THE MORAL AGENT

LESSON 1: Man as a Moral Agent

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 “agree,” 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 one who performs an act in accordance with moral standards.
What is a sufficient condition for moral agency?
 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 the 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 Purpose-driven 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.
The Fundamental Option
 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 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.
No Pre-Fixed Plan for Man
  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/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 philosophers like Teilhard de Chardin and Alfred North Whitehead,
whatever a human person, the moral agent, is or will be is a result of creative
process. The moral agent 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.
 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 through life, designing
his/her end guided by messages unveiled in a life of dialogue with others and with
the world.
“World to Come” Means “World to Come Out of this 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.

LESSON 2: The Development of Moral Character of the

Moral Agent

Meaning of Defining Moment

Defining moment refers to a significant life-changing event or moment that
reverberates throughout your career and personal life and so changes everything.
Lain Hensley, chief operating officer at Odyssey Teams, recalls the fear of loneliness
he felt when he was diagnosed with cancer, for example. His illness exposed weaknesses
in his leadership and as a result, he writes, he has become “a better man, husband, father,
employer, speaker and friend.”
The Defining Moments of the Saints
St. Paul’s defining moment was when suddenly a light from heaven flashed around
him on his way to Damascus.
St. Augustine’s defining moment was when while outdoors he heard the voice of a
child singing a song, the words of which were, “Pick it up and read it. Pick it up and read it.”
Relationship Between Moral Acts and Character
A person who has moral character does moral actions more readily and more
willingly than one who does not. Therefore, it is good to develop moral character. It is,
therefore, best for all persons to develop moral character is formed by repeatedly doing
moral acts.

LESSON 3: The Stages of Moral Development

Moral development refers to the process through which a human person gains
his/her beliefs, skills, and dispositions that make him/her a morally mature person.
Growth in morality can be described as passing through stages of behavior
controlled first, by taboo; then second, by law; third by conscience (irrational, intrajected
values); fourth, by reciprocity; fifth, by social consensus and finally by personal moral
principles, though not necessarily in that order.
Stated differently, the five stages may be reduced to three as follows:
 The Amoral Stage – egocentric, hedonist and prudential considerations.
 The Pre-Moral Stage – authoritarian, ego-idealist, social and reciprocal
considerations.
 The Moral Stage – personal, autonomous, altruistic, rational, independent and
responsible considerations.

KOHLBERG’S STAGES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT

Moral development refers to the “process through which a human person, gains
his/her beliefs, skills and dispositions that makes him/her a morally mature person.
Kohlberg (2013) describes the stages of moral development in 3 stages:

Level 1 – Pre-conventional morality

This is the lowest level of moral development of Kohlberg’s theory. At the pre-
conventional level children don’t have a personal code of morality. Instead, their moral code
is controlled by the standards of adults and the consequences of following or breaking
adults’ rules.
 Stage 1. Obedience and Punishment Orientation. The child/individual does good
in order to avoid being punished.
 Stage 2. Instrumental Orientation. Right behavior is defined by whatever the
individual believes to be in his/her interest.
Level 2 – Conventional
Throughout the conventional level, a child’s sense of morality is tied to personal and
societal relationships.
 Stage 3. “Good Boy, Nice Girl” Orientation. Children want the approval of others
and act in ways to avoid disapproval. Emphasis is placed on good behavior and
people being nice to others. The individual is good in order to be seen as being a
good person by others.
 Stage 4. Law and Order Orientation. The child/individual becomes aware of the
wider rules of society, so judgments concern obeying the rules in order to uphold the
law and to avoid guilt.
Level 3 – Post-conventional Morality
This is the level of full internalization. Morality is completely internalized and not
based on external standards.
 Stage 5. Social Contract Orientation. The child/individual becomes aware that
while rules/laws might exist for the good of the greatest number, there are times
when they will work against the interest of particular individuals. Laws are regarded
as social contracts rather than rigid order.
 Stage 6. Universal, ethical, principle orientation. Individuals at this stage have
developed their own set of moral guidelines which may or may not fit the law. They
have developed moral judgments that are based on universal human rights. The
principles apply to everyone.

DEVELOPMENT OF CONSCIENCE-BASED MORAL DECISION

Moral development includes development of conscience-based moral decision. This
is in the post-conventional level of Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. Panizo defines
conscience as an “act of the practical judgment of reason deciding upon an individual action
as good and to be performed and as evil and to be avoided.” It is metaphorically referred to
as the ‘inner or little voice of God.”
Aquinas held that conscience, in the strict sense, was as an of human reason –
called a judgment – following upon, and concluding, a time of deliberation. In this sense,
conscience is the interior resounding of reason.

THE FORMATION OF CONSCIENCE

First, conscience formation begins with the deep-seated decision to seek moral truth.
Second, a sound conscience must stand on the firm foundation of integrity, sincerity and
forthrightness. Third, conscience formation is sustained by the habit of consistently
educating oneself by exposure to objective moral norms and the rationale behind these
norms.
For conscience to be formed, it needs a guide, for Christians, the Church’s moral
teaching and persons whose moral judgments are sound and in accordance with the
Church’s moral tradition. Conscience formation requires a habit of on-going self-formation
(moral information gathering) through study, reading and other types of inquiry.
Conscience-based moral decision means widening of human consciousness – from
family consciousness to clan consciousness, community consciousness, town
consciousness, provincial, regional, national and international or global consciousness. As
one’s consciousness widens, the standards of one’s decision making widens, one’s moral
conscience widens, one matures.
Moral development is internalization of moral norms. One acts morally based on
his/her convictions not because the law says so or a person in authority orders so.

MODULE 3

HUMAN ACT
 LESSON 1: The Meaning of Human Act

Act of Man versus Human Act

A human act is an action that is considered to be carried out voluntarily, whereas an
act of man is an involuntary action. A human act is an act on which an individual can make
a conscious decision whether or not to carry out that act. An act of man is the natural act of
vegetative and sense faculties such as digestions, the beating of the heart, growing, bodily
reactions and visual or auditory perceptions.
The Determinants of the Morality of Human Act
The determinants of morality are, a) the object of the act, b) the end, or purpose, and
c) its circumstances. For an act to be morally good, all three determinants must be without a
flaw, according to the received axiom: “Bonum ex integra causa, malum ex quocumque
defectu”— “A thing to be good must be wholly so; it is not vitiated by any defect.”
The object of an act is the thing done. It is the act itself. We cannot act without doing
something, and that thing is done is the object of the act; say, of going, eating, praising, etc.
For an individual human act to be good, its object, whether considered in itself or as further
specified, must be free from all defect; it must be good, or at least indifferent.
The end, or purpose intended by the agent is the second determinant of an act’s
morality. No matter how good the object of an act may be, if the end intended is bad, the act
is thereby vitiated spoiled or impaired. Thus, to praise God is good in itself, but, if in so
acting the intention would be to play the hypocrite, the act is morally bad.
The circumstances of time, place and persons have their part in determining the
morality of an individual act. They either increase or diminish the moral goodness or evil of
human acts.
A morally good act requires the goodness of the object, of the end, and of the
circumstances together. An evil end corrupts the action, even if the object is good in itself
(such as praying and fasting “in order to be seen by men”).

LESSON 2: Accountability of Moral Act

Bases of Moral Accountability

Every human act is a free act so is imputable to him/her who performs it. For
violation of government laws, people are held accountable directly to the government, and
indirectly to the people.
 Under Christian natural law ethics, God is deemed the author of the law, hence
violators are accountable to God. For non-theistic morality, violators are accountable solely
to themselves.
There are three bases for moral accountability, namely: knowledge, freedom and
voluntariness. These are the necessary conditions for the accountability of actions. First, a
human act must be done knowingly; second, it must be done freely and third, it must be
done voluntarily (intentional or negligent).
Modifiers of Human Act
Modifiers of human acts either increase or decrease accountability. These are
analogous to exempting, mitigating, aggravating and justifying circumstances in criminal
law. These modifiers of human act affect the mental or emotional state of a person to the
extent that the voluntariness involved in an act is either increased or decreased.
The modifiers of human act are: 1) ignorance, 2) passion, 3) fear and 4) violence.
Ignorance is the “absence of knowledge.” Ignorance can be vincible, invincible, affected and
supine or gross. Invincible ignorance cannot be overcome by due amount by due amount of
diligence while vincible ignorance can be overcome. Invincible ignorance, one that is
beyond one’s ability to overcome, is entirely involuntary, and hence removes moral
responsibility; vincible ignorance does not free us from responsibility.
Gross or supine ignorance exists when scarcely an effort has been made to remove
it while affected ignorance exists when a person deliberately avoids enlightenment in order
to sin more freely. Antecedent passion decreases moral accountability while consequent
passion does not decrease voluntariness so increases moral accountability. Acts done with
fear is voluntary, but acts done because of intense or uncontrollable fear or panic are
involuntary. Actions performed by person subjected to violence or irresistible force are
involuntary and, therefore, the person is not accountable.
Moral Accountability for What Could Have Been
Whatever one fails to do but which should have been done is also imputable to him.
This refers to failure to act despite knowledge of being free, therefore different from
negligence or lack of foresight. This is sin of omission.

LESSON 3: Feeling as a Modifier of Moral Decision-

Making

Feelings in Decision-making
Feeling, in general, is an emotional state or reaction, experience of physical
sensation, like feeling of joy, feeling of warmth, love, affection, tenderness, etc. How do they
affect moral decision-making? Researchers show that “actual emotional states can
influence the process of moral reasoning and determine moral judgment.”
 Feelings can be obstacles to making right decisions but they can also help in making
the right decisions. Feelings can help persons in making the right decisions if they are
reasonably managed.
Moral statements as expression of feelings
According to some linguistic philosophers, called emotivists the statement “stealing
is wrong” is not a statement of fact, it is an expression of a desire or emotion. The rule or
maxim “Stealing is wrong” means “I desire that you do not steal.” An emotional statement is
not verifiable like factual statement.
Emotivism, … is the view that moral judgments do not function as statements
of fact but rather as expressions of the speaker’s or writer’s feelings. According to
the emotivist, when we say “You acted wrongly in stealing that money,” we are not
expressing any fact beyond that stated by “You stole that money.” It is, however, as
if we had stated this fact with a special tone of abhorrence, for in saying that
something is wrong, we are expressing our feelings of disapproval toward it.
Emotivism was expounded by A.J. Ayer in Language, Truth and Logic (1936)
and developed by Charles Stevenson in Ethics and Language (1945).
Managing Feelings
Aristotle wrote:
“Anyone can get angry ---that is easy--- but to do this to the right person, to the right
extent, at the right time with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for everyone,
nor is it easy. (Book II, Nicomachean Ethics). In other words, your anger should not be
displaced. The moral person manages his/her feelings well.