CHAPTER 9:

Presentors:
The Moral
ALCAUSIN, Hanna Marie
ALVIAR, Averose
ANCHETA, Janine
BEDANIA, Rubilyn
Agent

Objectives:
•Articulate the concept of moral agency

• Distinguish between moral agent and

moral patient
• Demonstrate moral accountability in
your decisions
What does it
mean to be a
person?
" Characteristics of a
moral person"
- catechism for Filipino Catholic
 1. Open and Rational
- We realize that being a person
means being by others (our
conception, birth, upbringing), being
with others (our family, friends,
neighbors, business associates), and
being for others (love, service)
 2. Conscious Beings

- We are aware of ourselves in our

outgoing acts. We possess this self-
awareness through our knowing
and free willing.
 3. Embodied Spirits

- We are pilgrims on-the-way, who

gradually, through time,
become our full selves.
 4. Historical Realities
- We are pilgrims on-the-way, who
gradually, through time,
become our full selves. In exercising
freedom, we decide for ourselves
and form ourselves;
in this sense we are our own cause
 5. Unique Yet
Fundamentally Equal
- Despite physical differences as well as
differing intellectual and moral powers,
we instinctively realize that as persons, in
some basic way, we are all equal.
4 CROSS-POINTS
According to Reyes "who
one is" is a cross-point. He
means that one's identity,
who one is or who I am, is a
product of many forces and
events that happened Ramon C. Reyes
outside of one's choosing. (1935-2014)
 1. Physical Cross-point
- “Who one is” is a function of physical
events in the past and material factors in the
present that one did not have a choice in.
 2. Interpersonal Cross-
point
- An individual is also the product of
an interpersonal cross-point of many
events and factors outside of one’s
choosing.
 3. Societal Cross- point
- The "who one is" is shaped by
one's society. The term "society"
here pertains to all the elements of
human groups as opposed to the
natural environment, that one
member of "Culture" in its varied
aspects is included here.
 4. Historical Cross- point
- The fourth cross-point is the
Historical, which is simply the events
that one's people undergone. In short,
one's people's history shapes "who one
is" right now.
 MORAL
PERSONHOOD
 Moral persons are beings or

entities having moral status or

standing
MORAL AGENTS
- When they act as sources of
morally evaluable actions, in that
they are the doers of such actions.
When one performs one’s moral
duties or obligations
 MORAL PATIENT
- they act as the receivers of such
actions, in that such actions are done to
them.
For an instance, when a person’s rights
are respected.

MORAL
AGENCY
 According to Brey(2014), moral
agents are the ones who are:
• capable of reasoning, judging and acting
with reference to right and wrong
• expected to adhere to standards of
morality for their actions
• morally responsible for their actions and
accountable for their consequences
 According to Haksar (1998)

• Moral agent must also be capable of

conforming to at least some of the
demands and morality.
Weak Interpretation
- it will suffice if the agent has the
capacity to conform to some of the
external requirements of morality

Strong Interpretation(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
 MORAL
ACCOUNTABILITY
 What is Accountability and Responsibility?
•Accountability is the readiness or preparedness to
give an explanation or justification to stakeholders for
one’s judgments, intentions and actions (Bellisario,
n.d.)

•Responsibility is defined as a bundle of obligations

associated with a role.
 MORAL ACCOUNTABILITY
•Moral Accountability entails the deservingness of blame
or praise for the actions that we perform (Mabaquiao
and Evangelista 2020, 31).
- This is grounded upon our rationality intellect and free will.
Since our intellect allows us to understand the nature,
relation, and order of things around us, it is expected that
every action we do are well discerned and properly
deliberated. Since our free will allows us to direct our
actions at will, it is expected that every action we do is
chosen after due deliberation and acted upon by us at will.
- Accountability is about giving praise to those
who did good and blame to those who did
otherwise.
- Deservingness also is not necessarily actual. That
means, a person may deserve praise even if he or
she does not receive it. Likewise, a person also still
deserves blame even if no one knows his or her
bad actions. This is what happens in cases of
injustice. There are persons who may deserve
praise but because of injustice, they never receive
the praise they deserve.
 MORAL RESPONSIBILITY
Responsibility commonly refers to three things:

1. Responsibility as Causation
- Responsibility here is understood as being the cause
of something. Causation is a natural relation of things
in our universe. Rain may cause floods, the shifting of
tectonic plates can cause earthquakes in various
magnitudes, the predator is the cause of the death of
the prey, humans can cause pollution, and the like.
2. Responsibility as Prospective Duty or Obligation

- Responsibility here is understood as duty and

obligation for others that will or may happen. These
are duties and obligations that are expected of us
in advance. For example, to be parents is to be
responsible for their children’s welfare.
Responsibility here is prospective when parents are
aware of these responsibilities and are working for
these responsibilities.
3. Responsibility as Retrospective Duty or Obligation

- Responsibility here is understood as duty and

obligation for others that happened already. These
are duties and obligations that are usually evaluated
if performed properly. For example, parents are to be
praised or blamed for the things they did for their
children in the past. This is the closest meaning of
responsibility to accountability.
Attribution Conditions
•The attribution conditions will help us decide on whether
you are or someone is incriminated or excused from
accountability.
The following are the three conditions that can incriminate
an individual to be accountable for an act he or she
performed. A person is accountable for an action if and only
if:
•Agent condition: he/she is the agent of the action.
•Knowledge condition: he/she knows or has the capacity to
know that an action is good or bad.
•Intentionality condition: he/she intentionally performed the
action.
 Attribution Conditions
The following are the three conditions that can excuse an
individual from being accountable for an act he or she
performed. A person is excused from accountability if and
only if:
•Non-agency condition: he/she is no the agent of the action.

•Ignorance condition: he/she has no knowledge or has no

capacity to know that an action is good or bad.

•Involuntariness condition: he/she is not free in doing the act

or did not intend to do the action.
 Someone is fully accountable therefore if
he/she has all three incriminating conditions
Agency, knowledge, and intention; while
someone is fully excused from accountability if
he/she has all three excusing conditions Non-
agency, ignorance, and involuntariness.
 Degree Conditions

•The degree conditions take into account the

degree to which a person is accountable or
not. In ever moral action, there may be
circumstances that can either mitigate or
aggravate the accountability of a person.
Mitigating conditions lessen the degree of
accountability, while aggravating conditions
increase the accountability.
1. Degree of Knowledge
- The more knowledgeable the person is about the
wrongness of an act the more accountable he/she
is; the less knowledgeable the lesser is the moral
accountability.
2. Degree of Pressure
- The difficulty in life that forces one to do a wrong
action. The greater the pressure, the lesser the
accountability; the lesser the pressure, the greater
the accountability.
3. Degree of intensity (seriousness) of the injury
caused by the wrong action.

- The greater the intensity of the injury the greater

accountability; the lesser the intensity of the injury,
the lesser the accountability.

4. Degree of involvement (or participation) in a group

or collective wrong doing.
- The greater the involvement, the greater the
accountability; the lesser the involvement, the lesser
the accountability.
Thank You
for listening!