ABSTRACT

Our lives are valuable partly because we are moral agents. We can lead a morally good life because we can act, morally, in the right way, towards others and towards the world. I will argue that moral agency requires the capacity for consciousness, and therefore that consciousness is valuable. First, I will suggest that there can be no moral agency without intentional agency. While the non-intentional actions of an otherwise intentional agent can still be morally evaluated, the actions of an agent who is unable to act intentionally escape moral evaluation. Thus, moral agency requires intentional agency. Secondly, I will argue that intentional agency requires the capacity for consciousness. For one must know that one is F-ing in order to intentionally F, and this knowledge has a particularly special source: conscious awareness. I will conclude that consciousness is necessary for moral agency. There can be no morally evaluable action, no morally evaluable life, and therefore no morally good life, without consciousness. Thus, consciousness is valuable because moral agency necessarily depends on it, and moral agency is required for much of our life’s value.