“The Moral Agent”-Module 1- Lesson 2

The Moral Agent

Morality
Morality
“Morality” used in two distinct broad
senses:
1. Descriptive sense – refer to certain codes of
conduct put forward by society or a group
(such as a religion), or accepted by an
individual for his/her own behavior.
(In its descriptive sense, "morality" refers to
personal or cultural values, codes of conduct or
social norms from a society that provides these
codes of conduct in which it applies and
accepted by an individual.
“Morality” used in two distinct broad
senses:
2. Normative sense – refer to a code of
conduct that, given specified conditions,
put forward by all rational persons.
(In the normative sense, “morality” refers to
a code of conduct that would be accepted by
anyone who meets certain intellectual and
volitional conditions, almost always including
the condition of being rational.)
Key Features of Morality
To understand morality let us identify the
six (6) features:
1. People experience a sense of moral
obligation and accountability – one
cannot doubt of his own moral
experienced to act or follow some rules,
policies, practices or principles.
Key Features of Morality
e.g.
Lewis, demonstrate the existence of a
moral law by pointing to men who quarrel –
the man who makes remarks is not just
saying that the other man’s behavior does
not happen to please him but is rather
appealing to some kind of standard of
behavior that he expects the other man to
know about. (Lewis,2003)
Key Features of Morality
2. Moral values and moral absolutes exist – It’s
hard to deny the objective reality of
moral values. Actions like rape, torture,
and child abuse are just socially
unacceptable behavior but are moral
abominations.
3. Moral law does exist- When we accept the
existence of goodness, we must affirm
a moral law as the basis to differentiate
between good and evil.
 Morality
Key Features of Morality
4. Moral law is known to human – moral law
is also called Law of Nature because
early philosophers thought that
generally speaking, everybody knows it by
nature.
Different civilizations and different ages only
have “slightly different”. One cannot present
a country where a man feels proud for
double-crossing all the people who had been
kindest to him.
 Morality
Key Features of Morality
e.g.
Men may have as to whether one should have
one wife or four wives but people have always
agreed that one must not simply have any
woman he likes. (Dawkins, 2006)
5. Morality is objective – morality is absolute,
there is a real right and real wrong that is
universally and immutability true,
independent of whether anyone believes
it or not.
 Morality
Key Features of Morality
e.g.
Almost people assume certain things to be
wrong, such as genocide [killing people who
belong to a particular racial, political, or
cultural group], murder of babies for feast,
and rape. Such things are really wrong and
morality is objective. (Kleiman, 2003)
Key Features of Morality

6. Moral judgment must be supported by

reasons – moral judgements are different
from expressions of personal preference.
These requires backing by reasons, and in
the absence of such reasons, they are
merely arbitrary [to force one’s will
without any regard to fairness].
 Man as a Moral Agent
A moral agent – is being “capable of
acting with reference to right and
wrong”.
A moral agent - is anything that can be
held responsible for behavior or decisions.
A moral agent – is an intelligent being
who has the power of choosing, and
scope to act according to his choice.
 Man as a Moral Agent
e.g.
Governor has given a cognizable law, with
its proper sanction, to regulate his volitions
and actions, [an act of making a choice] and
who is placed in circumstances which present
no physical obstruction either to obedience
or disobedience.
 Man as a Moral Agent

Moral agent- must be a living creature, as

they must be able to comprehend abstract
moral principles and apply them to decision
making. Must have self-consciousness,
memory, other values and the reasoning
ability.
 Man as a Moral Agent
This means in order to be moral agent
“you must live in a world of scarcity rather
than paradise”. In order to weigh the
options in decision making , a moral agent
must “attach a positive value to acts that
conform to his moral principles and a
positive value of some of the results that he
can achieve by violating his moral
principles”.
Man as a Moral Agent
 Man as a Moral Agent

Aristotle would not agree in preference

to modern ethical theories which separate
actions and questions.

Moral agency is not just about which

rules to follow, it comes from a way of life
which Aristotle called the virtuous life.