The Person and Her Possibilities for Action

An analysis of the originating framework of action bring us back to the person and her possibilities for action. Now we are in a position to provide a series of pointers as to the structure of the cognitive, desiderative and evaluative elements constituting the core of individual action. First, we encounter the material object of ethics: voluntary and free acts. Second, we should be clear that the choice of ends is a key element of ethics. Any choice of ends involves deliberating on means. Third, each individual has possibilities of action. Of these possibilities we appropriate one and reject the rest. This appropriation is determined by the kind of person that we are. Our acts cause our habits and activities and our activities cause our personality. Fourth, each individual adjusts her present reality to her future reality, an adjustment made through ideas, purposes and projects, always with a view to an end. To an end which in the broadest and most general sense embraces life as a whole. Fifth, a project is always conditioned by the resources for action. A great part of our will consist of managing restrictions, and time is one of the principal restrictions. Sixth, the execution of an action has fundamental consequences on the acting individual and on society and culture.