Contra-Agents: An examination of Moral Agency

Abstract

Moral development has long been thought to belong to realms of normative ethics, however I believe there is a role for meta-ethics to play in the examination of moral agency and moral development. The point at which an agent becomes a moral agent is one of great significant in philosophy, and wider society. I hold that this point is not as clear cut as it first seems, and a binary system in this case causes more issues around blameworthiness than it solves, as such I am advocating a third position between full moral agency and non-moral agents known as contra-agents. I hope to use these agents to point out a few long-standing issues, with regards to moral development in other disciplines that rely upon philosophical distinctions