The Personal Moral Compass: A Framework for Human Formation and Agency in the Age of AI

Abstract

AI systems now describe people, recommend to them, and act for them. Most guidance on AI tells people what the rules are. Little of it helps a person decide what they hold, what must remain theirs, and how they want AI to work with them.

The Personal Moral Compass (PMC) is a developmental framework for human agency, formation, and purposeful action. Created by Rev. Dr. Marian Edmonds-Allen, it was first developed in early 2026 in response to artificial intelligence, but its deeper subject is human moral agency. Through narrative dialogue, it helps a person encounter, understand, and articulate the moral world that has formed them; discern who they are and are becoming; identify the relationships and responsibilities to which they are accountable; and translate that self-knowledge into congruent action. In its AI application, the person finishes with a Formation Document and an AI Steering Document, both in their own words, so that the person steers the technology rather than being quietly formed by its defaults.

This paper sets out the problem the PMC addresses, its foundations, its formation logic and core architecture, its method, its approach to AI, its theoretical propositions, how applications remain faithful to it, and its origin and authorship.

Keywords: Personal Moral Compass; moral formation; human agency; artificial intelligence; AI ethics; covenantal pluralism; narrative dialogue; values; congruence; guided AI conversation; structured reflection; values elicitation; personal AI instructions; human-AI interaction; formation document