Human Acts and Morality
Defining Human Acts
Human actions are categorized into two groups:
- Those performed with knowledge and freedom (human acts).
- Those lacking these attributes (acts of man).
Human activity involves the capacity to choose or refrain from specific actions, such as avoiding slander and respecting life. These choices are deemed moral acts.
Key Ethical Questions
Ethics seeks to answer fundamental questions about human behavior:
- What constitutes good or bad?
- What governs human behavior?
- How should individuals relate to God, themselves, and others?
Ethics investigates these questions by establishing rules and principles based on human nature and applying them to various situations.
Moral Acts and Their Properties
A moral act is one that aligns or conflicts with a norm of life, influencing an individual’s humanity. This norm is perceived as obligatory. A moral act isn’t merely conforming or non-conforming, but also prescribed. It arises from freedom and reflects agreement or disagreement with the established norm. Acts of children or the insane are not considered moral acts.
Moral Rules and Ethical Theories
Ethics explores the rules that determine the goodness or badness of an act. Various ethical theories offer different perspectives:
- Hedonism: This theory, advocated by Democritus and Epicurus, equates good with pleasure and satisfaction. What brings pleasure is good, and what prevents it is bad.
- Utilitarianism: This theory defines the moral norm as utility. What is useful is good. However, it overlooks the fact that utility is not intrinsic but serves a purpose. A wrong purpose renders the utility itself flawed.
- Kantianism: Immanuel Kant’s principle states, “Act in such a way that you can always will that the maxim of your action should become a universal law.” An action is good if it conforms to this principle. Lying, for example, is wrong because it cannot be universalized. This doctrine is known as moral formalism. However, by detaching moral law from inherent goodness or badness, it becomes challenging to judge actions.
Ultimately, the nature of an act matters, not just its form. Something is good if it contributes to a subject’s perfection. For instance, health is good because it perfects the human body.
Moral Standards and Human Nature
The moral standard is established by human nature taken as a whole. A good moral action enhances human existence, while an evil action harms it. Restricting a human being is equivalent to destroying them. Humans are composed of spirit and matter, with the spiritual aspect taking precedence. In the relationship between the individual and the community, actions that harm society are immoral. Conversely, it’s immoral for the community to annul the individual.
Intricately Good and Bad Actions
Some actions inherently deny aspects of human nature. However, the existence of intricately good or bad actions doesn’t preclude the existence of actions that are extrinsically good or bad. Moral positivism, which denies the inherent goodness or badness of actions, places morality outside the act itself. The ultimate foundation of morality lies in human nature and, through it, in God. God is the ultimate basis of the moral order.
The First Moral Principle: Natural Law
The first moral principle, “Do good and avoid evil,” is self-evident and universally accepted. Natural law governs all individuals, is universal and immutable. It is knowable to all, although some may not grasp its more remote conclusions.
Moral Conscience
Moral conscience is the practical understanding of the goodness or badness of an action. It guides concrete decisions. Moral repentance arises from recognizing wrongdoing. Erroneous conscience can be invincible (not culpable) or vincible (culpable). There are also lax, scrupulous, and doubtful consciences. One should always follow their conscience, even if erroneous, as it represents the law for that individual.
An objectively evil act performed with an invincible erroneous conscience is not a moral failure for the subject with good intentions. However, if the error is vincible and the conscience is ignored, the error becomes culpable. It is never permissible to act with doubts about the legality of an action. All means should be used to resolve the doubt. If certainty is unattainable due to conflicting expert opinions, principles like tuciorism (choosing the safest option) and probabilism (following the more probable opinion) can guide decision-making.
Factors Influencing Morality
The morality of an act depends primarily on its object (the immediate aim), circumstances, and intention. The end does not justify the means. All three aspects must be good for the act to be morally good. While abstract human acts (like talking) can be morally indifferent, their morality is determined by the specific context.
Moral Condition, Merit, Liability, and Responsibility
A human act is moral only if performed freely and with knowledge of its goodness or badness. Factors like ignorance (non-culpable), fear (which diminishes but doesn’t eliminate freedom), passions, and habits can influence the morality of an act. A free moral act generates merit or demerit. Accountability arises from freedom, and responsibility requires the perpetrator to answer to their conscience, peers, or God, accepting the consequences of their actions.