ABSTRACT
Moral agency is usefully characterized as a cluster of abilities; the ability to recognize that a situation requires a moral response, the ability to decide which of a range of moral responses is appropriate, and the ability to make moral evaluations of one's own and others' characters and actions. More abstractly, moral agents are able to construct a conception of the good and of their relation to it—in short, to develop a character. Given the inadequacy of the observational model of moral learning, one might try to explain moral development in terms of the explicit moral instruction children typically receive. The case for moral parameter-setting would be strengthened by the identification of a bona fide example. Linguists may doubt whether moral competence is a competence in the Chomskian sense. Typically, moral agency involves doing the right thing—or, at the very least, being motivated to do the right thing.
