The Natural Foundations of Agency and Self-Defence as the Operational Backbone of Moral Life

Introduction

To live is to act, and to act is to extend life’s inner coherence into the world. Autonomy—the capacity of living systems to regulate and preserve their own organization—finds its outward expression in agency, the power to transform self-maintenance into purposeful engagement. From the simplest cell to the reflective human mind, this outward movement of life carries an implicit standard of value: to act in ways that sustain coherence and resist disintegration.

Yet agency is never solitary. It depends on the integrity of the body that acts, the environment that affords possibility, the freedom that allows deliberation, and the social world that recognizes participation. When these supports falter, agency fragments, revealing how fragile autonomy becomes when stripped of its enabling conditions. The moral dimension of life arises precisely at this juncture—when agents not only regulate their own coherence but preserve it within the relational field of others. In this sense, moral agency represents the reflective deepening of nature’s own logic of survival: life aware of its power to sustain and of the value of sustaining it well.

This article traces that progression—from the biological foundations of agency to the emergence of moral life. It begins by examining agency across scales of organization, showing how self-regulation evolves into adaptive intelligence and why every form of agency remains vulnerable to disruption. It then develops the concept of moral agency, identifying the internal capacities and external conditions that make coherent and reflective action possible. Finally, it presents self-defence as the operational backbone of agency—the dynamic process through which integrity endures under threat and the practical expression of life’s intrinsic right to preserve itself.

Understanding this progression is crucial. Moral life arises from the same principles that sustain living order, expressing nature’s drive toward coherence in reflective form. Agency thus forms the bridge between biology and ethics, joining the neural pulse of survival with the reflective regulation of conduct. To comprehend agency is to perceive the continuity between living and moral order—the way defence and coherence unfold as one dynamic process. In preserving our capacity to act coherently, we preserve the ground upon which moral life itself stands.

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Alternatively, each section may be read as an independent article, adapted from the original report for accessibility and ease of reading.

→ Part 1: Working Definition of Agency
→ Part 2: Understanding Agency Across Life Scales and Human Agency
→ Part 3: The Living Conditions that Make Freedom of Agency Possible
→ Part 4: The Anatomy of Moral Agency
→ Part 5: The Internal Capacities of Moral Agency
→ Part 6: The External Enabling Conditions of Moral Agency
→ Part 7: Self-Defence as the Operational Backbone of Moral Agency

 

 

About The Author

Nathan is the Managing Director and Chief Instructor at Northern Sage Kung Fu Academy, and Chief Representative of Luo Guang Yu Seven Star Praying Mantis in Canada and China. With over 25 years of experience living in China, he is deeply committed to passing on traditional martial arts in its most sincere form. As part of his passion Nathan regularly writes on related topics of self-defense, combat, health, philosophy, ethics, personal cultivation, and leadership.