Being Human Beings

Submitted by ub on

The morality of being human in the moral sense refers to our predisposition to evaluate actions as morally good, or morally bad. Morality consists of the urge or predisposition to judge human actions as either right or wrong in terms of their consequence for other human beings.

Humans are moral beings by nature because their biological constitution determines the presence in them of the three necessary conditions for ethical behavior. The ability to anticipate the consequences of one's own actions; the ability to make value judgments; and the ability to choose between alternative courses of action. 

The ability to anticipate the consequences of one's own actions is the most fundamental of the three conditions required for ethical behavior. For example, only if I can anticipate that pulling the trigger will shoot the bullet, which in turn will strike and kill my enemy, can the action of pulling the trigger be evaluated as nefarious. Pulling a trigger is not in itself a moral action; it becomes so by virtue of its relevant consequences. My action has an ethical dimension only if I do anticipate these consequences.