HUMAN ACT
France (Geneva 1956). J. A. F. PUAUX and L. A. SABATIER, Études
sur la révocation de l’édit de Nantes (Paris 1886). W. J. STAN-
KIEWICZ, ‘‘The Edict of Nantes in the Light of Mediaeval Political
Theory,’’ Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London 19
(1955) 82–91. Particular reigns. J. E. NEALE, The Age of Catherine
de Medici (new ed. London 1957). L. ROMIER, Catholiques et Hu-
guenots à la cour de Charles IX (Paris 1924). W. J. STANKIEWICZ,
‘‘The Huguenot Downfall: The Influence of Richelieu’s Policy and
Doctrine,’’ Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 99
(1955) 146–168. J. ORCIBAL, Louis XIV et les Protestants (Paris
1951). Problem of toleration. J. LECLER, Toleration and the Refor-
mation, tr. T. L. WESTOW, 2 v. (New York 1960). A. J. GRANT, ‘‘The
Problem of Religious Toleration in XVIth Century France,’’ Pro-
ceedings of the Huguenot Society of London 13 (1923–29). W. J.
STANKIEWICZ, ‘‘Intoleranz im Frankreich des XVI. Jahrhunderts,’’
Der Deutsche Hugenott 23 (1959), tr. from the English by M.
GOETZ; ‘‘Rationalismus gegen Thenlogic: der Bayle-Jurieu Streit
ueber die Toleranz,’’ ibid. 22 (1958), tr. from the English by M.
GOETZ. R. H. BAINTON et al., Castellioniana (Leiden 1951). J. A. F.
PUAUX, Les Précurseurs français de la tolérance au XVIIe siècle
(Paris 1881). H. ROBINSON, Bayle the Skeptic (New York 1931). Po-
litical and social thought. E. ARMSTRONG, ‘‘The Political Theory of
the Huguenots,’’ English Historical Review 4 (1889) 13–40. J. E.
ACTON, ‘‘The Protestant Theory of Persecution,’’ Essays on Free-
dom and Power (Boston 1948). S. J. BRUTUS, A Defence of Liberty
against Tyrants, tr. W. WALKER (London 1924), see introduction by
H. J. LASKI. E. BARKER, ‘‘A Huguenot Theory of Politics: The Vindi-
ciae contra tyrannos,’’ in his Church, State and Education (pa. Ann
Arbor 1957). W. F. CHURCH, Constitutional Thought in Sixteenth-
Century France (Cambridge, MA 1941). G. J. WEILL, Les Théories
sur le pouvoir royal en France pendant les guerres de religion
(Paris 1892). J. A. F. PUAUX, Les Défenseurs de la souveraineté du
peuple sous le règne de Louis XIV (Paris 1917). R. LUREAI, Les Doc-
trines politiques de Jurieu, 1637–1713 (Bordeaux 1904). P. HAZ-
ARD, The European Mind, 1680–1715, tr. J. L. MAY (New York
1963). G. H. DODGE, The Political Theory of the Huguenots of the
Dispersion (New York 1947). W. J. STANKIEWICZ, Politics and Reli-
gion in Seventeenth-century France (Berkeley 1960). P. BENEDICT,
The Huguenot Connection (Philadelphia 1981). R. KINGDON, Myths
about the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, 1472–1576 (Cam-
bridge, MA 1988). R. MENTZER, Blood and Belief (West Lafayette,
IN 1994). E. PERRY, French Religious Controversy and the Revoca-
tion of the Edict of Nantes (The Hague 1973).
[W. J. STANKIEWICZ]
HULL, ERNEST REGINALD
Author, editor, pioneer of the Catholic press in India;
b. Sept. 9, 1863, Greenhays, Manchester, England; d.
July 19, 1952, Roehampton, England. Converted from
Aglicanism in 1882, he entered the Society of Jesus in
1886 and was engaged in literary work when a request
came from India for an English Jesuit to edit the Bombay
Catholic Examiner, a 53–year–old diocesan paper. He ar-
rived in Bombay in 1902, and remained there until 1932,
occupying the position of editor from Jan. 1, 1903 to
Nov. 29, 1924. During his editorship, the papers rose
from its former status of ‘‘a derelict’’ to become an im-
portant organ in the apostolate.
NEW CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA
An index of Hull’s writing from 1903 to 1930 con-
tains 15,000 titles. Reprints of series originally written
for the paper total 56, and cover character building, mor-
als, culture, religion, science doctrine, controversy, and
history (both English and Indian, ecclesiastical and secu-
lar). From 1924 to 1932 he was archivist and secretary
to the archbishop of Bombay. On his return to England,
he was editor of Stella Maris (1934–35), and wrote for
various journals. Of his many book, the most influential
was Man’s Great Concern: The Management of Life
(1918), which was adopted as a textbook in schools;
translated into Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, and Chinese;
and ran into several editions.
[H. ROZARIO]
HUMAN ACT
An ACT that is performed only by a human being and
thus is proper to MAN. Not every act that a human being
does is a distinctively human act. Some acts that human
beings do are performed also by animals, e.g., vegetative
acts and acts of perception and of emotion. When a
human being does such acts, they are called acts of man
but not human acts. Acts of man, therefore, are acts
shared in common by man and other animals, whereas
human acts are proper to human beings. What makes an
act performed by a human being distinctively a human
act is that it is voluntary in character, that is, an act in
some way under the control or direction of the will,
which is proper to man. One can therefore identify the
human act with the voluntary act. A voluntary act pro-
ceeds either from the will itself—for example, an act of
love or of choice—or from some other human power that
can in some way be moved by the will, whether an act
of the intellect, of sense cognition, or of emotion; even
an act of some bodily member as commanded by the will
can be a voluntary act.
A moral analysis of the human act analyzes the
human act in relation to the good that is sought and inso-
far as all acts are moved to their ends by the will. A psy-
chological consideration of the human act distinguishes
the internal and external principles of the human act,
treats the notion of human freedom, and analyzes the
human act into its component parts. This article deals
with the human act primarily in its psychological aspect,
which a moral analysis must presuppose.
INTERNAL PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN ACTS
The internal principles of human acts include the in-
tellect, the will, and the sense appetites, and the habits—
both virtues and vices—with which these powers, or fac-
ulties, are endowed (see FACULTIES OF THE SOUL).
169
HUMAN ACT
Intellect. As a power of the human soul, the INTEL-
LECT is the principle of all intellectual acts of knowing.
The human intellect is either speculative or practical, a
difference deriving from the end to which knowledge is
ordered (see COGNITION SPECULATIVE-PRACTICAL). If the
end in view is the consideration of truth itself, the intel-
lect is speculative in its mode of knowing. Thus through
acts of understanding and reasoning man arrives at scien-
tific knowledge, when possible, or at something less than
truth and certainty—opinion, for example. If the end in
view is operation or action of some kind, then the intel-
lect is practical in its knowing, as in the making of works
of art or in judgments of prudence in regard to actions one
is to perform. And just as in speculative knowing ordered
to arriving at truth where there are FIRST PRINCIPLES
grasped by the special habit of UNDERSTANDING, from
which true and necessary conclusions follow, so in practi-
cal knowing there are the primary practical principles
grasped by the special habit of SYNDERESIS, enabling
man to know the common precepts in regard to good and
evil action.
Will and Sense Appetites. The WILL, as intellectual
APPETITE, is a power directed to some object under the
aspect of universal GOOD. Because the good so under-
stood is the object of the will, it moves the will as an end,
and in this sense the will presupposes the intellect, which
thus moves the will to its appropriate end; the intellect,
in other words, moves the will as specifying the act of the
will. The will, on the other hand, moves the intellect in
the manner in which one thing moves another as an
AGENT. Since each power is directed to a good suitable
to it and since the object of the will is the universal good,
the good of the intellect, to know the true, falls within the
scope of the will. Although the will tends to objects as
universal, it tends also to singular things existing outside
the mind by tending to them under a universal aspect.
One person loves another, for example, because of the
latter’s virtuous character, which is a good realized in this
person. The desiring of a good in this way, and in general
the desiring of an immaterial or spiritual good, distin-
guishes the will as rational appetite from sense appetite.
The sense appetite is related to sense cognition as the
will is related to intellectual knowing, each appetite tend-
ing to a good as apprehended. But since sense cognition
cannot apprehend the good as universal, the sense appe-
tite cannot be directed to the common notion of the good.
Hence the will and the sense appetite can be basically
contrasted as desire for a universal good and desire for
a particular good. There are two fundamentally different
aspects of the particular good that differentiate the sense
appetite, or EMOTION, into two main parts: the concupis-
cible and the irascible. The concupiscible appetite is con-
cerned with a particular good as pleasing and suitable; the
170
irascible appetite is concerned with repelling and combat-
ing harmful aspects of objects that prevent the attaining
of a particular good.
Habit. In addition to the various human powers, hab-
its are also internal principles of human acts. A HABIT can
be understood initially as a disposing of a power to act
in a determinate way. In virtue of the intellectual and ap-
petitive powers man has, he is able to do a variety of acts,
but without the disposing influence of habit upon his
powers of acting, most of his distinctively human acts
would be done haphazardly. A habit therefore develops
and strengthens a human power, enabling the power to
operate more effectively and with more facility.
Accordingly, a habit can be defined as a firm DISPO-
SITION of a power to act regularly in a determinate way.
So understood, a habit is then seen to be a perfection.
Man’s powers of themselves are largely indeterminate
with regard to their objects. The engendering of habits,
acquired by repeated acts of a certain kind, dispose and
determine powers more readily and more determinately
to their objects. Hence a habit, far from being merely me-
chanical in operation and somehow alien to good human
action, actually enters into the performing of human acts
so intrinsically that it may be regarded as a second nature;
habit makes its distinctive act a kind of natural act just
as a power is the first source of a natural act. For this rea-
son, in addition to a habit’s producing uniformity in oper-
ation and enabling an act to be done more quickly and
effectively, a habit makes human action pleasurable in
operation. The meaning of habit as developed here re-
stricts habit to the intellectual and appetitive human pow-
ers.
Virtue and Vice. The notion of habit as bettering
human action is not in conflict with the division of habit
into good and bad, that is, into VIRTUE and VICE. Any
habit permits man to operate better than he otherwise
would, but whether a habit is good or bad is a moral con-
sideration, distinct from the psychological point showing
how any habit develops a power more fully. In general
terms, the distinction between virtue as a good habit and
vice as a bad habit turns on whether the habit produces
acts conducive to promoting man’s moral good or evil.
Acts of virtue are those that are suitable to human nature;
that is, they are acts habitually performed according to
the rule of reason. Acts of vice are opposed to human na-
ture inasmuch as they are habitually opposed to the direc-
tion of reason.
Virtue may then be defined somewhat as St. Augus-
tine phrased it: virtue is a good habit of the mind, by
which one lives righteously and of which no one can
make bad use. In a somewhat more specific way, virtue
can be defined also as a habit inclining one to choose the
NEW CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA

relative mean between the extremes of excess and defect.
Vice, as the contrary habit, would incline one to choose
either of the extremes, both morally evil.
These definitions apply primarily to moral virtue, the
primary meaning of virtue. However, human virtue is di-
vided analogously into moral and intellectual. This divi-
sion follows upon the fact that there are two principles
of human action, the intellect and the appetite. Any virtue
perfects one of these two powers. Good habits of thinking
perfect the human intellect either in its speculative di-
mension with the intellectual virtues of understanding,
science, and wisdom, or in its practical dimension with
the virtues of art and prudence, although the latter virtue
is also moral to the extent that it requires right appetite
for its good operation. Good habits of desiring perfect the
appetite, either the will by means of the cardinal virtue
of justice or the sense appetite by means of the cardinal
virtue of fortitude for the irascible appetite and temper-
ance for the concupiscible appetite. The fourth cardinal
virtue, prudence, as has been noted, is both intellectual
and moral. There will be corresponding vices for each of
these virtues by way of contrary habits.
In addition to moral and intellectual virtues, theolog-
ical virtues also are principles of human acts. The need
of such virtues for man arises from the fact that man’s
happiness, the goal of all his actions, is twofold: a happi-
ness proportionate to human nature and obtainable by
means of natural principles including the moral and intel-
lectual virtues; a happiness surpassing human nature and
obtainable by and through God’s power alone. Since the
natural virtues cannot suffice to direct man to supernatu-
ral happiness, man has need for additional principles of
action in order to be directed to attaining supernatural
happiness. Such principles are the theological virtues,
which are infused by God, in which respect they are not
wholly intrinsic principles of human action. These theo-
logical virtues are faith, hope, and charity.
EXTERNAL PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN ACTS
Among the internal principles of human acts, virtue
is the primary means of directing man to the good of
human happiness. Other means by which he is ordered
to leading the good life are law and grace, both of which
may be referred to as extrinsic principles of human ac-
tion.
Law. As is evident from experience, the COMMON
GOOD is the end or purpose of all LAW, and without an
understanding of what the common good properly is, the
nature and function of law in directing human acts cannot
be appreciated. A common good is clearly distinct from
a private good, the latter being the good of one person
only, to the exclusion of its being possessed by any other.
NEW CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA
HUMAN ACT
A common good is distinct also from a collective good,
which, though possessed by all of a group, is not really
participated in by the members of the group; as divided
up, a collective good becomes respectively private goods
of the members, as in the manner in which a man’s estate
is divided up among his inheritors.
A true common good is universal, not singular or
collective, and is distributive in character, being commu-
nicable to many without becoming anyone’s private
good. Moreover, each person participates in the whole
common good, not merely in a part of it, nor can any one
person possess it wholly. The distinctive common good
to which human law is ordered is the civil, or political,
common good of peace and order. Such direction of
human acts by law is clearly indispensable for human de-
velopment and perfection.
Civil Law. The classic definition of law is based on
the foregoing notion of the common good: law is a certain
ordination of reason for the common good, promulgated
by one who has care of the community. This common
definition of law applies proportionately or analogously
to the different kinds of law. According to man’s mode
of knowing, civil, or human positive, law primarily real-
izes the common definition of law. Hence law is first un-
derstood to be an ordinance of reason by one who has
authority to direct the political society and its members
to the common civil good, a happiness consisting primar-
ily in peace and order. Civil law directly concerns the ex-
ternal acts of human beings, presupposing the interior
principles and acts. Although civil law therefore does not
directly aim to make men virtuous in their actions, it does
command certain acts that dispose men to become virtu-
ous and forbid other acts that lead to vice and tend to
make life in society impossible.
Natural Law. Every civil law, insofar as it aims at
the common good and is accordingly a just law, carries
an obligation to be obeyed. Yet this obligation rests on
more than civil law itself. It derives from a law more fun-
damental than civil law and its political sanction, viz,
what is called natural law. This is the ‘‘unwritten law’’
that, in its most common precepts, is fundamentally the
same for all. The natural law expresses, in universal form
primarily, the fundamental inclinations of human nature
formulated by reason in a judgment naturally made, that
is, with little or no discursive reasoning. Such law, then,
is natural on two scores: (1) it is not law made by reason
so much as discovered by reason; and (2) all men thus
naturally know the most universal precepts expressed in
natural law. Natural law, so understood, is clearly a fun-
damental principle for directing human acts. (See NATU-
RAL LAW.)
Eternal Law. One other kind of law must still be
mentioned: eternal law. It is even more fundamental than
171
HUMAN ACT
natural law, being the law in which even natural law par-
ticipates. Eternal law refers to the idea of the government
of things that exists in the mind of God; it is the plan of
God’s wisdom by which all action and motion of the uni-
verse is directed. It directs the universe as a whole to the
common good of God Himself. This is not the law given
through revelation (see LAW, DIVINE POSITIVE). The
knowledge about eternal law can be arrived at by reason
alone, though usually indirectly. Eternal law is therefore
the ultimate source of all law and the ultimate directive
principle of all acts and motions of creatures to their
proper ends.
Grace. As a principle of human action, GRACE dif-
fers from virtue not only as an external principle differs
from an internal one, but also in that grace is infused di-
rectly into the human soul itself, whereas virtue is real-
ized in some power of the soul. Grace differs from law
in that, though both are external principles, law directs
man by instruction and command, whereas grace super-
naturally elevates him so that he can participate in the di-
vine life, receive assistance in doing so, and attain the
happiness that is eternal life. Hence sanctifying or habitu-
al grace is a supernatural quality of the soul by which
man participates in the divine nature and is thereby en-
abled to perform acts meriting supernatural happiness. It
is clear that such a principle directing human action is ab-
solutely necessary for all human beings if they are to ob-
tain eternal life.
HUMAN FREEDOM
A discussion of the internal and external principles
of the human act is logically followed by a consideration
of the human act itself. Prior to an analysis of the human
act into its component parts, however, it is convenient to
treat how and in what way the human act is free. At the
beginning of this article, the human act was identified
with the voluntary act, an act proceeding either immedi-
ately from the will or from some power or act in some
way under the control and direction of the will. (For a
consideration of the voluntary act especially in its moral
dimension, see VOLUNTARITY.)
It is now necessary to distinguish between a volun-
tary act and a free act; for although every free act is nec-
essarily a voluntary act, not every voluntary act is strictly
a free act. A free act, most properly speaking, is an act
of CHOICE. There are occasions, however, when it makes
sense to say that man has no choice and that what he wills
to do he must will to do. Such acts are voluntary in that
they still proceed from the will as a principle, but they
are not free, at least in the usual and proper sense of the
term.
Freedom of Exercise. It must be recognized, how-
ever, that there are two types of free act, or two kinds of
172
freedom. One type is freedom of exercise. This is the
freedom of an agent to act or not to act in an absolute
sense; freedom of exercise is thus said to be about contra-
dictory alternatives. In any given situation, a man at all
rational can will to act or not. This sort of freedom man
as a voluntary agent always has; and as related to the inte-
rior act of willing or not willing, the voluntary act and the
free act, for all practical purposes, are identifiable.
Freedom of Specification. The other type of free-
dom is freedom of specification. This is the sort of free-
dom one usually has in mind when he speaks of man as
being a free agent and is what he means by the act of
choice. This freedom arises not in terms of the agent as
acting or not acting (which is freedom of exercise and is
presupposed) but in terms of some object specifying the
act to be done by the agent. Freedom of specification, in
other words, is the choice of this alternative rather than
that alternative or, to put it more precisely, the choice of
this means in relation to a desired end. The free act as
choice, therefore, is concerned with means properly, not
with ends as ends. In this context, one can distinguish
voluntary acts that are not free acts strictly. To will an end
as an end is not a matter of choice but a matter of simple
willing. An act of the will centering precisely on the
means is the act of choice. This meaning of freedom, the
freedom of specification exercised by choice, is the rele-
vant meaning of human freedom in the discussion here.
(See FREE WILL; FREEDOM.)
Limitations of Freedom. Many contemporary au-
thors point out that to be fully human in its exercise, the
will must be free both philosophically and psychological-
ly. Philosophical freedom is the power, given certain pre-
requisites of knowledge and motivation, of saying yes or
no freely to a proposed action or of choosing freely be-
tween two alternative courses. It means that at the time
the choice was made, the person could have made the op-
posite choice even though with difficulty or repugnance.
Psychological freedom is a freedom from obstacles and
pressures that make the exercise of philosophical free-
dom difficult. Philosophical freedom is freedom to deter-
mine its own choices; psychological freedom is freedom
from the obstacles, pressures, and impediments which
make choices difficult. In the minds of some contempo-
raries, the classical tradition in moral theology seemed to
take for granted the human person’s freedom as a perfect-
ly autonomous power of decision hindered in the exercise
of its sovereignty only accidentally by factors that are
rather exceptional. Contemporary authors seem to be less
reluctant to admit that freedom of the will can be influ-
enced only in exceptional cases. They tend to see human
freedom as ‘‘freedom in situation’’ and they insist that
the dialectic between freedom and determinism is essen-
tial for every human action.
NEW CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA

Many contemporary moralists indicate the presence
in all of the human person’s actions of a determinism
traceable to three sources—the biological, the social, and
the psychological. They point out that recent discoveries
of neurosurgery, endocrinology, and the use of drugs
have demonstrated the influence of biological factors on
the freedom of moral action. The pressure of society can
also exert great influence on free activity and pressure
groups and pressure factors have enormous determining
potential in contemporary society. Finally, studies in
depth psychology reveal constant neuroticizing factors
under which many people live within the course of their
growth and development as human beings.
ANALYSIS OF THE HUMAN ACT
The full grasp of what the free human act is and the
role it plays in human action cannot be appreciated with-
out an analysis of the whole human act as it is exercised
in the concrete order, involving both the intellect and the
will.
Component Parts. Presupposing what has been said
about the internal and external principles of human ac-
tion, one may distinguish the component parts or specific
acts that make up the complex human act, which is al-
ways concerned in some way with ends and means. The
list below analyzes the human act in terms of its various
steps.
Intellect
Concerning the end
Apprehending an end
Judgment about an end
Concerning the means
Deliberating about means
Judgment about choice
Concerning execution
Command to execute choice
Judgment of end attained
Will
Concerning the end
Willing an end
Intending an end
Concerning the means
Consent to means
Choice of means
Concerning execution
Use of powers to execute
Enjoyment of end attained
This list outlines a fully conscious human action in
dealing with a more or less complex practical situation.
Not every human act man performs involves all these in-
dividual steps, but every human act in the practical order
does involve seeking some end, a judgment and choice
of means, and a consequent decision to attain to a desired
end by carrying out the chosen course of action. It is well
NEW CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA
HUMAN ACT
to bear in mind also that man does not always proceed
in his human action in so orderly a way as the diagram
list suggests. Often, indeed, particularly in difficult situa-
tions, he vacillates between one act on the part of the
practical intellect and a corresponding act on the part of
the will. But a knowledge of these various steps within
the complex human act is helpful for successfully carry-
ing out human decisions and choices; such knowledge is
helpful also when one cannot resolve a practical problem,
for he can, with reflection, ascertain where he is in the
process and which step is holding him up or preventing
him from attaining a resolution.
Interplay of Intellect and Will. The numbering of
the steps, evenly divided between the intellect and the
will, manifests the intimate connection between the intel-
lect and the will in human action. On the one hand, the
intellectual acts specify the acts of the will, for what one
wills does depend on what he knows; on the other hand,
each act of the will subsequently moves the intellect to
a further act of knowing until the will is brought to some
rest in an enjoyment of what was initially desired or, if
unsuccessful, to a sorrow in not attaining what was ini-
tially desired. It should be noted that the human act is out-
lined here in terms of its intrinsic parts; the role of the
emotions and other influences have also to be taken in-
to account. Primarily, however, the human act is consti-
tuted of individual acts on the part of the intellect and
the will.
This analysis of the human act enables one to under-
stand human freedom better and to see, more precisely,
what constitutes the free human act, which is usually spo-
ken of as free will. One can now comprehend that actual-
ly a man’s free act is a joint product of intellect and will.
It is exercised principally, though not exclusively, in
steps seven and eight of the list, the judgment on the part
of the intellect that is inseparably allied with the choice
of means. The connection between intellect and will is
most intimate here. The intellect, in its practical judgment
with regard to a means, is a determining cause of the
will’s choosing one object rather than another. But this
is a determination coming from knowledge; and hence
the will, in exercising the act of choice, is still choosing
freely what is proposed on the part of the intellect. In a
concrete instance facing man in knowing what he should
do, his judgment of the choice is made and the will ac-
cordingly freely exercises its act of choice. This is posi-
tive freedom of specification: freely choosing to do what
one knows one should do. Negative freedom consists in
one’s being able to reject what he knows he should do.
What is involved here also is the judgment of CON-
SCIENCE, which is still distinct from the practical judg-
ment of the intellect in regard to choice. The latter
judgment, as has been seen, is inseparably connected
173
HUMAN GENOME
with appetite—with the will in its act of choice. The judg-
ment of conscience, analytically prior to the practical
judgment with reference to choice, is wholly an act of the
intellect and thus apart from an actual choice to be made
here and now; in an act of conscience one judges that an
individual act is right to do as falling under a universal
judgment or precept that acts of this kind should be done.
It is a judgment of conscience, for example, that this
debt should be paid, as falling under the universal judg-
ment that debts should be paid. It is not yet the practi-
cal judgment with regard to choice and the ensuing act
of choice, which takes place here and now, and where
freedom of the human act is ultimately and principally
located.
The foregoing discussion of the human act, starting
with the internal and external principles and extending to
the analysis of the human act into its component parts,
is primarily psychological in character and treatment. A
moral consideration of the human act, analyzing when
and how acts are good or bad, presupposes this analysis
(see MORALITY).
See Also: SIN.
Bibliography: ARISTOTLE, Eth. Nic. 1103a 12–1119b 19,
1138b 15–1145a 12. THOMAS AQUINAS 1a2ae, 6–21. J. A. OESTER-
LE, Ethics: The Introduction to Moral Science (Englewood Cliffs,
N.J. 1957) 45–100. M. V. MURRAY, Problems in Ethics (New York
1960) 72–106. V. J. BOURKE, Ethics (New York 1951) 57–120. J.
FORD and G. KELLY, Contemporary Moral Theology 1 (Paramus,
N.J. 1958) 174–312. J. FUCHS, Human Values and Christian Moral-
ity, tr. M. H. HEELAN (Dublin 1970), esp. ‘‘Basic Freedom and Mo-
rality,’’ 92–111. E. MCDONAGH, ‘‘Towards a Christian Theology of
Morality: The Moral Subject,’’ The Irish Theological Quarterly 39
(1972) 3–22. L. MONDEN, Sin, Liberty and Law (New York 1965)
19–72. G. REGAN, New Trends in Moral Theology (New York 1971)
187–207.
[J. A. OESTERLE/J. A. O’DONOHOE]
HUMAN GENOME
A genome is an aspect of living organisms that en-
ables them to pass on characteristics to the next genera-
tion. ‘‘Genome’’ specifies the totality of genes that make
up the hereditary constitution of any particular organism.
While each organism will have its own distinct set of
genes (unless it is a twin), scientists seek to uncover the
general attributes of the genomes of species as a whole.
Thus, there are specialists studying the mouse genome,
the frog genome, or the human genome. While this proj-
ect lies within the field of organic science, much discus-
sion has taken place over the social, ethical and economic
implications of the study of the human genome. After
giving a brief description of the Human Genome Project,
this article will discuss the various issues raised, which
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can be grouped as follows: (1) marketplace issues, in-
cluding ownership of genetic knowledge or materials,
and patenting; (2) genetic discrimination, which leads to
questions about privacy, about health insurance, life in-
surance, and employment; (3) genetic testing, both adult
testing and pre-natal screening; (4) genetic counseling
and its new challenges; (5) eugenics and the use of gene
selection for trait enhancement rather than treatment of
disease; (6) gene therapy, both somatic cell therapy and
germline therapy; (7) theological principles and ques-
tions of free will, determinism, and ‘‘playing God’’ and
(8) cloning and embryo research.
The Human Genome Project. The Human Genome
Project has been the collaborative work of many scien-
tists and laboratories in the United States seeking to chart
the DNA of the human genome. The idea of coordinating
genetic research first surfaced in 1985 and 1986 from sev-
eral directions, involving both the U.S. Dept. of Energy
and the National Institutes of Health. By 1990 the U.S.
Congress had allocated 3 to 5 billion dollars to be spent
over 15 years in the quest to ‘‘map’’ and ‘‘sequence’’ the
human genome. Similar work has been undertaken in
other countries, coordinated by an international group,
the Human Genome Organization (HUGO).
As the scope and funding of this project has been
vast, so has its goal. The proteins needed to keep a human
person functioning are coded in approximately 30,000
genes. These genes make up the ‘‘words’’ of the code,
using four different nucleotides. Each nucleotide contain
a nitrogenous base (Adenine, Cytosine, Guanine, or Thy-
mine) attached to an outer structure of sugar and phos-
phate. These nucleotides pair up along the spiraled
double helix: A with T and G with C. It is estimated that
the human genome contains three billion of these base
pairs. If one considers each base pair as a single ‘‘letter,’’
creating the code book for the human genome is equiva-
lent to decoding 13 complete sets of the Encyclopedia
Britannica. Furthermore, such a code book is only useful
if a ‘‘grammar’’ is developed by which one can ‘‘read’’
what has been gathered. So this massive project involves
both finding what is there, in terms of strings of nucleo-
tides, and interpreting what it means.
While the HGP is publicly funded, other private in-
dustry groups have been seeking to map the human ge-
nome on their own. In June of 2000, a joint
announcement was made by the National Institutes of
Health and Celera Genomics, a private corporation in
Maryland, claiming that the human genome had now
been mapped. While these two endeavors have taken dif-
ferent research strategies, and while significant gaps in
information still exist, the work of the two groups togeth-
er constitutes a significant advance in the goal of identify-
ing all the genetic markers on the human genome.
NEW CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA