decky

• Human act


  An act which proceeds from knowledge and from consent of free will
• Acts of humans


  • Involuntary acts, beyond the control of humans, shared with animals
• Human act


  • Voluntary in character, under the control or direction of the will, performed deliberately and intentionally to realize some foreseen end
• Constituent elements of human act

  • Intellectual element
  • Volitive element
• Intellectual element


  Knowledge, understanding of the object and judgement on the value of the act
• Volitive element


  Free will, ability to freely choose the concrete object in which the good is sought
• Process of a voluntary act

  1. Feeling of want/desire

  2. Awareness of means to attain object

  3. Deliberation on motives

  4. Decision

  5. Resolution

  6. Performance of bodily action
• Anything that is an object of the will is called the thing willed, but not everything willed is necessarily an effect of the will
• When what is willed is both the object and the effect of the will, it is called voluntary
• The mind chooses a particular motive and a particular action to achieve the end

  1. Selection of one motive to the exclusion of others

  2. Decision

  3. Resolution

  4. Performance of bodily action

  5. Foreseen and unforeseen consequences
• Decision


  The decided motive is subjectively evaluated as the strongest motive among the others
• Resolution


  The capacity of remaining committed to the decided motive
• Human act


  The actual performance of a bodily action which produces changes in the external world
• The undertaking of the external bodily action produces changes in the external world, certain of these are foreseen consequences whereas many others are unforeseen consequences
• Ignorance, passion, habit, and fear are impediments that can affect the intellectual or volitive constituent (or both) of the human action
• Invincible ignorance


  Ignorance which cannot be dispelled by reasonable diligence a prudent individual would be expected to exercise in a given situation
• Vincible ignorance


  Ignorance which could be eliminated by the application of reasonable diligence
• Antecedent passion


  Passion elicited without the consent of the will
• Consequent passion


  Passion which is within the control of the will
• Grave fear


  Fear caused by a grave evil whose avoidance is rather difficult if not impossible
• Relatively grave fear


  Fear caused by an objectively slight evil that scares a particular person subjectively
• Factors determining the morality of human acts


  • Object of the act
  • Circumstances surrounding the act
  • End or intention of the agent
• Object of the human act

  That which the action of its very nature tends to produce
• Circumstances of the human act

  All the particulars of the concrete human action which are capable of affecting its morality
• End or intention of the human act


  The purpose that prompts one to perform such an act
• A human act is said to be morally good when it is good in its object, circumstances and also in the intention (Bonum ex integra causa)
• If even one of the determinants (object, circumstances, intention) is contrary to order, the action will be bad, at least in part (Malum ex quocumque defectu)
• Determinism


  A theory which explains that all human action is conditioned entirely by preceding events, and not by the faculty of the Will
• Categories of determinism


  • Physical determinism
  • Theological determinism
  • Psychological determinism
• Determinism


  A doctrine which holds that there is no such thing as free choice, as every choice is already conditioned by a set of causes or is settled prior to the act of choosing
• Types of determinism


  • Physical determinism
  • Theological determinism
  • Psychological determinism
  • Biological determinism
• Physical determinism


  The theory that human interaction can be reduced to relationships between biological, chemical, or physical entities
• Theological determinism


  The theory that there is a God, omnipotent and omniscient, who is determining all that humans will do, either by knowing their actions in advance or by decreeing their actions in advance
• Psychological determinism


  The theory that we all possess certain mental qualities which govern our life
• Biological determinism


  The idea that all behaviour, belief, and desire are fixed by our genetic endowment
• Indeterminism


  A theory that, though not denying the influence of behavioural patterns and certain extrinsic forces on human actions, insists on the reality of free will or the capacity of humans to make a free choice
• Soft determinism


  A theory that posits humans are free from external coercion and as such are indetermined but they cannot make a free choice against their individual characters
• Self-determinism


  A theory that accepts the causality principle and affirms that nothing can happen without a cause, but our so called free acts are also caused by the very person as a self-governing or free agent, so that agent could have acted otherwise and freely choose not to do so
• The position or view one holds on determinism and indeterminism will obviously affect one's interpretation of moral responsibility or accountability