The Morality of Human Acts

Human Acts

• These are actions specific to human beings alone.

• The act that proceeds from the “knowing” and “free willing” of human beings

• These are sometimes referred to as “Voluntary Acts”

Acts of Man• These are actions which human beings share with

other living beings. • acts performed without the intervention of intellect

and free will– all spontaneous biological and sensual processes– acts performed by those who have not the use of reason – all spontaneous reactions which precede the activity of

intellect and will

Constituents of Human Acts

• INTELLECTUAL – Knowledge

• consciousness of what is being done and the consequences or implications of the action

• VOLITIVE– Freedom

• the power to choose between two or more courses of action

– Voluntariness • consent of the will

Perfect and Imperfect Human Acts

• Perfect Human Acts– performed with full knowledge and full consent

of the will

• Imperfect Human Acts– when there is no full knowledge and will

or partial knowledge and will

Modifiers of Voluntariness

• Impairments of Required Knowledge– Ignorance– Error– Inattention

• Impairments of Free Consent– Passion– Fear or Social Pressure– Disposition and Habits– Violence

Impairments of Required Knowledge

• Ignorance– No knowledge of that which should be known.

• Error– Wrong beliefs arising from deficient education,

influence of bad company, reading of misleading books, papers, wrong influence of mass media, etc.

• Inattention– Momentary absence of knowledge

“absent-minded”

• IGNORANCE– Invincible Ignorance

• When the lack or absence of knowledge is through no fault of the individual since reasonable diligence was exercised.

• inculpable

– Vincible Ignorance• When the lack or absence of knowledge could have been

prevented through the exercise of reasonable diligence by the agent.

• culpable

– Affected Ignorance• When the agent deliberately wills to remain ignorant• fully culpable

Impairments of Required Knowledge

Impairments of Free Consent• Passion

– A movement of the sensitive appetite which is produced by good or evil as apprehended by the imagination (St. Thomas Aquinas).

• Fear or Social Pressure– The shrinking back of the mind on account of an impending evil.

• Disposition and Habits– Dispositions: unconscious patterns of behavior and motivations

which exert psychic pressure upon the person. – Habit: a facility and readiness of acting in a certain manner

acquired by repeated acts. • Violence

– a force brought upon a person against his will by some extrinsic agent.

• PASSION– Antecedent passion

• precedes the action of the will and at the same time induces the will to consent.

• Lessens voluntariness

– Consequent passion• follows the free determination of the will

and is either freely admitted and consented to, or deliberately aroused.

• Does not lessen voluntariness

Impairments of Free Consent

Impairments of Free Consent• VIOLENCE

– Absolute violence• if the will opposes totally and resists as best it

can and is meaningful. • no voluntariness regarding the forced action

– Relative violence• if the will opposes only partially or weakly and is

perhaps deficient in its external resistance. • no impairment of voluntariness since it is

accepted

Impairments of Free Consent• HABIT

– Deliberately acquired habit• does not lessen voluntariness and actions resulting

therefrom are voluntary in their source

– Opposed habit• lessens voluntariness • if an action is done “out of habit” in the sense of

the absence of attention it is considered an involuntary act.

References:• Panizo, Alfredo (1964). Moral Philosophy. Manila: UST Publishing • Peschke, Karl (1996). Christian Ethics. Manila: Logos Publication.