LESSON 4

THE MORAL AGENT:

DEVELOPING VIRTUE AS HABIT

“The moral virtue, then, are provided in us neither by nature nor against
nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, for
their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.”
-Aristotle

LESSON OUTCOMES:

At the end of the discussion, the learners can:

1. Reflect on how developing virtue as habit important
2. Explain the meaning of moral agent and its connection to virtue
3. Enumerate the stages of moral development
4. Appreciate the importance of being a moral agent and developing
virtue as habit

LESSON CONTENT:

THE MORAL AGENT: DEVELOPING VIRTUE AS HABIT

A moral agent is a person who has the ability to discern right from wrong
and to be held accountable for his or her own actions. Moral agents have a
moral responsibility not to cause unjustified harm (Ethics Unwrapped -
McCombs School of Business, 2019).

Moral agents are those agents expected to meet the demands of morality.
Not all agents are moral agents. Young children and animals, being capable
of performing actions, may be agents in the way that stones, plants and cars
are not. But though they are agents they are not automatically considered
moral agents. For a moral agent must also be capable of conforming to at
least some of the demands of morality. (Haksar, Vinit)

This requirement can be interpreted in different ways. On the weakest

interpretation 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. There is also a
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position in between which claims that it will suffice if the agent can perform
the relevant act out of altruistic impulses. Other suggested conditions of
moral agency are that agents should have: an enduring self with free will
and an inner life; understanding of the relevant facts as well as moral
understanding; and moral sentiments, such as capacity for remorse and
concern for others. (Haksar, Vinit)

DEVELOPING MORAL CHARACTER

Moral Character

Moral character is defined as an idea in which one is unique and can be

distinguished from others. Perhaps it can assemble qualities and traits that
are different from various individuals. It implies to how individuals act, or
how they express themselves. In another words, it is “human excellence,” or
unique thoughts of a character. When the concept of virtue is spoken, this
would emphasize the distinctiveness or specialty, but it all involves the
combination of qualities that make an individual the way he or she is. Based
on this definition, the insight of a moral character can be viewed differently.
Although these philosophers diverge with their arguments, they in some
sense have similarities. These similarities will show how the matter of a
character is important and crucial to the human nature.

Four major questions to be addressed when focusing on character

development:

1. What is good character?

2. What causes or prevents it?
3. How can it be measured so that efforts at improvement can have
corrective feedback? and
4. How can it best be developed?

Virtue

• Idea of virtue - in Greek, arête meaning “excellence,” is that of the

qualities required for a flourishing human life. Virtues are good
qualities of character.

• Aristotle, in particular, regarded virtues and vices as not innate but

acquired. While many qualities of personality (such as charm or wit)
may be innate, qualities of character (such as self-control or honesty)
are acquired and our assessments of them are inherently moral,
normative and evaluative.

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Theory of Moral Development

According to Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development, there are 6 stages of

moral development, separated into 3 levels:

1. Pre-conventional- children are only interested in securing their own

benefit. This is their idea of morality.

2. Conventional- the stage at which children learn about rules and

authority. They learn that there are certain “conventions” that govern
how they should and should not behave and learn to obey them.

At this stage, no distinction is drawn between moral principles and

legal principles. What is right is what is handed down by authority,
and disobeying the rules is always by definition “bad.”

This level is split into two stages:

• First stage: Children are interested in pleasing others and
securing the favor of others.

• Second stage: Children extend the principle to cover the whole

of their society, believing that morality is what keeps the social
order intact.

3. Post-conventional- Children have learned that there is a difference

between what is right and wrong from a moral perspective, and what
is right and wrong according to the rules. Although they often overlap,
there are still times when breaking a rule is the right thing to do.

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Moral Virtue

Aristotle defines moral virtue as a disposition to behave in the right manner

and as a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess, which are vices.
We learn moral virtue primarily through habit and practice rather than
through reasoning and instruction

Virtue is a matter of having the appropriate attitude toward pain and

pleasure. For example, a coward will suffer undue fear in the face of danger,
whereas a rash person will not suffer sufficient fear.

How do prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance dispose us to lead

good lives?

1. Prudence disposes us in all circumstances to

form right judgments about what we must do Chief Moral Virtues
or not do. It teaches us when and how to act in
matters relating to our eternal salvation. • Prudence
Prudence perfects the intelligence, which is • Justice
• Fortitude
the power of forming judgments; for this
• Temperance
virtue, knowledge and experience are
important.

2. Justice disposes us to give everyone what belongs to him. It teaches

us to give what is due to God and to man. It makes us willing to live
according to the commandments. Justice perfects the will and
safeguards the rights of man: his right to life, freedom, honor, good
name, sanctity of the home, and external possessions.

3. Fortitude disposes us to do what is good in spite of any difficulty. It

gives us strength to do good and avoid evil in spite of all obstacles and
afflictions.

4. Temperance disposes us to control our desires and to use rightly the

things which please our senses. It regulates our judgment and
passions, so that we may make use of temporal things only in so far as
they are necessary for our eternal salvation. We have temperance
when we eat and drink only what is necessary to sustain life, preserve
health, and fulfill our duties.

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Steps in Developing New Habit

1. Make A Decision. Decide clearly that you are going to begin acting in a
specific way 100% of the time, whenever that behavior is required. For
example, if you decide to arise early and exercise each morning, set your
clock for a specific time, and when the alarm goes off, immediately get
up, put on your exercise clothes and begin your exercise session.

2. Never Allow an Exception To Your New Habit. Never allow an exception

to your new habit pattern during the formative stages. Don’t make
excuses or rationalizations. Don’t let yourself off the hook. If you resolve
to get up at 6:00 AM each morning, discipline yourself to get up at 6:00
AM, every single morning until this becomes automatic.

3. Tell Others You Are Practicing A New Behavior. Tell others that you are
going to begin practicing a particular behavior. It is amazing how much
more disciplined and determined you will become when you know that
others are watching you to see if you have the willpower to follow
through on your resolution.

4. Visualize Your New Habit. Visualize yourself performing or behaving in

a particular way in a particular situation. The more often you visualize and
imagine yourself acting as if you already had the new habit, the more
rapidly this new behavior will be accepted by your subconscious mind
and become automatic.

5. Create An Affirmation. Create an affirmation that you repeat over and

over to yourself. This repetition dramatically increases the speed at which
you develop the new habit. For example, you can say something like, “I
get up and get going immediately at 6:00 AM each morning!” Repeat
these words the last thing before you fall asleep. In most cases, you will
automatically wake up minutes before the alarm clock goes off, and soon
you will need no alarm clock at all.

6. Resolve To Persist. Resolve to persist in the new behavior until it is so

automatic and easy that you actually feel uncomfortable when you do
not do what you have decided to do.

7. Reward Yourself. Most important, give yourself a reward of some kind

for practicing in the new behavior. Each time you reward yourself, you
reaffirm and reinforce the behavior. Soon you begin to associate, at an
unconscious level, the pleasure of the reward with the behavior. You set
up your own force field of positive consequences that you unconsciously
look forward to as the result of engaging in the behavior or habit that you
have decided upon.

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DEFINITION OF TERMS

• Development- as an improvement in people's well-being does not do

justice to what the term means to most of us. Development also carries
a connotation of lasting change (Barder O., 2011).
• Ethics- based on well-founded standards of right and wrong that
prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights,
obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues (Velasquez M.,
Shanks T. and Meyer M., 2012).
• Habit- Habit formation is the process by which new behaviors become
automatic (Psychology Today, 2019).
• Moral Agent- those agents expected to meet the demands of morality.

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READINGS

Barder.O.(2012). Center for Global Development. What is Development. Retrieved from:

https://www.cgdev.org/blog/what-development

Cherry.K(2018, November 15). Levels of Developing Morality Retrieved from

https://www.verywellmind.com/kohlbergs-theory-of-moral-developmet-2795071

Crisp, R. (1998). How Should One Live? https://doi.org/10.1093/0198752342.001.0001

Encyclopedia Britannica. (2019). Aristotle: The Lyceum Retrieved from:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aristotle/The-Lyceum

Essays, UK. (November 2013). The Development of a Moral Character. Retrieved from
https://www.ukessays.com/essays/philosophy/moral-character.php?vref=1

Ethics Unwrapped - McCombs School of Business – The University of Texas at Austin

Haksar, Vinit. Moral agents, 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-L049-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor
and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/moral-agents/v-1.

Kaur, D. S. (2015). Moral Values In Education. Journal Of Humanities And Social Science, 20(3), 21–26.
https://doi.org/10.9790/0837-20332126

McLeod, S. A. (2013, Oct 24). Kohlberg. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/kohlberg.html

McManaman, Douglas. (February 2006)."The Virtue of Prudence." retrieved from

https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/education/catholic- contributions/the-virtue-of-prudence.html

Psychology Notes. (2016). Kolberge’s Theory of Development. Retrieved from:

https://www.psychologynoteshq.com/kohlbergstheory/

Richert.S. (2018, March 20). The Cardinal Virtue of Prudence(And What is Means) Retrieved from:
https://www.thoughtco.com/prudence-a-cardinal-virtue-542128

Sarah Mae Sincero (Feb 23, 2012). Theory of Moral Development. Retrieved Feb 14, 2019 from Explorable.com:
https://explorable.com/theory-of-moral-development

Sandre, Cheryl. Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development, .Encyclopædia Britannica,

inc.https://www.britannica.com/science/Lawrence-Kohlbergs-stages-of-moral-development

Tracy.B.(2019).BrianTracy.com.7 Steps to Developing Habit. Retrieved from:

https://www.briantracy.com/blog/personal-success/seven-steps-to-developing-a-new-habit/

Velasquez M., Shanks T. and Meyer M.(2010).Markkula Center for Applied.What is Ethics. Retrieved from:
https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/what-is-ethics/

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