Ethics: Man as a Moral Agent PDF

# Ethics: Life as it ought to be ## Chapter II: The Moral Agent ### Focus Questions: - Man is a moral agent. What does it mean? - How does the moral character of the moral agent develop? - What are the stages of moral development? ### Lesson 1: Man as a Moral Agent #### Intended Learning Outcom...

# Ethics: Life as it ought to be ## Chapter II: The Moral Agent ### Focus Questions: - Man is a moral agent. What does it mean? - How does the moral character of the moral agent develop? - What are the stages of moral development? ### Lesson 1: Man as a Moral Agent #### Intended Learning Outcomes: - To explain what moral agent means - To discuss the meaning of fundamental option #### Introduction After learning the basic concepts of morality and ethics, let us now turn our attention to the moral agent who is expected to develop in moral and ethical character. #### Activity 1. Can a dog be a moral agent? Why or why not? 2. Can a robot be a moral agent? Why or why not? #### Analysis 1. Why can’t a dog and a robot be moral agents? 2. What must a moral agent have for him/her to be a moral agent? #### 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 a 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, 1754). ##### What is a sufficient condition for moral agency? … 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.... (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, qualifies 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 St. Thomas Aquinas. *"Every human act is directed toward an end".* An end may be pursued merely as a means to another 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. Alfredo Panizo (1964) cites the three Thomistic principles regarding the end or purpose of the moral agent: *"First Principle: Every agent that performs 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 for 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 man as contemplated in the works of Aristotle, Plato, and St. Thomas Aquinas. His moral life 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 (1966): 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 what 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 theologian says that if one is used to a life in accordance with 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 heredity 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 clects 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 be 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 design, 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 he/she makes of himself/herself by choice. He/she is 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 following what others think, say, and do, 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 and purposes, guided by messages unveiled in a life of dialogue with ourselves, with 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) “All real living is meeting”, a life of dialogue. "World to Come" Means "World to Come Out of this World" Fr. Rene de Brabander, CICM, former professor in St. Louis University, Baguio City, 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. But "(h)eaven and earth are one and the same thing, you cannot love one and despise the other." 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? 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 these likely to happen considering the concept of fundamental option? 3. If you see a bad habit begin to develop, try to nip it in the bud so that it does not become ingrained. 4. If your fundamental option is yes to goodness and God, does this mean there will never be times when you digress or deviate from what is good? 5. 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 referred 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 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 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 philosophers like Teilhard de Chardin and Alfred North Whitehead, whatever a human 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 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. - 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.