LECTURE 6 NOTES: HUMAN ACTS AND ACTS OF MAN

 Human Act- the three listed elements should be all present

o Knowledge- awareness to what we are doing
o Voluntariness- “voluntas” meaning will; it means you like what you’re doing; the mind
allows it; willed by the person
o Freedom- you are free to do the things you want to do and what you are doing; you
have the option to do it or not; presence of choices and alternatives
 If the three elements are present, then we can judge whether it is moral or immoral
 Amoral- an act of man is neutral
 Acts of man- refers to the acts of all human being; biological, acts of the senses, do not have the
moral sense, can never be judge as good or bad

MODIFIERS OF HUMAN ACT- degree of the morality of an action

 Modifiers- obstacles; affect a clear knowledge/free will; may increase or decrease or eliminate
moral responsibility; changes the morality
o Impairments of required knowledge
 Ignorance- lack of a required knowledge of moral duties
 Invincible (antecedent ignorance)- precedes any act and not willed by
the person; person doesn’t know
 Vincible (supine/crass)- lack of knowledge due to negligence or lack of
effort; no or little effort was made
 Affective (pretended) – pretends to be ignorant to plead innocent to a
charge or guilt
 Error- judging and acting wrongly or misguidedly due to incorrect beliefs or
opinions
 Lack of care or information
 Deficient education, bad company, fake news
o Aberratio ictus- mistake in the blow; intended injury but
accidentally damaged another
o Error in Personae- mistaken identity
o Praeter Intentionem- mistake in the intended result, injury is
greater than intended (hazing)
 Inattention- an actual privation of knowledge; may result to negligence, absence
of knowledge for quite a while
o Impairments of Free Consent
 Passion- strong compelling feeling; concupiscence; intense interest, desire,
neither good or evil, but indifferent (neutral); sudden outburst of emotion
 Love
 Desire
 Delight
 Hope
 Bravery
 Anger
  Hatred
 Sadness
 Despair
 Fear
 Horror
o Antecedent-before an action, there is this
o Consequent- comes after an action
 Fear
 Violence
 Habit

Reason- basic requirement for morality; acting morally is the same as acting rationally

Impartiality- should be based on objective criteria than on biased or improper reason