THE MORAL GOOD OF HUMAN ACTS

• ENUMERATE: Principles of Double Effect

  (1) good or indifferent; (2) towards the good and never the evil effect; (3) preceding the evil effect or at least simultaneous; (4) good effect is greater or at least equal to the evil effect
• Indifferent act refers to an act that is neither good nor evil.
• Intention is required to determine the morality of the act.
• What are the sources of morality?

  1. Object of the act itself
  2. Intention or the end of the act
  3. Circumstances of the act
• Impediments to human freedom are realities with which ethics and jurisprudence must reckon concerning the morality of the human act.
• The end is the first goal of the intention and indicates the purpose pursued in the action.
• The intention is a movement of the will toward the end: it is concerned with the goal of the activity. It aims at the good anticipated from the action undertaken.
• Invincible ignorance refers to ignorance by which a man cannot dispel by such reasonable diligence.
• Vincible ignorance refers to ignorance that can be dispelled by simple diligence; voluntary in cause; provoked by conscious negligence or even bad will.
• Error arises from deficient education, bad company, or misleading information; one is not responsible for the consequences of this impediment.
• Inattention refers to momentary deprivation of insight. If attention is completely lacking, there is no human act. 
• Positive Ignorance - only required knowledge; need for us to know
• Negative Ignorance - things that we do not need to know; not required for us to know
• Affected Ignorance is a pretended ignorance.
• Passion refers to movement of the sensitive appetite that precedes the free decision of the will; movement of the sensitive appetite which is moved by the good or evil apprehended by imagination.
• Antecedent Passion - passion comes before the will

  • Principle #1: may completely destroy freedom of consequently voluntariness
  • Principle #2: lessen voluntariness and diminish the responsibility of human actions
• Consequent Passion - passion comes after the will

  • Principle: Does not lessen voluntariness; rather, it may increase it.
• Fear - mental trepidation due to an impending evil.

  • Principle: Acts done because of this impediment are VOLUNTARY but in most cases are INVOLUNTARY because the agent is obliged to do something against his will.
• Violence - compulsive influence brought to bear upon one against his will by some extrinsic agent; application of an external force by another free agent for the purpose of compelling him or her to do something against his or her will.

  • Principle: Physical actions resulting from this impediment are INVOLUNTARY by themselves.
• Habits - facility and readiness to act in a certain manner acquired by repeated acts; are constant and easy way of doing things; are VOLUNTARY.
• A human act is any thought, word, deed, desire or omission which comes from a man acting with full knowledge of what he is doing, who is free to act or to refrain from action, and who gives the full assent of his will to the act.
• A voluntary act is an act which proceeds from freewill acting in the light of knowledge.
• Knowledge - human act proceeds from the deliberate will; it is a knowing act; no human therefore is possible without ___.
• Freedom - the ability to affirm one's own being in spite of all internal impulse and external pressure (G.S., 17).
• Direct voluntariness is present in a human act where the foreseen result of another act is directly willed by the person.
• Three conditions to assess whether an involuntary act is morally culpable:

  1. The agent must be able to foresee the evil effect at least in a general way
  2. The agent must be free to refrain from doing that which is the cause of the evil effect
  3. The agent must be morally bound not to do that which is the cause of the evil effect