Module 3: The Moral Agent Flashcards
True or False: The actions that we judge to be either morally good or bad are those that involve moral persons (whether human/non-human), both as the sources and recipients of these action.
True
By: (Evangelista & Mabacquiao, 2020)
True or False: It is important that as human beings we know how to assess actions whether they are morally good or evil so that we can achieve our goals in life without or with less regret or blame.
True
In judging whether an action is morally good or bad, or morally right or wrong, we determine whether this action conforms to or violates our moral standards or
principles. For example, we judge an act of killing to be morally wrong because it violates our moral principle which states that we ought not to kill or that we ought to respect a person’s right to life. In doing so, we, however, already assume that the entities or beings involved in the action (its source or receiver) have moral status or are moral persons.
For an action to be either morally good or bad, its source and recipient must be both be moral persons. We generally regard humans as moral persons both in terms of being sources and recipients of actions, while we do not generally regard animals as moral persons at least but only in terms of being recipient of the actions of moral persons (as when human kill or hurt them).
In making moral judgments, moral personhood plays a critical role. Moral
judgment applies only to acts involving moral persons. Therefore, we first need to determine if the action under consideration is indeed morally evaluable before we can apply our moral principles to test the morality of an action.
MORAL PERSONHOOD
The concept of moral personhood is _____; and to help us get a better handle of it, let us inquire into the following:
first, what does being a moral person entail? Or what are the consequences when an entity is regarded a moral person? (_____)
Second, what are the ways to be a moral person? Or are there different ways of being moral persons? Or are there different ways of being moral persons? (_____)
Third, how does one qualify as a moral person? (_____)
Choices: about its basis, about the significance of moral personhood, about its structure
To address these questions, we shall examine the _____ of moral personhood in terms of _____, the _____, and the _____.
- complex
- about the significance of moral personhood
- about its structure
- about its basis
- minimum definition
- possession of moral rights
- division of moral persons into moral agents and moral patients
- claims of the different theories of personhood
One standard way of defining personhood is in terms of _____: to be a _____ is to be a _____. For example, a legal person, in this sense, is one who possess legal rights.
- possession of rights
- person
- bearer of rights
A moral person is those who _____. Consequently, it is their _____ that makes _____.
- possess moral rights
- possession of moral rights
- moral persons objects of moral concern
It is important to note that the _____ is merely the _____ of _____; for, as we shall later on elaborate, there are _____ who, in addition to having _____, also have _____.
- possession of moral rights
- minimum
definition - moral personhood
- moral persons
- moral rights
- moral duties or obligations
They refer to interests one (i.e., the bearer of rights) is allowed to pursue or actions one is allowed to do.
For example, when we say that humans have the right to live, we mean that humans are entitled or allowed to do things that are necessary to continue with their existence in this world. And when we say that we do not have the right to take another person’s life, we basically mean that we are not entitled, allowed, or permitted to take another person’s life.
RIGHTS are entitlements
As such, they are better understood when
compared and contrasted with each other. Duties are actions that we ought to do or
perform.
RIGHTS correlate with duties
One main difference between rights and duties concerns whether one deserves
_____ for failing to satisfy them. On the other hand, _____ ; that is, one does not deserve to _____.
- sanctions (penalties, punishments, or blame)
- failure to exercise a right does not merit any sanction
- be punished or blamed for it
Two general ways by which rights are classified:
✓ Negative rights: if one’s possession of a right imposes only the duty of noninterference on other people.
✓ Positive rights: imposes the duty of provision (or positive performance), in
addition to the duty of non-interference.
On the basis of the kind of duties imposed by rights, whether these rights are only duties of non-interference or duties of provision as well.
Two general ways by which rights are classified:
✓ Contractual Rights. The rights that we acquire when we enter into an agreement or a contract with some other persons or institutions. This can either be: formal, when the rights of the parties of the contract, along with their correlative duties, are explicitly stated usually in some written document; informal, if such rights and duties are merely implied.
✓ Legal Rights. The rights that we acquire when we become citizens of a certain country or state.
✓ Moral Rights. Rights acquired when one becomes a moral person or a member of the moral community. Having moral rights is entitled by being a moral person. One becomes a moral person, and thus acquires moral rights when one possesses the defining qualities of moral personhood, which may include sentience (capacity to experience pleasure and pain) and rationality (the capacity to know and choose freely). Human persons are moral persons in virtue of possessing these qualities.
In terms of how rights are acquired (or their mode of acquisition)
What is at stake in the question of whether an entity—say a human embryo, a human fetus, a brain-dead human, an animal, a corporation, or an intelligent machine—is a moral person is whether this entity has moral rights and, consequently, whether other moral persons have certain moral duties or obligations towards this entity.
If being a person entails possession of rights, then being a moral person entails possession of moral rights.
(In the movie Bicentennial Man [1999]), the robot wanted to be recognized as a person
by the government so he would be recognized as having rights, especially the right to marry the person he so loved). But what are moral rights? Or more precisely, what kind of rights are moral rights?
Like legal and contractual rights, moral rights impose duties of either non-interference or provision and thus, are either negative or positive. But unlike legal and contractual rights, moral rights are acquired through possession of the defining features of moral personhood. Furthermore, as they are used to justify the acceptance or rejection of legal and contractual rights, moral rights are higher than these
two other kinds of rights.
If humans are moral persons in virtue of their possession of certain qualities (other than being human), moral persons, in principle, can either be human or nonhuman.
Moral Agents and Patients
Non-human moral persons, in this regard, would refer to those _____ but not of _____. They may include _____ like _____.
- possessing the defining features of being a moral person
- being a human being
- animals, aliens, and artificial entities
- corporations and intelligent machines
Moral persons, regardless of whether they are human or non-human, are either the ones _____ or those _____. Moral persons, in this consideration, are distinguished into _____.
- performing such actions
- to whom such actions are being done
- moral agents and moral patients (or moral recipients)
When moral persons act as the _____, in that they are the _____, they are classified as _____. But when they act as the _____, in that such actions are done to them, they are classified as _____. When a person, say Juan, helps another person in need, say Maria, Juan is the _____ while Maria is the _____.
- source of morally evaluable actions
- doers of such actions
- moral agents
- receivers of such actions
- moral patients
- moral agent
- moral patient
The distinction and relation between moral patients and moral agents can also be explained in terms of the _____.
possession of moral rights and duties
In general, moral agents perform _____ because it is their moral duty to do so; while morally evaluable actions are done to _____ because it is moral right that such actions be done to them. For example, parents, as moral agents, take care of their young children for it is their moral obligations to do so; while these children, as moral patients, are taken care of by their parents because it is their moral right to receive such care from their parents.
- morally evaluable actions
- moral patients
While all _____ are _____, only some are or can be _____. For example, all human persons can be receivers of morally evaluable actions; but only some of them can be sources of such actions. Normal human adults and infants, being moral persons, are moral patients; but only normal human adult or humans already capable of making informed decisions can be moral agent. Another way of saying this is that all _____ have _____, but not all have _____ as well.
- moral persons
- moral patients
- moral agents
- moral persons
- moral rights
- moral duties
Given that all moral persons are moral patients, but not all are moral agents. There
are _____ classes of moral persons.
two
Two classes of moral persons:
Consists of moral persons who cannot be moral agents or they are moral persons who can only function as moral patients.
non-agentive moral persons
Two classes of moral persons:
Consists of moral persons who can be moral agents or they are moral persons who can also function as moral agents.
agentive moral persons
Between the two, only _____ can be _____. This also means that only _____ can deserve _____. As such, while _____ can be _____, they are _____ so because it will still depend on whether the _____.
- agentive moral persons
- morally accountable for their actions
- agentive moral persons
- moral blame or praise for their actions
- moral agents
- morally accountable for their actions
- not always
- other conditions are satisfied