Efficient cause
The "efficient cause" of an object is equivalent to that which causes change
and motion to start or stop (such as a painter painting a house) (see
Aristotle, Physics II 3, 194b29). In many cases, this is simply the thing that
brings something about. For example, in the case of a statue, it is the person
chiseling away which transforms a block of marble into a statue. This is the
cause of change, and as such is commonly used in modern conceptions of change,
as well as cause-and-effect.
Moral agency
A Moral agent is "a being who is capable of acting with reference to right and
wrong." Moral agency is a person's responsibility for making moral judgments
and taking actions that comport with morality.
It is useful to compare the idea of moral agency with the legal doctrine of
mens rea, which means guilty mind, and states that a person is legally
responsible for what he does as long as he should know what he is doing, and
his choices are deliberate. Some theorists discard any attempts to evaluate
mental states and, instead, adopt the doctrine of strict liability, whereby one
is liable under the law without regard to capacity, and that the only thing is
to determine the degree of punishment, if any. Moral determinists would most
likely adopt a similar point of view.
> dmb said:
> Yes, there is a big difference. I think that was Sam's point. We build
> tornado shelters because tornados do damage, not because we hold them morally
> responsible for their actions. Same with brain-diseased psychopaths. We lock
> them up because they do damage, not because we hold them morally responsible.
> We can identify them as the cause of the damage, so they were responsible as
> an efficient cause, like a bullet, but they cannot be held responsible as
> moral agents, Sam says.
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> Tuukka says:
>
> How is it different to hold something responsible as efficient cause or
> as moral agent? According to MoQ, everything consists of moral value, so
> tornados, psychopaths and even molecules are moral agents.
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