Module III

Lesson 5. TWELVE STAGES OF THE HUMAN ACT

Lesson Objectives:
After studying this lesson on the twelve stages of the human act,
you shall be able to:
1. understand through two illustrations of the logical sequencing of
St. Thomas Aquinas' twelve stages of human act.
2. give your own example of how these stages work in your life or
someone else's life.

Terms as defined in the Given Selections

1. Whimsical decision - irresponsible or thoughtless decision done
hurriedly
2. Hedonism - the doctrine that pleasure alone is good as an end.
3. Voluntary act - that which is in the power of the will.
4. Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign
masters, pain and pleasure.
5. Capacity for the nobler feelings is in most nature a very tender
plant, easily killed, not only by mere want of sustenance.
6. Hedonists hold that all other things but pleasure, whether conduct
or virtue or knowledge whether life, or nature or beauty are only
good as means to pleasure or for the sake of pleasure, never for
their own sakes or as an end in themselves.

The Nature of Each of the Twelve Stages of the Human Act according
to St. Thomas Aquinas:

1. apprehension of end-actual sight of an object one longs for

2. the wishing of the end-desire for possessing the object
3. judgment of attainability - thinking of how to possess the object
4. intention of the end - will decide to attain it

1
 5. deliberation on the means - presentation of choices
6. consent to means - judges each of the means
7. practical judgment of choice - arriving at the choice of the best
means
8. choice - a free act
9. command - will commands to obtain the desired object using the
choice arrived at
10. use - he uses the object
11. intellectual attainment of the end - the person apprehends the
suitability of his acts
12. fruition - he enjoys the acquisition

St. Thomas Aquinas list twelve stages in every person's decision to

perform a human act. These twelve stages involve both a person's
intellect and will. when a person hurriedly arrives at a decision, he is
called whimsical or irresponsible or thoughtless. Children who are not
mature have this kind of disposition and do not go through the so-called
twelve steps or stages:
Intellect Will
1. Apprehension of end 2. Wishing of end
3. Judgment of attainability 4. Intention of end
5. Deliberation on means 6. Consent to means
7. Practical judgment of choice 8. Choice
9. Command 10. Use
11. Intellectual attainment of end 12. Fruition

For example, a person sees a cassette tape radio on display at a store.

This is the first stage: the apprehension of end. All his life he has
always wanted to own one. This is the second stage: the wishing of the
end. The initial reaction is desire of possession. The person thinks of the
money with which to pay for it. This is the third stage: the judgment of
attainability. His will intends it too. This is the fourth stage: the
intention of end. Until now, no freedom is involved because the will
naturally accepts what the person's intellect presents to it as good. The
person has the money for supporting his family for one month. He has to
make a choice. Either he buys the cassette tape radio and plunges his
family into near starvation, or he gives up the whole idea of buying it. If
he gives up the idea, the moral act ends there. If, however, the person
thinks of other alternatives of feeding his family through borrowing or
through other means of financing, the moral act continues. He now
deliberates on the different means of acquiring the desired object. Should
he buy cash or installment? Or just steal it? This is the fifth stage: the
deliberation on means. The deliberation on means continues and the
person consents to the different means chosen. This is the sixth stage: the
consent to means. Now he judges which of the means is the best: cash,
installment, or theft; then he decides which one is indeed the best. This is the
seventh stage: the judgment of choice. The will now actually chooses the
best means. This is the eighth stage: the choice. This is now a free act.
Then his will commands him to buy the desired object. This is the ninth
stage: the command. After the purchase, he uses it. This is the tenth
stage: the use. The person then apprehends the suitability of his act. This is
the eleventh stage: the intellectual attainment of end. Then he enjoys his
acquisition. This is the twelfth stage: the fruition.
Actually, the moral act ends on the eighth stage. The command to
purchase is simply the execution of that choice. Whether he uses is or not
later, or enjoys it or not later no longer belongs to the strict morality of a
human act.
All our deliberate actions follow the above stages. The time element
may be short or long, sometime in the wink of an eye, or sometimes in an
entire lifetime but the stages are the same. We may not always be conscious
of these stages nor of their sequence. Often, these stages are
reduced to intention, deliberation and decision. We can take but one
second to deliberate or we may take a lifetime plotting an evil deed.
Ethics teaches that one does not have to murder or steal or rape
actually. It is enough that one reaches the eighth stage of choice and one
has already performed a full human act and hence moral imputability or
responsibility sets in. Civil responsibility is different. Until an act is
consummated, the person is considered innocent.
A similar example can have different moral overtones. A person sees
an expensive watch or piece of jewelry in a department store. This is the
first stage. He desires to own it. This is the second stage. He judges that
he could in fact own it. This is the third stage. His will consents. This is
the fourth stage. There is as yet no freedom involved. Then he
deliberates on the means to acquire it: by shoplifting it or using his gun to
steal it. This is the fourth stage. The will consents. This is the sixth
stage. He now judges which of the means intended is the most appropriate
and effective; he decides to shoplift. Now comes the heart of the human act.
It is at this point where the moral agent chooses freely. Once he makes his
free decision, the moral act or the human act is completed. He becomes
morally culpable of shoplifting. Whether he is actually able to accomplish his
end or not is immaterial. While the civil law does not convict a man of
simply intending to shoplift, the moral law already imputes to him the
responsibility. The same goes for a thousand other examples like cheating,
lying, etc.

Readings in Module III

Human Acts and Responsibility
From Summa Theologiae Article 8: " Whether ignorance causes
involuntariness?"

I answer that, if ignorance causes involuntariness, it is in far as it

deprives one of knowledge, which is a necessary condition of voluntariness.
But it is not every ignorance that deprives one of his
knowledge. Accordingly, we must take note that ignorance has a
threefold relationship to the act of the will; in one way, concomitantly: in
another, consequently; in a third way, antecedentally. concomitantly,
when there is a ignorance does not induce one to which this to be done,
but it just happens that a thing is at the same time done and not known:
thus a man did indeed wish to kill his foe, but killed him in ignorance
thinking it to be a stag. Ignorance of this kind does cause
involuntariness, since it is the cause of anything that is repugnant to the
will: but it causes non-voluntariness, since that which is unknown cannot
be actually willed. Ignorance is consequent to the act of the will in so far
as ignorance itself is voluntary. First, because the act of the will is
brought to bear on the ignorance: as when a man wishes not to know, that
he may have an excuse for sin, or that he may be withheld from sin. And
this is called affected ignorance. Secondly ignorance is said to be voluntary
when it regards that which one can and ought to know: for in this sense not
to act and not to will are said to be voluntary. And ignorance of this kind
happens, either when one does not actually consider what one can and ought
to consider; this is called ignorance of evil choice, and arises from some
passion or habit: or when one does not take the trouble to acquire the
knowledge which one ought to have; in which sense, ignorance of the general
principles of law, which one ought to know, is voluntary, as being due to
negligence. Accordingly, if in either of these ways, ignorance is voluntary,
it cannot cause involuntariness simply. Nevertheless it causes
involuntariness in a certain respect, inasmuch as it precedes the movement
of the will towards the act, which movement would not be, if there were
knowledge. Ignorance is antecedent to the act of will, when it is not
voluntary, and yet is the cause of man's willing what he would not will
otherwise. Thus a man may be ignorant of some circumstance of his act,
which he was not bound to know, the result being that he does that which
he would not do, it he knew of that circumstance; for instance a man,
after taking proper precaution,
may not know that someone is coming along the road, so that he shoots an
arrow and slays a passer-by. Such ignorance causes involuntariness
simply.

From Article 6: "Whether fear causes involuntariness?"

I answer that,… such things as are done through fear are of a mixed
character, being partly voluntary. For that which is done through fear,
considered in itself, is not voluntary; but it becomes voluntary in this
particular case, in order, namely, to avoid the evil feared.
From Article 7: "Whether concupiscence causes involuntariness?"

Objection 3.
Knowledge is necessary to voluntariness. But concupiscence impair
knowledge; delight or the lust of pleasure destroys the judgment of
prudence. Therefore concupiscence cause involuntariness.

I answer that, concupiscence does not cause involuntariness, but on

the contrary, makes something to be voluntary. For a thing is said to be
voluntary, from the fact that the will is moved to it. Now concupiscence
inclines the will to desire the object of concupiscence. Therefore the effect
of concupiscence is to make something to be voluntary rather than
involuntary.

Reply to Obj. 3
If concupiscence were to destroy knowledge altogether, as
happens with those whom concupiscence has rendered mad, it
would follow that concupiscence would take away
voluntariness. And yet, properly speaking, it would not result
in the act being involuntary, because in things bereft of reason,
there is neither voluntary or involuntary. But sometimes in
those actions which are done from concupiscence, knowledge
is not completely destroyed, because the power of knowledge is
not taken away entirely, but only the actual consideration in
some possible act. Nevertheless, this itself is voluntary,
according as by voluntary we mean that which is in the
power of the will, for
 example, not to act or not to will, and in like manner not to consider; for
the will can resist the passion.

From Article: "Whether violence can be done to the will?"

Objection 1.
It would seem that violence can be done to the will. For
everything can be compelled by that which is more powerful.
But there is something, namely, God, that is more powerful
than the human will. Therefore, it can be compelled, at least
by Him. (N.B. Other objections are omitted).

I answer that, the act of the will is twofold: one is its

immediate act, as it were, elicited by it, namely to wish; the
other is an act of the will commanded by it, and put into
execution by means of some other power, such as to walk and
to speak, which are commanded by the will to be executed by
means of a motive power.

As regards the commanded acts of the will, then, the will can
suffer violence, in so far as violence can prevent the exterior
members from executing the will's command. But as to the
will's own proper act, violence cannot be done to the will.

The reason is that the act of the will is nothing else than as
inclination proceeding from the interior principle of knowledge:
just as the natural appetite is an inclination proceeding from an
interior principle without knowledge. Now what is compelled
or violent is from an exterior principle. Consequently, it is
contrary to the nature of the will's own act, that it should be
subject to compulsion and violence: just as it is also contrary to
the nature of a natural inclination or movement. For a stone may
have an upward movement from violence, but that this violent
movement be from its natural inclination is impossible. In like
manner, a man may be dragged by force: but it is contrary to the
very notion of violence that he be thus dragged of his own
will.

Reply Obj. 1:

God who is more powerful than the human will, can move the
will of man. But if this were compulsion, it would no longer be
by an act of the will, nor would the will itself be moved, but
something else against the will.
 From An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation Excerpts from "
Of the Principle of Utility," by Jeremy Bentham.
1. Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign
masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we
ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one
hand, the standard of right and wrong, on the other chain of causes
and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we
do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw
off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In
words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he
will remain subject to it all the while. The principle of utility
recognizes this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that
system, the subject of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the
hands of reason and of law.
2. The principle of utility is the foundation of the present work: it
will be proper therefore at the outset to give an explicit and
determinate account of what is meant by it. By the principle of utility
is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every
action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to
have to augment or diminish that happiness of the party whose
interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words, to
promote or to oppose that happiness. I say of every action
whatsoever; and therefore not only of every action of a private
individual, but of every measure of government.
3. By utility is meant that property in any object, whereby it tends to
produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good or happiness or to
prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the
party whose interest is considered: if that party be the community in
general, then the happiness of the community; if a particular
individual, then the happiness of that individual.
 4. The interest of the community is one of the most general expressions
that can occur in the phraseology of morals: no wonder that
meaning of it is often lost. When it has a meaning, it is this. The
community is a fictitious body, composed of the individual persons
who are considered as it were its members. The interest of the
community then is, what? - the sum of the interests of several
members who compose it.
5. It is in vain to talk of the interest of the community, without
understanding what the interest of the individual is. A thing is
said to promote the interest, or to be for the interest, of an individual
when it tends to add to the sum total of his pleasure: or, what comes to
the same thing, to diminish the sum total of his pains.

From Chapter IV: "Value of a lot of pleasure or pain, how to be

measured."
Pleasures then, and the avoidance of pains are the ends which the
legislator has in view: it behooves him, therefore to understand their
value. Pleasures and pains are the instruments he has to work with: it
behooves them therefore to understand their force, which is gain, in other
words, their value.
2. To a person considered by itself, will be greater or less, according to
the following circumstances:
 its intensity
 its duration
 its certainty or uncertainty
 its propinquity or remoteness
3. These are the circumstances which are to be considered in estimating a
pleasure or a pain considered each of them by itself. But when the value of
any pleasure or pain is considered for the purpose of estimating the
tendency of any act by which it is produced, there are two other
circumstances to be taken into account; these are, (N.B. The text does not
have Number 4.)
5. Its fecundity, or the chance it has of being followed by sensations of
the same kind: that is, pleasures, if it be a pleasure: pain, if it be a pain.
6. Its purity, or the chance it has of not being followed by sensations of
the opposite kind: that is pain, if it be a pleasure: pleasure, if it be a pain.

From Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill, Chapter II: "What Utilitarianism

Is" (Excerpts):
Those who know anything about the matter are aware that every writer,
from Epicurus to Bentham, who maintained the theory of utility, meant by it,
not something to be contradistinguished from pleasure, but pleasure itself,
together with exemption from pain; and instead of opposing the useful to
the agreeable or the ornamental, have always declared that the useful
means these, among other things.
The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the
Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are in proportion as they
tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of
happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by
unhappiness, pain and deprivation of pleasure. *** and that all desirable
things are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as
means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied;
better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or
a pig, are of the different opinion, it is because they only know their own
side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.
Men often, from infirmity of character, make their election for the
nearer good, though they know it to be the less valuable; and this no less
when the choice is between two bodily pleasures, than when it is between
bodily and mental. They pursue sensual indulgences to the injury of
health, though perfectly aware that health is the greater good. ***
Capacity for the nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant,
easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by mere want of
substance: and in the majority of young persons it speedily dies away if
the occupations to which their position in life has devoted them, and the
society into which it has thrown them, are not favorable to keeping that
their higher capacity in exercise.
According to the Greater Happiness Principle, the ultimate end, with
reference to and for the sake of which all other things are desirable, is an
existence exempt as far as possible from pain, and as rich as possible in
enjoyment, both in point of quantity and quality; the test of quality, and the
rule for measuring it against quantity, being the preference by those who
in their opportunities of experience, to which must be added their habits of
self-consciousness and self-observation, are best furnished with the means of
comparison.
Of this, the philosophers who are taught that happiness is the end of
life were as fully aware as those who taunt them. The happiness they
meant was not a life of rapture; but moments of such, in an existence
made up a flew and transitory pains, many and various pleasures, with a
decided predominance of the active over the passive, and having as the
foundation of the whole, not to expect more from life than it is capable of
bestowing. A life thus composed, to those who have been fortunate
enough to obtain it, has always appeared worthy of the name of happiness.
We not uncommonly hear the doctrine of utility inveighed against
as a godless doctrine. If it be necessary to say anything at all against so
mere an assumption, we may say that the question depends upon what idea we
have formed of the moral character of the Deity. If it be a true belief that
God desires, above all things, the happiness of his creatures, and that this
was his purpose in their creation, utility is not only a godless doctrine, but
more profoundly religious than any other. If it be meant that utilitarianism
does not recognize the revealed will of God as supreme law
of morals, I answer, that a utilitarian who believes in the perfect goodness
and wisdom of God, necessarily believes that whatever God has thought
fit to reveal on the subject of morals, must fulfill the requirements of
utility in a supreme degree.
The proposition that happiness is the end and aim of morality, does
not mean that no road ought to be laid down to that goal, or that persons
going thither should not be advised to take one direction rather than
another. *** Whatever we adopt as the fundamental principle of morality,
we require subordinate principles to apply it by.
It is not the fault of any creed, but of the complicated nature of
human affairs, that rules of conduct cannot be so framed as to require no
exceptions, and that hardly any kind of action can safely be laid down as
either always obligatory or always condemnable. There is no ethical
creed that does not temper the rigidity of its laws, by giving a certain latitude,
under the moral responsibility of the agent, for accommodation to
peculiarities of circumstance: and under every creed, at the opening thus
made, self-deception and dishonest casuistry get in. There exist no moral
system under which there do not arise unequivocal cases of conflicting
obligation.
From the Principia Ethica by G.E. Moore, Excerpt of Chapter II:
"Naturalistic Ethics"
*** I propose to discuss certain theories which offer us an answer
to the question What is good in itself? I sat advisedly - an answer: for
those theories are all characterized by the fact that, if true, they would
simplify the study of Ethics very much. They all hold that there is only kind
of fact, of which the existence has any value at all. But they also possess
another characteristic, which is my reason for grouping them together and
treating them first: namely that the main reason why the single kind of fact
they name has been held to define the sole good, is that it has been held to
define what is meant by " good" itself. In other words, they are all theories
of the end or ideal the adoption of which has been
chiefly caused by the commission of what I have called the naturalistic
fallacy: they all confuse the first and second of the three possible
questions which Ethics can ask. It is, indeed, this fact which explains
their contention that only a single kind of thing is good. That a thing
should be good, it has been thought, means that is possesses this single
property: and hence (it is thought) only what possesses this property is
good. The inference seems very natural; and yet what is meant by it is self-
contradictory. For those who make it, fail to perceive that their conclusion
"what possesses this property is good" is a significant proposition: that it
does not mean either "what possesses this property, possesses this property"
or "the word 'good' denotes that a thing possesses this property". And yet, if it
does not mean one or the other of these two things, the inference contradicts
its own premise.
I propose therefore to discuss certain theories of what is good in
itself, which are based on the naturalistic fallacy, in the sense that the
commission of this fallacy has been the main cause of their wide
acceptance. The discussion will be designed both (1) further to illustrate
the fact that the naturalistic fallacy is a fallacy or, in other words, that we
are all aware of a certain simple quality, which is what we mean by term
"good;" and (2) to show that not one, but many different things, possess
this property. For I cannot hope to recommend the doctrine that things
which are good do not owe their goodness to their common possession of
any other property, without a criticism of the main doctrines, opposed to
this, whose power to recommend themselves is proved by their wide
prevalence.
*** I shall deal with theories which owe their prevalence to the
supposition that good can be defined by reference to a natural object; and
these are what I mean by the name, which gives the title to this chapter,
"Naturalistic Ethics." It should be observed that the fallacy, by reference
to which I define "Metaphysical Ethics" is the same in kind; and I give it
but one name, the naturalistic fallacy. But when we regard the ethical
theories recommended by this fallacy, it seems convenient to distinguish
those which consider goodness to consist in a relation to something which
exists here and now, from those which do not. According to the former,
Ethics is an empirical or positive science: its conclusions could be all
established by means of empirical observation and induction. But this is
not the case with Metaphysical Ethics. There is, therefore, a marked
distinction between these two groups of ethical theories based on the same
fallacy. And within Naturalistic theories, too, a convenient division may
also be made. There is one natural object, namely pleasure, which has
perhaps been as frequently held to be the sole good as all the rest put
together.
The subject of the present chapter is, then, ethical theories which
declare that no intrinsic value is to be found except in the possession of
some one natural property, other than pleasure; and which declare this
because it is supposed that to be "good" means to possess the property in
question. Such theories I call naturalistic.
*** And first all, one of the most famous of ethical maxims is that
which recommends a " life according to nature." That was the principle of
the Stoic Ethics.
*** It is obvious in the first place, that we cannot say that everything
natural is good, except perhaps in virtue of some metaphysical theory. If
everything natural is equally good, then certainly Ethics, as it is ordinarily
understood, disappears: for nothing is more certain, from an ethical point of
view, than that some things are bad and others good; the object of Ethics is,
indeed, in chief part, to give you general rules whereby you may avoid the
one and secure the other. What then does "natural" mean, in this advice to
live naturally, since it obviously cannot apply to everything that is natural?
*** To argue that a thing is good because it is "natural" or bad
because it is "unnatural," in these common senses of the term, is therefore
certainly fallacious and yet such arguments are very frequently used. But
they do not commonly pretend to give a systematic theory of Ethics.

Excerpts from Chapter III: "Hedonism"

*** We have very strong evidence in the fact that, of all hedonistic
writers, Prof. Sidgwick alone has clearly recognized that by "good" we do
mean something unanalyzable, and has alone been led thereby to
emphasize the fact that, if Hedonism be true, it claims to be so must be
rested solely on its self-evidence that we must maintain "Pleasure is the
sole good" to be a mere intuition.
*** By Hedonism, then, I mean the doctrine that pleasure alone is good
as an end - "good" in the sense which I have tried to point out as indefinable.
The doctrine that pleasure, among other things, is good as an end, is not
Hedonism; and I shall not dispute its truth. In attacking Hedonism, I am
therefore simply and solely attacking the doctrine that "Pleasure alone is
good as an end in itself." I am not attacking the doctrine that "Pleasure is
good as an end or in itself," nor am I attacking any doctrine whatever as to
what are the best means we can take in order to obtain pleasure or any other
end. I quarrel only with the reasons by which they seem to think their
conclusions can be supported; and I do emphatically deny that the
correctness of their conclusions is any ground for inferring the correctness
of their principles. A correct conclusion may always be obtained by
fallacious reasoning; and the good life or virtuous maxims of a Hedonist
afford absolutely no presumption that his ethical philosophy is also good. It
is his ethical theory alone with which I am concerned: what I dispute is the
excellence of his reasoning, not the excellence of his character as a man or
even as a moral teacher.
*** Hedonists then hold that all other things but pleasure, whether
conduct or virtue or knowledge, whether life or nature or beauty, are only
good as means to pleasure or for the sake of pleasure, never for their own
sakes or as ends in themselves. This view was held by Aristippus, the
disciple of Socrates, and by the Cyrenaic school which he founded; it is
associated with Epicurus and the Epicureans; and it has been held in
modern times, chiefly by those philosophers who call themselves
"Utilitarians" - by Bentham, and by Mill, for instance. Herbert Spencer
also says he holds it; and Prof. Sidgwick holds it too.
Yet all these philosophers differ from one another more or less,
both as to what they mean by Hedonism, and as to the reasons for which it
is to be accepted as a true doctrine. *** I propose to take first Mill's doctrine,
as set forth in his book called Utilitarianism . *** What I am concerned with
is the mistakes which Mill himself appears to have made, and these only as
they concern the Hedonistic principle. It is, I said, that pleasure is the only
thing at which we ought to aim, the only thing that is good as an end for its
own sake.
*** It will be observed that Mill adds "absence of pain" to
"pleasure" in his first statement, though not in the second. I shall talk of
pleasure alone, for the sake of conciseness; but all my arguments will apply
a fortiori to "absence of pain" it is easy to make the necessary substitutions.
Mill holds that "happiness is desirable, and the only thing desirable
as an end; all other things being only desirable as means to the end.
Happiness he has already defined as "pleasure, and the absence of pain."
*** If "desirable" is to be identical with "good," then it must bear one
sense; and if it is to be identical with " desire," then it must bear quite another
sense. And yet to Mill's contention that the desired is necessarily good, it is
quite essential that these two senses of "desirable" should be the same. If
he holds that they are the same, then he has contradicted himself elsewhere;
if he holds they are not the same, then the first step in his proof of
Hedonism is absolutely worthless.
Module III
Lesson 5

SELF-PROGRESS CHECK TEST

A. Give an example of how St. Thomas Aquinas' Twelve Stages of

human act worked in your life or someone else's life (14points).
Please provide your own sheet of paper.

B. On the blank before each number, write Yes or No after analyzing

each of the given situations.

_____ 1. Ann is held up in a dark place and is threatened to be killed if

she shouted. She happens to have a knife in her purse. She
takes it out secretly and stabs the chief. Do you think that Ann
is morally responsible?
_____ 2. Or civilly responsible?
_____ 3. The village hero has a habit of stealing from the rich in order
to give to the poor. As a result, he is lionized by the poor
people of his village because whatever they need - food,
clothes, money is provided by him. Is the village hero morally
permitted to steal in order to give to the poor?
_____ 4. Maria is a devout person. She hears Mass everyday and helps
the priest in the convent. She tells her family to cook for
themselves because she is doing something for God. The
children got sick because of neglect. Is Maria right in devoting
her entire day in the service of God?
_____ 5. On the other hand, Rosa is single and has no duties to anyone since
she is alone in the world. Like Maria, she hears Mass everyday
and helps the priest in the convent. She is in the convent
practically the whole day due to the demands of parishioners. Is
Rosa right in devoting her entire day in the service of God?
_____ 6. Santos is a politician. He wants to win in the election. During
the campaign, he tells lies about what he would do if elected.
The other candidates are lying like him and the people believe
them. Do you think politicians are justified in lying?