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”
 Impairments of Required
Knowledge
• 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 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.
 Impairments of Free Consent
• 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
• 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.