Moral Philosophy: Ethics, Deontology and Natural Law Part 2

CHAPTER III.

OF HUMAN ACTS.

SECTION I.--_What makes a human act less voluntary_.

1. See c. i., nn. 2, 3, 4.

2. An act is more or less voluntary, as it is done with more or less knowledge, and proceeds more or less fully and purely from the will properly so called. Whatever diminishes knowledge, or partially supplants the will, takes off from the voluntariness of the act. _An act is rendered less voluntary by ignorance, by pa.s.sionate desire, and by fear_.

3. If a man has done something in ignorance either of the law or of the facts of the case, and would be sorry for it, were he to find out what he has done, that act is _involuntary_, so far as it is traceable to ignorance alone. Even if he would not be sorry, still the act must be p.r.o.nounced _not voluntary_, under the same reservation. Ignorance, sheer ignorance, takes whatever is done under it out of the region of volition. Nothing is willed but what is known. An ignorant man is as excusable as a drunken one, as such,--no more and no less. The difference is, that drunkenness generally is voluntary; ignorance often is not. But ignorance may be voluntary, quite as voluntary as drunkenness. It is a capital folly of our age to deny the possibility of voluntary intellectual error. Error is often voluntary, and (where the matter is one that the person officially or otherwise is required to know) immoral too. A strange thing it is to say that "it is as unmeaning to speak of the immorality of an intellectual mistake as it would be to talk of the colour of a sound." (Lecky, _European Morals_, ii., 202.)

4. There is an ignorance that is sought on purpose, called _affected ignorance_ (in the Shakspearian sense of the word _affect_), as when a man will not read begging-letters, that he may not give anything away.

Such ignorance does not hinder voluntariness. It indicates a strong will of doing or omitting, come what may. There is yet another ignorance called _cra.s.s_, which is when a man, without absolutely declining knowledge, yet takes no pains to acquire it in a matter where he is aware that truth is important to him. Whatever election is made in consequence of such ignorance, is less voluntary, indeed, than if it were made in the full light, still it is to some extent voluntary. It is _voluntary in its cause_, that is, in the voluntary ignorance that led to it. Suppose a man sets up as a surgeon, having made a very imperfect study of his art. He is aware, that for want of knowledge and skill, he shall endanger many lives: still he neglects opportunities of making himself competent, and goes audaciously to work. If any harm comes of his bungling, he can plead intellectual error, an error of judgment for the time being; he did his best as well as he knew it. Doubtless he did, and in that he is unlike the malicious maker of mischief: still he has chosen lightly and recklessly to hazard a great evil. To that extent his will is bound to the evil: he has chosen it, as it were, at one remove.

5. Another instance. A man is a long way on to seeing, though he does not quite see, the claims of the Church of Rome on his allegiance and submission. He suspects that a little more prayer and search, and he shall be a Roman Catholic. To escape this, he resolves to go travelling and give up prayer. This is _affected ignorance_. Another has no such perception of the claims of Catholicism. He has no religion that satisfies him. He is aware speculatively of the importance of the religious question; but his heart is not in religion at all. With Demas, he loves the things of this world. Very attractive and interesting does he find this life; and for the life to come he is content to chance it. This is _cra.s.s ignorance_ of religious truth.

Such a man is not a formal heretic, for he is not altogether wilful and contumacious in his error. Still neither is it wholly involuntary, nor he wholly guiltless.

6. _Pa.s.sionate desire_ is not an affection of the will, but of the sensitive appet.i.te. The will may cooperate, but the pa.s.sion is not in the will. The will may neglect to check the pa.s.sion, when it might: it may abet and inflame it: in these ways an act done in pa.s.sion is a voluntary act. Still it becomes voluntary only by the influx of the will, positively permitting or stimulating: it is not voluntary precisely as it proceeds from pa.s.sion: for voluntary is that which is of the will. It belongs to pa.s.sion to bring on a momentary darkness in the understanding: where such darkness is, there is so much the less of a human act. But pa.s.sion in an adult of sane mind is hardly strong enough, of itself and wholly without the will, to execute any considerable outward action, involving the voluntary muscles. Things are often said and done, and put down to pa.s.sion: but that is not the whole account of the matter. The will has been for a long time either feeding the pa.s.sions, or letting them range unchecked: that is the reason of their present outburst, which is voluntary at least _in its cause_. Once this evil preponderance has been brought about, it is to be examined whether the will, in calm moods, is making any efforts to redress the evil. Such efforts, if made, go towards making the effects of pa.s.sion, when they come, involuntary, and gradually preventing them altogether.

7. What a man does _from fear_, he is said to do _under compulsion_, especially if the fear be applied to him by some other person in order to gain a purpose. Such _compulsory action_ is distinguished in ordinary parlance from voluntary action. And it is certainly less voluntary, inasmuch as the will is hedged in to make its choice between two evils, and chooses one or other only as being the less evil of the two, not for any liking to the thing in itself. Still, all things considered, the thing is chosen, and the action is so far voluntary. We may call it _voluntary in the concrete_, and _involuntary in the abstract_. The thing is willed as matters stand, but in itself and apart from existing need it is not liked at all. But as acts must be judged as they stand, by what the man wills now, not by what he would will, an act done under fear is on the whole voluntary. At the same time, fear sometimes excuses from the observance of a law, or of a contract, which from the way in which it was made was never meant to bind in so hard a case. Not all contracts, however, are of this accommodating nature; and still less, all laws.

But even where the law binds, the penalty of the law is sometimes not incurred, when the law was broken through fear.

_Readings_.--Ar., _Eth_., III, i.; St. Thos., 1a 2ae, q. 6, art. 3; _ib_., q. 6, art. 6, 8; _ib_., q. 77, art. 6.

SECTION II.--_Of the determinants of morality in any given action_.

1. _The morality of any given action is determined by three elements, the end in view, the means taken, and the circ.u.mstances that accompany the taking of the said means._ Whoever knows this principle, does not thereby know the right and wrong of every action, but he knows how to go about the enquiry. It is a rule of diagnosis.

2. In order to know whether what a man does befits him as a man to do, the first thing to examine is that which he mainly desires and wills in his action. Now the end is more willed and desired than the means.

He who steals to commit adultery, says Aristotle, is more of an adulterer than a thief. The end in view is what lies nearest to a man's heart as he acts. On that his mind is chiefly bent; on that his main purpose is fixed. Though the end is last in the order of execution, it is first and foremost in the order of intention.

Therefore the end in view enters into morality more deeply than any other element of the action. It is not, however, the most obvious determinant, because it is the last point to be gained; and because, while the means are taken openly, the end is often a secret locked up in the heart of the doer, the same means leading to many ends, as the road to a city leads to many homes and resting-places. Conversely, one end may be prosecuted by many means, as there are many roads converging upon one goal.

3. If morality were determined by the end in view, and by that alone, the doctrine would hold that the end justifies the means. That doctrine is false, because the moral character of a human act depends on the thing willed, or object of volition, according as it is or is not a fit object. Now the object of volition is not only the end in view, but likewise the means chosen. Besides the end, the means are likewise willed. Indeed, the means are willed more immediately even than the end, as they have to be taken first.

4. A good action, like any other good thing, must possess a certain requisite fulness of being, proper to itself. As it is not enough for the physical excellence of a man to have the bare essentials, a body with a soul animating it, but there is needed a certain grace of form, colour, agility, and many accidental qualities besides; so for a good act it is not enough that proper means be taken to a proper end, but they must be taken by a proper person, at a proper place and time, in a proper manner, and with manifold other circ.u.mstances of propriety.

5. The end in view may be either _single_, as when you forgive an injury solely for the love of Christ: or _multiple co-ordinate_, as when you forgive both for the love of Christ and for the mediation of a friend, and are disposed to forgive on either ground separately; or _multiple subordinate_, as when you would not have forgiven on the latter ground alone, but forgive the more easily for its addition, having been ready, however, to forgive on the former alone; or _c.u.mulative_, as when you forgive on a number of grounds collectively, on no one of which would you have forgiven apart from the rest.

6. Where there is no outward action, but only an internal act, and the object of that act is some good that is willed for its own sake, there can be no question of means taken, as the end in view is immediately attained.

7. The means taken and the circ.u.mstances of those means enter into the morality of the act, _formally_ as they are seen by the intellect, _materially_ as they are in themselves. (See what is said of ignorance, c. iii., s. i., nn. 3-5, p. 27.) This explains the difference between _formal_ and _material_ sin. A _material_ sin would be _formal_ also, did the agent know what he was doing. No sin is culpable that is not _formal_. But, as has been said, there may be a culpable perversion of the intellect, so that the man is the author of his own obliquity or defect of vision. When Saul persecuted the Christians, he probably sinned materially, not formally. When Caiphas spoke the truth without knowing it, he said well materially, but ill formally.

8. In looking at the means taken and the circ.u.mstances that accompany those means, it is important to have a ready rule for p.r.o.nouncing what particular belongs to the means and what to the circ.u.mstances. Thus Clytemnestra deals her husband Agamemnon a deadly stroke with an axe, partly for revenge, partly that she may take to herself another consort; is the deadliness of the blow part of the means taken or only an accompanying circ.u.mstance? It is part of the means taken. The means taken include every particular that is willed and chosen as making for the end in view. The fatal character of the blow does make to that end; if Agamemnon does not die, the revenge will not be complete, and life with Aegisthus will be impossible. On the other hand, the fact that Clytemnestra is the wife of the man whom she murders, is not a point that her will rests upon as furthering her purpose at all; it is an accompanying circ.u.mstance. This method of distinguis.h.i.+ng means from circ.u.mstance is of great value in casuistry.

9. It is clear that not every attendant circ.u.mstance affects the morality of the means taken. Thus the blow under which Agamemnon sank was neither more nor less guiltily struck because it was dealt with an axe, because it was under pretence of giving him a bath, or because his feet were entangled in a long robe. These circ.u.mstances are all irrelevant. Those only are relevant which attach some special reasonableness or unreasonableness to the thing done Thus the provocation that Clytemnestra had from her husband's introduction of Ca.s.sandra into her house made her act of vengeance less unreasonable: on the other hand it was rendered more unreasonable by the circ.u.mstance of the dear and holy tie that binds wife to husband. The provocation and the relations.h.i.+p were two relevant circ.u.mstances in that case.

10. But it happens sometimes that a circ.u.mstance only affects the reasonableness of an action on the supposition of some previous circ.u.mstance so affecting it. Thus to carry off a thing in large or small quant.i.ties does not affect the reasonableness of the carrying, unless there be already some other circ.u.mstance attached that renders the act good or evil; as for instance, if the goods that are being removed are stolen property. Circ.u.mstances of this sort are called _aggravating_--or, as the case may be, _extenuating_--circ.u.mstances.

Circ.u.mstances that of themselves, and apart from any previous supposition, make the thing done peculiarly reasonable or unreasonable, are called _specifying_ circ.u.mstances. They are so called, because they place the action in some species of virtue or vice; whereas _aggravating_ or _extenuating_ circ.u.mstances add to, or take off from, the good or evil of the action in that species of virtue or vice to which it already belongs.

11. A variety of specifying circ.u.mstances may place one and the same action in many various species of virtue or vice. Thus a religious robbing his parents would sin at once against justice, piety, and religion. A nun preferring death to dishonour practises three virtues, chast.i.ty, fort.i.tude, and religion.

12. The means chosen may be of four several characters:--

(a) A thing _evil of itself_ and inexcusable under all conceivable circ.u.mstances; for instance, blasphemy, idolatry, lying.

(b) _Needing excuse_, as the killing of a man, the looking at an indecent object. Such things are not to be done except under certain circ.u.mstances and with a grave reason. Thus indecent sights may be met in the discharge of professional duty. In that case indeed they cease to be indecent. They are then only indecent when they are viewed without cause. The absence of a good motive in a case like this commonly implies the presence of a bad one.

(c) _Indifferent_, as walking or sitting down.

(d) _Good of itself_, but liable to be vitiated by circ.u.mstances, as prayer and almsgiving; the good of such actions may be destroyed wholly or in part by their being done out of a vain motive, or unseasonably, or indiscreetly.

13. It is said, "If thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be lightsome." (St. Matt., vi., 22.) The eye is the intention contemplating the end in view. Whoever has placed a good end before him, and regards it steadily with a well-ordered love, never swerving in his affection from the way that reason would have him love, must needs take towards his end those means, and those only, which are in themselves reasonable and just: as it is written: "Thou shalt follow justly after that which is just." (Deut. xvi., 20.) Thus I am building a church to the glory of G.o.d; money runs short: I perceive that by signing a certain contract that must mean grievous oppression of the poor, I shall save considerable expense, whereas, if I refuse, the works will have to be abandoned for want of funds. If I have purely the glory of G.o.d before my eyes, I certainly shall not sign that contract: for injustice I know can bear no fruit of Divine glory. But if I am bent upon having the building up in any case, of course I shall sign: but then my love for the end in view is no longer pure and regulated by reason: it is not G.o.d but myself that I am seeking in the work. Thus an end entirely just, holy, and pure, purifies and sanctifies the means, not formally, by investing with a character of justice means in themselves unjust, for that is impossible,--the leopard cannot change his spots,--but by way of elimination, removing unjust means as ineligible to my purpose, and leaving me only those means to choose from which are in themselves just.

14. With means in themselves indifferent, the case is otherwise. A holy and pious end does formally sanctify those means, while a wicked end vitiates them. I beg the reader to observe what sort of means are here in question. There is no question of means in themselves or in their circ.u.mstances unjust, as theft, lying, murder, but of such indifferent things as reading, writing, painting, singing, travelling.

Whoever travels to commit sin at the end of his journey, his very travelling, so far as it is referred to that end, is part of his sin: it is a wicked journey that he takes. And he who travels to wors.h.i.+p at some shrine or place of pilgrimage, includes his journey in his devotion. The end in view there sanctifies means in themselves indifferent.

15. As a great part of the things that we do are indifferent as well in themselves as in the circ.u.mstances of the doing of them, the moral character of our lives depends largely on the ends that we habitually propose to ourselves. One man's great thought is how to make money; what he reads, writes, says, where he goes, where he elects to reside, his very eating, drinking and personal expenditure, all turns on what he calls making his fortune. It is all to gain money--_quocunque modo rem_. Another is active for bettering the condition of the labouring cla.s.ses: a third for the suppression of vice. These three men go some way together in a common orbit of small actions, alike to the eye, but morally unlike, because of the various guiding purposes for which they are done. Hence, when we consider such pregnant final ends as the service of G.o.d and the glory of a world to come, it appears how vast is the alteration in the moral line and colouring of a man's life, according to his practical taking up or setting aside of these great ends.

16. We must beware however of an exaggeration here. The final end of action is often latent, not explicitly considered. A fervent wors.h.i.+pper of G.o.d wishes to refer his whole self with all that he does to the Divine glory and service. Yet such a one will eat, drink, and be merry with his friends, not thinking of G.o.d at the time. Still, supposing him to keep within the bounds of temperance, he is serving G.o.d and doing good actions. But what of a man who has entirely broken away from G.o.d, what of his eating, drinking, and other actions that are of their kind indifferent? We cannot call them sins: there is nothing wrong about them, neither in the thing done, nor in the circ.u.mstances of the doing, nor in the intention. Pius V. condemned the proposition: "All the works of infidels are sins." Neither must we call such actions indifferent in the individual who does them, supposing them to be true human acts, according to the definition, and not done merely mechanically. They are not indifferent, because they receive a certain measure of natural goodness from the good natural purpose which they serve, namely, the conservation and well-being of the agent. _Every human act is either good or evil in him who does it._ I speak of natural goodness only.

17. The _effect consequent_ upon an action is distinguishable from the action itself, from which it is not unfrequently separated by a considerable interval of time, as the death of a man from poison administered a month before. The effect consequent enters into morality only in so far as it is either chosen as a means or intended as an end (nn. 2, 3, p. 31), or is annexed as a relevant circ.u.mstance to the means chosen (n. 9, p. 34.). Once the act is done, it matters nothing to morality whether the effect consequent actually ensues or not, provided no new act be elicited thereupon, whether of commission or of culpable omission to prevent. It matters not to morality, but it does matter to the agent's claim to reward or liability to punishment at the hands of human legislators civil and ecclesiastical.

18. As soul and body make one man, so the inward and outward act--as the will to strike and the actual blow struck--are one human act. The outward act gives a certain physical completeness to the inward.

Moreover the inward act is no thorough-going thing, if it stops short of outward action where the opportunity offers. Otherwise, the inward act may be as good or as bad morally as inward and outward act together. The mere wish to kill, where the deed is impossible, may be as wicked as wish and deed conjoined. It may be, but commonly it will not, for this reason, that the outward execution of the deed reacts upon the will and calls it forth with greater intensity; the will as it were expands where it finds outward vent. There is no one who has not felt the relative mildness of inward feelings of impatience or indignation, compared with those engendered by speaking out one's mind. Often also the outward act entails a long course of preparation, all during which the inward will is sustained and frequently renewed, as in a carefully planned burglary.

_Readings_.--St. Thos., 1a 2ae, q. 18, art. 1; _ib_., q. 18, art. 2, in corp., ad 1; _ib_., q. 18, art. 3, in corp., ad 2; _ib_., q. 18, art.

4-6; _ib_., q. 18, art. 8, in corp., ad 2, 3; _ib_., q. 18, art. 9, in corp., ad 3; _ib_., q. 18, art. 10, 3; _ib_., q. 18, art. 11, in corp.; _ib_., q. 20, art. 4, in corp.

CHAPTER IV.

OF Pa.s.sIONS.

SECTION I.--_Of Pa.s.sions in General_.

1. A pa.s.sion is defined to be: _A movement of the irrational part of the soul, attended by a notable alteration of the body, on the apprehension of good or evil._ The soul is made up of intellect, will, and sensible appet.i.te. The first two are rational, the third irrational: the third is the seat of the pa.s.sions. In a disembodied spirit, or an angel, there are no senses, no sensible appet.i.te, no pa.s.sions. The angel, or the departed soul, can love and hate, fear and desire, rejoice and grieve, but these are not pa.s.sions in the pure spirit, they are acts of intellect and will alone. So man also often loves and hates, and does other acts that are synonymous with corresponding pa.s.sions, and yet no pa.s.sion is there. The man is working with his calm reason: his irrational soul is not stirred. To an author, when he is in the humour for it, it is a delight to be writing, but not a pa.s.sionate delight. The will finds satisfaction in the act: the irrational soul is not affected by it. Or a penitent is sorry for his sin: he sincerely regrets it before G.o.d: his will is heartily turned away, and wishes that that sin had never been: at the same time his eye is dry, his features unmoved, not a sigh does he utter, and yet he is truly sorry. It is important to bear these facts in mind: else we shall be continually mistaking for pa.s.sions what are pure acts of will, or _vice versa_, misled by the ident.i.ty of name.

2. The great mark of a pa.s.sion is its sensible working of itself out upon the body,--what Dr. Bain calls "the diffusive wave of emotion."

Without this mark there is no pa.s.sion, but with it are other mental states besides pa.s.sions, as we define them. All strong emotion affects the body sensibly, but not all emotions are pa.s.sions. There are emotions that arise from and appertain to the rational portion of the soul. Such are Surprise, Laughter, Shame.

There is no sense of humour in any but rational beings; and though dogs look ashamed and horses betray curiosity, that is only inasmuch as in these higher animals there is something a.n.a.logous to what is reason in man. Moreover pa.s.sions are conversant with good and evil affecting sense, but the objects of such emotions as those just mentioned are not good and evil as such, common parlance notwithstanding, whereby we are said to laugh at a _bon mot_, or "a good thing."