SAINT MARY’S UNIVERSITY

Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya

ACTIVITY MODULE 1 School of Teacher Education and Humanities
Christian Faith Education Department (CFED)

THE CONSTITUENT ELEMENTS OF HUMAN ACTS

Constituent elements of the human act refer to the inner causes or the constituting
elements which generate a human person to undertake a certain act. The
understanding of the human act indicates that there are two essential elements which
constitute a human act: The Intellectual Element and The Volitive Element.

The Intellectual Element

Knowledge is one of the important qualities which distinguish humans from other
sentient beings. Absolute truth in all situations and matters might be beyond human
capabilities. But we humans can attain truth and that not all truths are relative are
undeniable facts, as Epistemology will have established. The denial of such assertions
only results in re-asserting them, by the very act itself. Universal skepticism and absolute
relativism are found to be self-contradictory and as such are philosophically untenable
doctrines. The faculty of willing can make a choice for something and seek it only when
it is first known. This act of knowing is undertaken by the faculty of the intellect. The
human act is voluntary when its different elements and its implications are sufficiently
known by the agent or the doer prior to the operation of the will. This process of
knowing entails certain important conditions:

(i) adequate knowledge of the aspired object,

(ii) attention to the action by which the particular object is to be pursued and
(iii) judgement on the value of the act.

The fulfilment of the above elements is found to be essential, for, human person cannot
consciously and freely will something without having proper knowledge about what the
object one is concerned with and therefore conscious of the act one is to perform in
order to achieve the desired aim. It is also required that one evaluates the action
undertaken in its concrete nature as a desirable good or an undesirable evil. Such an
appraisal includes judgement on the moral or ethical value of the act. Furthermore, the
goodness or the badness of a particular human act is judged only under those of its
aspects which are sufficiently known. For instance, a person who robs and kills a person
not knowing him to be his brother, he is guilty of criminal injury but not culpable of
offence of fratricide. However, from the above discussion one should not presuppose
that we have full knowledge of the act and its implications every time we undertake a
human act. There is still room left for mistakes. What we affirm here is that with right
effort the person can have sufficient knowledge of the object and its other
considerations which are essential for the making of a human act.

The Volitive Element

Another important characteristic which sets apart the human person from animals is
that of voluntariness or what we commonly designate as free will. It is the task of the
intellect to conceptualize the good, to propose it to the will as something desirable,
and to judge the suitability of the means in its attainment. This awareness which is based
on certain amount of reflection is very important in the analysis of the human act. It can
occur in varying degrees depending on which, they can affect the morality of the act.
However, just this awareness is insufficient for the production of the human act. It is
required that the presented good is willed freely by the person. The volitive dimension
points that the will can freely make a choice of the concrete object in which the good
is sought. Thus, when we hold a person morally responsible for his/her action, we
assume that the act was done freely, knowing and willingly. The idea of responsibility
would seem then to connote and presuppose that of free will. If a human person for
some valid reason is not free to choose what he/she would like according to his/her
insight and will, but has to act against one’s will, his/her action is not free and
consequently such an act cannot be designated as a human act. For instance, a
mentally disturbed person feels compelled to do something again and again but
he/she is conscious of the object one is concerned with and also the end of the action
with which the object is pursued, yet such an act will not be voluntary because its
execution is done with psychic compulsion and not with free will. So, an act to be a free
act and consequently a human act, it is to be done without any internal or external
compulsion. The degree of compulsion determines to a large extent the voluntariness of
the action and consequently the culpability of the person. For instance, a high degree
of compulsion may almost render the act involuntary and subsequently reduce the
degree of culpability.

One must note that anything that is an object of the will, we call the thing willed. But
not everything that is willed is necessarily an effect of the will; for e.g. the setting of a
house on fire which is not caused, but desired by someone, is something willed but is
not the effect of the will. Thus, when what is willed is both the object and the effect of
the will, we call it voluntary.

One can conclude the discussion on the two constitutive elements of the human act:
intellectual and volitive, by affirming the essential union of the knowledge and will in the
generation of the human act.

Process involved in a Voluntary Act

Very often a voluntary act, performed by an agent knowingly and freely in order to
realize some foreseen end, is not a spontaneous reaction. It involves a dynamic
process. Voluntary action has its advent in the mind. It begins with a feeling of want or a
craving or a desire which is either real or ideal. Such an impulse, though to a certain
extent painful, is mixed with pleasure which arises from the anticipation of satisfaction of
this craving by the attainment of the desired object. The person also has awareness of
the means that are required to attain the proper object. In a simple action, where there
is no conflict of motives, the choice is easily made and the desired action is performed.
However, in our daily course of living many of our actions are of a complex nature
which often involves a conflict of motives thereby causing difficulty in the matter of
choice that eventually delays decision and the performance of the act. Hence, when
the self is confronted with divergent and competing motives the mind experiences a

Prepared by: Laurice Kaye P. Laguinday, LPT

challenge generated by conflict of motives. In order to tackle this, the mind deliberates
on the merits and demerits of the different courses of action that are available. After
weighing the advantages and disadvantages the mind chooses a particular motive
and a particular action to achieve the end. This act of selection of one motive to the
exclusion of others results in decision. The decided motive is subjectively evaluated as
the strongest motive among the others. The decision phase is often converted
immediately into action and the decision is actualized. However, at times the decision
might be postponed for a future fulfilment in which case there is scope for resolution.
Resolution refers to the capacity of remaining committed to the decided motive. The
state of decision or resolution gives way to the actual performance of a bodily action
which is technically designated as a human act. The undertaking of the external bodily
action produces changes in the external world, certain of these are foreseen
consequences whereas many others are unforeseen consequences.

FACTORS DETERMINING THE MORALITY OF HUMAN ACTS

Analyzing the morality of the human act is said to be a complex enterprise since it is
affected by so many conditions which are within and without. Most of the moralists
agree that to judge the goodness or badness of any particular human act, three
elements must be weighed from which every act derives its morality. They are: The
Object of the act, the Circumstances surrounding the act, and the End or Intention that
the one performing the act has in mind.

The Object of the Human Act

It is that which the action of its very nature tends to produce. Or in other words it refers
to the effect which an action primarily and directly causes. It is necessarily the result of
the act without considering the circumstances or the end. For example, the object of
setting fire to hut of a slum-dweller is to burn whereas the end might be revenge. The
object is usually regarded as the primary factor for moral judgement of a human act.
From the viewpoint of object an act is generally classified as morally good, bad or
indifferent. For a morally good act, the object of it must be good.

The Circumstances contextualizing the Human Act

These include all the particulars of the concrete human action which are capable of
affecting its morality. They are such things as the person involved, the time, the place,
the occasion, which are distinct from the object, but can change or at times even
completely alter its moral tone. Circumstances can make an otherwise good action
better for e.g. giving food to a person who is almost dying of starvation. They can make
good an act which is otherwise indifferent, for e.g. sitting with a person who is feeling
lonely. But they can also make worse an act which is evil in its object for e.g. robbing a
beggar from his/her only meal of the day. Since all human actions occur in a particular
context i.e. at a certain time and at a certain place, the circumstances must always be
considered in evaluating the moral quality of any human act.

Prepared by: Laurice Kaye P. Laguinday, LPT

The End or the Intention of the Agent in performing a Human Act
The end or intention of a human act is the purpose that prompts one to perform such
an act. Every human act, no matter how trivial, is done with some intention. It is the
reason for which the agent performs a particular act. It is the effect that the agent
subjectively wills in his/her action. At times it can so happen that the intention of the
agent coincides with the object of the human act, for e.g. offering a glass of water to a
thirsty person to quench thirst. However, at other times both of them might be different.
For e.g. a captured spy may commit suicide in order to safeguard the secrets of the
country. A human act to be morally good the agent or doer must have a good
intention—he must want to accomplish something that is good in one way or another.

The end too can affect the morality of the human act just as circumstances do. A good
intention can make better an act which is good in its object, for e.g. helping a poor
person to start a small business with the intention of making him independent. Also, the
end can worsen an act which is already evil in its object, for e.g. killing the father, who is
the only breadwinner in the family, so that his children might be on the street. To a great
extent many of the actions that we do which otherwise might be indifferent morally in
themselves, but they receive their moral quality from the intention behind them.

According to the moralists a human act is said to be morally good when it is good in its
object, circumstances and also in the intention, for it is believed that an action is good
when each of these three factors is conformed to order (Bonum ex integra causa). If
even one of these determinants is contrary to order, the action will be bad, at least in
part (Malum ex quo cum que defectu).

Check Your Progress I

Note:
a) answer the following in a separate document to be passed next Friday.
b) Submit your output in pdf form in the LMS.

1) What is human action? Explain the relationship between the intellectual

element and the volitive element in the performance of human action.
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2) Explain the factors that affect the morality of human action.
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Prepared by: Laurice Kaye P. Laguinday, LPT