MODIFIERS OF HUMAN ACTS

1. Ignorance – absence of knowledge; it modifies the human acts by the decrease in knowledge,
it may also affect the voluntariness.
2. Concupiscence – bodily tendencies and appetite, which are called the passions, and which
enumerated as follows: love, hatred; joy, grief; desire, aversion or horror; hope, despair; courage
or daring, fear; and anger; it modifies the human acts by the amount of freewill and
voluntariness.
Antecedent Concupiscence – passions that spring into action unstimulated by any act of
the will.
Consequent concupiscence – are passions from the will, directly or indirectly, stirs them
up or foster them
First Principle: Antecedent Concupiscence lessens the voluntariness of an act
Second Principle: Antecedent Concupiscence does not destroy the voluntariness
of an Act.
Third Principle: Consequent Concupiscence, however great, does not lessen the
voluntariness of an act.
3. Fear – shrinking back of the mind from danger. More accurately, it is agitation of mind
brought about by the apprehension of impending evil; it modifies the act in accordance to the
voluntariness.
From fear – the fear is the cause of the act. (more likely that the agent acts because of
fear.
With fear – the fear is within the act, whether you act it or not, still the fear is present.
Principle: An act done from fear, however great, is simply voluntary, although it
is regularly also conditionally involuntary.
4. Violence or Co-action – is external force applied by a free cause for the purpose of compelling
a person to perform an act against his will; it modifies the act in its destruction of the freewill.
Principle: Acts elicited by the will are not subject to violence; external acts
caused by violence, to which due resistance is offered, are in no wise imputable
to the agent.
5. Habit – acts born of frequently repeated acts, for acting in a certain manner; it modifies the act
through the frequency of the actions that it always cause by a full voluntariness.
Principle: Habit does not destroy voluntariness; and acts from habit are always
voluntary, at least cause, as long as the habit is allowed to endure.