THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF ETHICS

• Human acts


  Actions that proceed from the deliberate free will of man
• Human acts

  • They are free and voluntary acts of man
  • They are done with knowledge and consent
  • They are proper to man as a rational being since man has been gifted with rationality and freedom of will
  • They are conscious and under our control and for which we are responsible
• Acts, in order to be truly human, must be done deliberately, intentionally and willfully carried out by the agent
• Without knowledge, consent and willful choice on the part of the doer of the act, there can be no human acts
• Acts of Man


  Actions that are naturally and willfully exhibited by man and as such they are morally indifferent (neutral) because we cannot judge them to be neither ethical or unethical
• Categories of Acts of Man

  • Natural involuntary actions (e.g. blinking of the eyes, metabolism, perspiration, beating of the heart)
  • Natural voluntary actions (e.g. breathing, sleeping, eating, walking)
• Good acts


  Those done by man in harmony with the dictates of right reason
• Evil acts


  Those actions done by man in contradiction to the dictates of right reason
• Indifferent acts


  Those acts that are neither good nor evil
• The Voluntariness of the Human Acts

  • Perfect voluntariness (actions performed with full knowledge and with full consent)
  • Imperfect voluntariness (actions that occur when there is no perfect knowledge or consent, or when either or both of the knowledge or consent is partial)
  • Direct voluntary (actions that are intended for its own sake, either as a means or as an end)
  • Indirect voluntary (actions that are not intended for its own sake but which merely follows as a regrettable consequence of an actions)
• The Moral Principle Involved in Actions Having Two Effects (The Involuntary Act)


  • The action must be morally good in itself, or least morally indifferent
  • The good effect of the act must precede the evil effect. The evil effect is morally allowed to happen as a regrettable consequence
  • There must be a grave or sufficient reason in doing the act
  • The evil effect should not outweigh the good effect or, at least, the good effect should be equivalent in importance to the evil effect
• Determinants of Morality


  The factors that link human acts with their norms and serve as the measure of the goodness and the evilness of the human act
• Determinants of Morality

  • The End of the Action (the natural purpose of the act or that in which the act in its very nature terminates or result)
  • The End of the Actor (the intention or the motive of the doer of the act)
  • Circumstances of the Act (the conditions that affect the human act by increasing or decreasing the responsibility of the actor)
• Circumstances of the Act

  • Who (the person or the one to whom the act is credited)
  • What (the quality or the quantity of the object of the act)
  • Where (the place where the act is performed)
  • How (the manner or mode by which the act is performed)
  • By what means (means employed by the actor)
  • When (the circumstance of the time)
  • Why (the circumstances of end or intention of the act)
• An indifferent act can become good or evil through circumstance
• A good act can become evil through circumstances
• An intrinsically good act can become better or an intrinsically evil act can become worse through circumstance
• An evil act can never become good through circumstance
• A good act done with evil means destroys the entire objective of the goodness of the act