral agent?
For this old question we find an old answer from the textbook written by Rev. Charles
Collens, S.J.(1924). It is based on the principles laid down by Thomas Aquinas.” Every human act
is directed toward an 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. That highest good is happiness. For St. Thomas,the highest
good or end is happiness but the absolutely final end is God.
AlfredoPanizo (1964) cities the three Thomistic principles regarding the end or purpose
of the moral agent:” First Principle: Every agent that performsu an action acts for the sake of
the end or purpose to be attained. In other words, a moral agent is purpose-driven. Second
Principle: Every agent acts f.” or an ultimate end. Third Principle: Every agent has the power of
moving for 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 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. 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 a man as contemplated in the works of Aristotle, Plato, and St. Thomas
Aquinas.His Moral 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. Hence, the decision and choice to take one
way, like Robert Frost’s “one less traveled 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 a “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 vis-à-vis the absolute Value (God) which then influences
ultimately all my other individual actions and decisions (Fernandez 1988) Fernandez quotes
Janssens (1964)
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 was we consider right to be 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 perfections only in the
light of this judgment, we are compelled to follow it faithfully.
One theologies says that if one is used to a life in accordance what the fundamental
option, at the moment of death, he/she would be asked by God what his/her option will be,
and he/she definitely will say yes to God. An insight is provided by Troisfontaines (cited by Dy,
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 on 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 in life,
his hereditary or the conditions of his 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 refusing charity, and elects to be
separated for eternity in hell. (Dy, 2001)
In other words, one’s choice of his way of life, may be gradually established and may
difficult to change it, except by God’s grace, at the moment of death.

No Pre-fixed Plan for Man

According to some 20th Century thinkers there are no pre-existing directions. “There are
no signs in the heavens. ”There are no pre-designed, pre-fixed designs, plan, purpose of man’s
being according to some 20th century thinkers. For the existentialist, like Jean Paul Sartre, a
human person is or becomes what himself/herself by choice. He/ She nothing, no “essence”,
until he/she starts his/her ”existence” by making choices. (Sartre, 2007 ) In other words, one
who lives a life of blindly, is nothing zero: he/she lives a hollow, empty or meaningless life. To
the process Philosophers like Teilhard de Chardin (1948 ) and Alfred North Whitehead (1996)
Whatever a human person is or will be a result of a creative process, In other words for all these
thinkers, a human person has to create his/ her end, purpose or directions. He/ She has to
invent his/ her destiny. Since there is no goal or end designed for him/ her, he/ she would
completely be the author of what he/ she turns out to be. He/ She will be totally responsible
for what he/ she 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.
But other groups, like Martin Heidegger, Gabriel Marcel and Martin Buber see
themselves as being –with others, inseparably related to their fellow man. 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 learn to live together to affirm each other’s being. Together we go
through life, designing our end purposes, guided by messages unveiled in a life of dialogue with
ourselves, with the other selves, and with the world. Consequently, the end purpose or
direction of beings-with- others , is what they discover as they learn to live together. Says
Buber (1957 ) The world to come that is the heavenly world that every Christian desires to
direct their life to, can only come out or emerged from this world of flesh. A person should
direct his/ her life toward this end, the making of the world to come out of this 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 there 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 a person
should direct his/her 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
spatio-temporal conditions. To contribute to the making of this future world the human person
has to participate through his/her creative acts of unifying, ordering synthesizing things.

APPLICATION

1. Is a permanently insane person considered a moral agent? What about a person

with some psychological trauma, psychiatric illness episode, or medical condition
that rendered him insane at the time he committed the crime. Is he a moral agent?
 • I don't consider it a moral agent since a moral agent can distinguish
between good and evil and is responsible for his or her own acts. Moral
actors must avoid causing unwarranted damage.
2. Here is a question often raised in relation to fundamental option.
“What if a good person who has dedicated his life to people and God
Turns away from goodness and from God at the last minute of his life.
Will he go to hell?” On the contrary here is a person who has opted to live a life
For himself disconnected from others and from God but in the last minute of his
life opts for God, will he go to heaven? Are this likely to happen considering the
concept of fundamental option?
• No, since God forgives even those who commit major crimes
• Yes, because sinners should be punished.
3. If your fundamental option is yes to goodness in God, does this mean there will
never be times when you digress a deviate from what is good?
 Somehow yes because sometimes there will be an obsession and do
whatever it takes
4.God himself or a life that is good is your fundamental option. But once in a while you
may deviate from what is good despite your basic choice of goodness. Are these the
venial sins reffered to by Catholic Christians?what must you do to be true to your
fundamental option?

KEY TAKEAWAYS
● 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/her 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 doesn’t have capacity to
conform to moral standards. It cannot knowingly, freely and voluntarily act. It
does not have a mind and freewill.
● Like the 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 a 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/herself 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 existentialist, like Jean Paul Sartre, the human person, the moral agent
becomes what he/she makes of himself/herself by choice. He/she is nothing no
“essence” until he/she starts his/her “existence” by making choices.
● To the process philosphers like Teilhard de Chardin and Alfred North Whitehead,
whatever a human person, the person, the moral agent, is or will be is a result of
a creative process. The moral agent has to create his/her end, purpose or
directions. He/she has to ivent his/her destiny. Since there is no goal or end
designed for him/her,he/she would completely be the author of what he/she
turns out to be. He/she will be totally responsible for what he/she will be.
● Other groups, like Martin Heidegger, Gabriel Marcel and Martin Buber see the
moral agent as a being-with-others, who is inseparably related to his/her fellow
man. Together with other moral agents, the human person goes throughlife,
 designing his/her end guided by messages unveiled in a life of dialogue with
others and with the world.
● For Brabander, the moral agent directs his/her life to improve, refine, develops
this world in order to bring out the world to come.
● R. Franceur likewise claims that the moral agent should direct his/her life to the
spiritualization of this material world.

CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING

1. Why can’t the lower forms of animals be considered as agents?
Because its not a moral agent because it doesn’t have capacity to conform to
moral standards. It cannot knowingly, freely and voluntarily act. It does not
have a mind and freewill

2. For a person’s fundamental option either he/she chooses between two. Who
or which are these two options?
Fernandez quotes Janssens (1964)

3. Study the picture in the cover of this book. Does the picture suggest fundame
• It was an effort to depict one's moral life as a continuous process with a
clear moral direction rather than a series of isolated activities. The basic
choice is expressed and modified by specific actions, which either reinforce
and develop it or reduce and reverse it.ntal option? How?

REFLECTION
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
fundamenta option? Is your life one of communion with God or one of
isolation?
 It depends on the occasion, but I've chosen kindness most of the time.
Because God formed us not wicked, I must follow God's path to accomplish
good in life.