Moral Agency

Normal adult humans are widely considered to be paradigms of moral agents.   To be a moral agent means to be responsible for one’s moral actions.  It means to be a being capable of acting with reference to right and wrong, and rationality is often associated with this capability.

We tend to think, for example, that particular responses are appropriate when a person who is a moral agent performs or fails to perform an action.  A good Samaritan is praised for his conduct; a thief is blamed for his.  We also tend to think that moral agency is a matter of degree (we do not think of children, for example, as moral agents; teenagers may have some degree of moral agency, though not the full moral agency of adults).

Not unimportantly, groups and organizations of various kinds can also be held responsible as moral agents.  Corporations may be held responsible for their moral actions, for example, when their actions do harm to people.