ethics

• Human acts


  An act which proceeds from the deliberate free will of man
• Agent


  The human being or man in the ethical parlance, performs a wide array of physical and mental activities
• Only some physical and mental activities can be said as proper to man as a Rational Being. That is, actions that proceed from the agent's rationality and free will
• Acts that are common with other animals

  • Sensation - seeing, hearing, etc.
  • Appetition - eating, drinking
• Acts that are not human acts

  • Acts during sleep
  • Acts done in infancy
  • Acts done in insanity
• Acts of Man


  Acts that are not deliberate, have no free choice, and are involuntary
• Only human acts can be studied in ethics. Acts of Man are neither ethical nor unethical
• Essential elements of a human act

  • Knowledge (deliberateness)
  • Freedom
  • Voluntariness
• Deliberateness


  Advertence or knowledge in intellect of what one is about and what this means
• Even in playing chess very fast, it is still deliberate as the agent knows what he is doing and thereby will and does it
• Freedom


  The act is determined by the agent himself, free from coercion or force, at least physically
• Voluntariness


  The act must have proceeded from the will of the agent himself
• Free will


  The inner faculty of man, while freedom pertains to the outward exercise of it
• Free will cannot be coerced or restrained, while freedom can be
• Illustration of the elements

  • A UM student knows there is an exam on July 1 (knowledge), is free to study or not (freedom), and wills to study his lessons (voluntariness)
• Classification of human acts

  • Elicited acts (will-acts)
  • Commanded acts (carrying out actions ordered by the will)
• Moral worth or value of human acts

  • Morally good acts (in accordance with right reason)
  • Morally evil acts (not in accordance with right reason)
  • Morally indifferent acts (neither good nor evil)
• Talking is in itself an amoral act, but can take on moral worth depending on the purpose
• Moral and immoral acts are proper to human acts, while amoral acts are more proper for acts of man
• Modifiers of human acts

  • Violence
  • Fear
  • Concupiscence
  • Ignorance
  • Habit
• Ignorance


  Basically either negative (absence of knowledge), positive (presence of false knowledge), or privative (absence of knowledge that ought to be present)
• Types of ignorance


  • Invincible ignorance (cannot be surmounted)
  • Vincible ignorance (can be surmounted with due diligence)
  • Affected ignorance (vincible ignorance where the agent avoids learning the truth)
• Ethics is primarily concerned only with human acts, which assume a certain moral worth and can be imputed to the agent as worthy of praise or blame
• Acts of man can become human acts depending on the circumstances and intention, and human acts can also become acts of man and lose their imputability
• Voluntariness can be impaired, lessening the imputability and culpability of the agent, or increased, affecting the moral worth of the human act
• Ignorance


  Lack of knowledge or awareness
• Types of ignorance

  • Vincible ignorance
  • Affected ignorance
• Vincible ignorance


  • A student is unsure whether eating in the classroom is prohibited, but can dispel this ignorance by asking the proper authorities
• Affected ignorance


  A vincible ignorance where the agent positively avoids learning the truth in order to have an excuse
• Affected ignorance


  • A student avoids asking about a change in the exam schedule so they have an excuse for not taking the exam
• Concupiscence


  The passions or bodily tendencies of man
• Examples of concupiscence

  • Love
  • Hatred
  • Joy
  • Grief
  • Desire
  • Aversion
  • Hope
  • Despair
  • Courage
  • Fear
  • Anger
• Antecedent concupiscence


  Concupiscence that arises spontaneously without being stimulated by and prior to any act of the will
• Antecedent concupiscence


  • The anger evoked by a classmate's offensive remark
  • The joy felt upon receiving the yes from the woman of your dream
• Consequent concupiscence


  Concupiscence that is stimulated or when the antecedent concupiscence is deliberately retained and/or fuelled
• Consequent concupiscence


  • A friend decides to hate his best friend after she heard her back fights
• Fear


  The agitation of the mind caused by an impending danger
• Actions done from fear


  Actions where fear is the cause
• Actions done from fear


  • A student who is afraid of failing the examination resorts to cheating
• Actions done with fear


  Actions where fear is an accompanying circumstance