AGENCY

This book develops a structural account of moral agency centered on the conditions required for meaningful Moral Choice. It argues that Moral Choice requires three elements: a Self capable of owning a decision, Uncertainty sufficient for genuine deliberation, and perceived Consequence that gives the decision moral significance. From these conditions, the book develops an account of responsibility that is based upon the development of valid moral choices. The analysis then shifts from individual choice to the systems within which moral decisions occur. It distinguishes failures of moral content from failures of the process of moral choice itself, introducing the concepts of Antimoral and Promoral structures to describe conditions that respectively impair or support moral agency. This provides the basis for Moral Systems Engineering: the systematic examination and design of institutions, rules, technologies, and social environments according to their effects on human moral agency. Applications include purposeful ignorance, obedience and conformity, algorithmic decision-making, artificial intelligence, justice, social policy, and institutional design. The result is intended not as a competing moral code, but as a meta-ethical and diagnostic account of the conditions under which moral systems and moral responsibility can meaningfully operate.