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Theory & Psychology
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Persons and Moral Agency

Jeff Sugarman

Simon Fraser University, sugarman{at}sfu.ca

Charles Taylor’s claim that personhood consists in its relation to moral goods and commitments, and that persons are moral agents, is summarized and examined. According to this view, persons not only have an understanding of themselves as moral agents, they are partially constituted by this understanding. It is argued that as moral agents, persons are capable of effecting changes in their lives through enacting understandings of the good. Moreover, they have the capacity not only to adopt and wield social and cultural moral practices, but also to revise and transform them. Particular features of human psychology and its development are discussed that assist in clarifying the relation between persons and moral agency. Further, it is suggested that moral development might be understood as the gradual process whereby traditions are interpreted and reinterpreted toward the end of fashioning more virtuous persons.

Key Words: moral agency • moral ontology • morality • person • Taylor

Theory & Psychology, Vol. 15, No. 6, 793-811 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0959354305059333
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