GE 10

ETHICS
ANGELA LOURAIN A. DIGAO
Course Instructor

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Module Template

Module No. & Title Module 2: THE MORAL AGENT

Hooray to a new academic year! The journey in this
pandemic has been tough yet you made it. New normal has
come, but the learning must continue. This would be pretty
Module Overview exciting! As we start digging through this course pack, you
will start on a bird’s eye view of this subject Ethics. This
module focuses mainly on the moral agent. There will be
activities that would really test your knowledge.

At the end of the module, you are expected:

 identify the meaning of fundamental option
Module  distinguish the relationship between moral acts and
Objectives/Outcomes character
 differentiate one’s personal growth against the stages of
personal development

This module will tackle the following topics:

Lesson 1: Man as a Moral Agent
Lessons in the
Lesson 2: The Development of Moral Character of the Moral
module
Agent
Lesson 3: The Stages of Moral Development

TEMPLATE 4: The Lesson Structure

Module No. and

Title Module 2: THE MORAL AGENT
Lesson No. and
Lesson 1: Man as a Moral Agent
Title
Learning
1. identify the meaning of fundamental option
Outcomes
2
Time Frame Week 8

Woopie! Welcome Lesson 1. You are going to answer

this module hence the activities intended must be done on
Introduction time. In this lesson, you will be given an overview on the
meaning of man as a moral agent. So, let’s get started. Enjoy!

Read and answer the given questions.

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

2. Can a robot be a moral agent?

Hello student! How was your experience with the activity? Are
you having fun? If so, that is great. Right now, let us wrap up
your experience. Let us try to answer the following questions:
Analysis
1. Why can’t a dog and robot be moral agent?
2. What must a moral agent have for him/her to be a
moral agent?
The Human Person as a Moral Agent
Abstraction
"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

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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
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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
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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 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 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
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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,
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 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.
Check your understanding
1. Why can't the lower forms of animals be considered as
moral agents?

2. For a person's fundamental option either he/she chooses

Application
between two. Who or which are these two options?

3. Study the picture in the cover of this book. Does the picture
suggest fundamental option? How?

Well done! You have just finished this lesson. Keep working
Closure
and enjoy!
Now if you are ready, please proceed to Lesson 2.