Morality Ladder: A Graded Moral Regulation Model of Moral Agency Under Uncertainty

Accounts of moral agency often rely on stable normative frameworks while acknowledging increasing uncertainty in shared moral reference points. This paper proposes a conceptual model that reframes moral agency not as rule-following or value adherence, but as a process of graded moral regulation operating across layered constraints. The model introduces the notion of a moral ladder as a structural account of how moral responses are formed and stabilized. Moral judgment is understood as an adaptive process that operates across biological, social, institutional, and reflective levels. These levels do not constitute a hierarchy of values, but a stratified organization of constraints that shape behavior under uncertainty. The central claim is that moral conflict is not primarily a conflict between values, but a misalignment between regulatory levels. This reframing explains both the persistence of moral disagreement and the stability of moral behavior without appealing to universal principles. Moral agency, on this view, is not grounded in access to absolute values, but in the capacity to regulate action across competing demands. This provides a non-relativistic and non-foundational account of responsibility that remains viable under conditions of moral fragmentation.