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Ethics: Basic Concepts, Theories and Cases

This document discusses five modifiers of human acts: ignorance, passions, fear, violence, and habit. It provides definitions and classifications for each modifier and outlines principles governing how each affects the voluntariness and accountability of human actions. For example, it states that invincible ignorance renders an act involuntary but vincible ignorance lessens voluntariness. Antecedent passions diminish accountability while consequent passions may increase it. Acts done under extreme fear or violence are considered involuntary.

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2K views

Ethics: Basic Concepts, Theories and Cases

This document discusses five modifiers of human acts: ignorance, passions, fear, violence, and habit. It provides definitions and classifications for each modifier and outlines principles governing how each affects the voluntariness and accountability of human actions. For example, it states that invincible ignorance renders an act involuntary but vincible ignorance lessens voluntariness. Antecedent passions diminish accountability while consequent passions may increase it. Acts done under extreme fear or violence are considered involuntary.

Uploaded by

hyunsuk fhebie
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ETHICS

BASIC CONCEPTS, THEORIES AND CASES


MODIFIERS OF HUMAN ACTS
 These are factors and conditions that affect to a
considerable extent man’s inner disposition towards
certain action.
 They influence specifically the mental and/or emotional
state of a person concerned to the point that the
voluntariness involved in an act is either increased or
diminished
 They affect human acts in the essential qualities of
knowledge, freedom, voluntariness, and so make them
less perfectly human (Glenn 1965: 25).
MODIFIERS OF HUMAN ACTS
1. Ignorance
- Is the absence of necessary knowledge
which a person in a given situation, who
is performing a certain act, ought to
have.
Ignorance is either vincible or invincible.
• Vincible Ignorance can easily be remedied through ordinary diligence
and reasonable efforts on the part of the person who is in this particular
mental state. This specific type of ignorance is therefore conquerable since
it is correctible.
•Invincible Ignorance is the kind of ignorance which an individual may
have without being aware of it, or, having knowledge of it, simply lacks the
necessary means to correct and solve it. This type of ignorance is
unconquerable, and thus not correctible.
• under the classification of vincible ignorance is the Affected Ignorance.
This is the kind of ignorance which an individual keeps by positive efforts in
order to escape blame and accountability.
PRINCIPLES GOVERNING IGNORANCE
1. Invincible ignorance renders an act involuntary
- A person cannot be held morally responsible or liable if he or she is not aware of his or her
ignorance.
2. Vincible ignorance does not destroy, but lessens the voluntariness and the corresponding accountability
over the act.
- To act with vincible ignorance is to act imprudently. Ignorance could have been dispelled if there was
an effort to dispel it.
3. Affected or pretended ignorance does not excuse a person from his bad actions; on the contrary it
actually increases their malice.
- This specific kind of ignorance happens when a person really wants and chooses to be ignorant so that
he can eventually escape any accountability arising from the wrongfulness of the act later on.
MODIFIERS OF HUMAN ACTS

2. Passions or Concupiscence
 Understood as a strong or powerful feeling or emotion.
 Refers to the bodily appetites or tendencies as experienced and expressed in such
feelings as fear, love, hatred, despair, horror, sadness, anger, grief and the like.
 Also known as sentiments, affections, desires, etc
 These are inclinations toward desirable objects or a tendency away from undesirable
or harmful things.
 These include both positive and negative emotions
Passions are either classified as antecedent
or consequent.
Antecedent – are those that precede an
act.
• It may happen that a person is emotionally
aroused to perform an act.
• Antecedent passions predispose a person
to act

Consequent – are the direct results of the


will which fully consents to them instead of
subordinating them to its control
Principles Governing Passion:
1. Antecedent passions do not always destroy voluntariness, but they diminish
accountability for the resultant act.
• They weaken the will power of a person without, however, completely obstructing his
freedom.
• Thus, the so called ‘crimes of passion’ are voluntary.
• But in so far as passions interfere with the freedom of the will, one’s accountability is
diminished.

2. Consequent passions do not lessen voluntariness, but may even increase


accountability.
• This is because consequent passions are the direct results of the will which fully
consents to them instead of subordinating them to its control (Panizo 1964).
• Here, the person concerned who wilfully acts following his passion, allows himself to
be completely controlled by it and hence, is considered morally responsible for it.
“In themselves passions are indifferent; they are
not (intrinsically) evil…inasmuch as they are the
movements of the irrational appetite, have no
moral good or evil themselves. But if they are
subject to the reason and will, then moral good
and evil are in them. God has endowed the
human person with these appetites which
pervade his/her whole sensitive life. They are
instruments and means for self-preservation of
the individual and the human race. Every person
needs them for self-defense, growth, and
improvement. The saints and Christ Himself
expressed their passions (Salibay 2008).” – St.
Thomas Aquinas
MODIFIERS OF HUMAN ACT

3. Fear
- The disturbance of the mind of a person who is
confronted by an impending danger or harm to himself or
loved ones (Agapay 1991).
- Considered a passion which arise as an impulsive
movement of avoidance of a threatening evil, ordinarily
accompanied by bodily disturbances (Panizo1964).
- It is treated as a special kind of passion since it is a kind of
a test of one’s mental character.
Principles Governing Fear
1. Acts done with fear are voluntary.
- This is so because the person acting with fear is acting in spite of his fear, and thus, still
very much in control of his conduct.
- Therefore the person concerned remains morally responsible of his action, whether
good or bad, right or wrong.

2.Acts done out or because of intense fear or panic are simply involuntary.
- A person when acting out of extreme fear is not morally accountable of his action or
conduct.
- An example is a cashier who hands the money to a robber who is poking a gun on her
head is acting out of intense fear and panic, and thus, doing something involuntarily
and without her consent. Such action exempts theperson from any moral or even legal
responsibility.
MODIFIERS OF HUMAN ACT

4.Violence
- Refers to any physical force exerted on a person by
another free agent for the purpose of compelling the
said person to act against his will (Agapay 1991)
- Any act where great and brutal force is inflicted to a
person constitutes violence.
- This includes acts such as torture, mutilation and the
like.
Principles Governing Violence:
1. Any action resulting from violence is simply involuntary.
- If one is compelled to do something, one should not consent to it.
- An example is a woman whose body may be violated but remained defiant in the presence of
an unjust and brutal aggressor, whose superior strength overpowers that of the woman victim.

2. When a person experiences so much fear in the face of an unjust aggressor who is armed and
extremely dangerous, he or she is not held morally responsible of his or her action.
- Active resistance should always be offered to an unjust aggressor.
- But if resistance is impossible, or if there is a serious threat to one’s life, a person confronted
by violence can always offer intrinsic resistance by withholding consent; that is enough to save
one’s moral integrity (Panizo as cited in Agapay 1991).

3.Absolute violence excludes any voluntariness from the forced action.


- The reason is that lack of consent precludes a human act and consequently imputability
(Peschke 1985).
- Relative violence, however, does not completely destroy voluntariness but only lessens it.
MODIFIERS OF HUMAN ACT

5. Habit
 Is a constant and easy way of doing
things acquired by the repetition of the
same act (Panizo 1964).
 Is a lasting readiness and facility, born
of frequently repeated acts, for acting
in certain manner (Glenn 1965).
Principles Governing Habit:
1. Actions done by force of habit are voluntary in cause, unless a reasonable
effort is made to counteract the habitual inclination (Glenn 1965).
2. A deliberate admitted habit does not lessen voluntariness and actions
resulting therefrom are voluntary at least in their cause (Peschke 1985).
3. An opposed habit lessens voluntariness and sometimes precludes it
completely. The reason is that a habit weakens both the intellect and will
in the concrete situation in a similar way as passion does (Peschke ibid).
4. When a person decides to fight his habit, and for as long as the effort
towards this purpose continues, actions resulting from such habit may be
regarded as acts of man and not accountable. The reason is that the
cause of such habit is no longer expressly desired (Glenn as cited by
Agapay, ibid).

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