Scribd
Upload
36 views

Religious Education

Human acts are morally good or bad based on three factors: the object, circumstances, and intention. The object must conform to God's law. Circumstances can alter the moral character of an act. Intention must be for a good purpose, though a good intention cannot justify intrinsically evil acts like murder. One's actions are judged based on these three determinants.

Uploaded by

Star Ramos
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
36 views

Religious Education

Human acts are morally good or bad based on three factors: the object, circumstances, and intention. The object must conform to God's law. Circumstances can alter the moral character of an act. Intention must be for a good purpose, though a good intention cannot justify intrinsically evil acts like murder. One's actions are judged based on these three determinants.

Uploaded by

Star Ramos
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

They are, moreover, not subject to physical laws which necessitate the agent, but to a law which lays

the will under


obligation without interfering with his freedom of choice. Besides, they are moral. For a moral act is one that is
freely elicited with the knowledge of its conformity with or deformity from, the law of practical reason proximately
and the law of God ultimately. But whenever an act is elicited with full deliberation, its relationship to the law of
reason is adverted to. Hence human acts are either morally good or morally bad, and their goodness or badness is
imputed to man. And as, in consequence, they are worthy of praise or blame, so man, who elicits them, is regarded
as virtuous or wicked, innocent or guilty, deserving of reward or punishment. Upon the freedom of the human act,
therefore, rest immutability and morality, man's moral character, his ability to pursue his ultimate end not of
necessity and compulsion, but of his own will and choice; in a word, his entire dignity and preeminence in this
visible universe.
Example:
Human acts- action that is guided by reasons or actions that can be limited.
Example: exercise to be physically fit, etc...
Acts of man- instinctive; physiological.
Example: crying, falling in love, Human acts are imputable to man so as to involve his responsibility, for the very
reason that he puts them forth deliberatively and with self-determination. eating, etc...Jesus said, "If you love me,
keep my commandments." It is easy to establish the general principle of doing good and avoiding evil; it is not so
easy in every circumstance, here and now, to know what is good and what is evil. But there are some basic
principles of Christian morality that all Catholics should be familiar with. One of the very first is that any act of a
human person must be a conscious, human act before it can have any moral quality whatsoever. A human act is one
that proceeds from knowledge and free will. If either adequate knowledge or freedom is lacking in the act of a
person, then that act is not fully human and therefore not fully moral. Thus, digestion, growth, the movement of
blood in the veins, etc., since they are not under the control of our will, are not spoken of as moral acts at all. They
are acts of a human person, but they are not called "human acts". A fully human act, that is, one proceeding from
knowledge and free will, is either morally good or morally evil. How do we know whether a given human act is
good or evil? Over the centuries moral theologians have agreed that there are three determinants of the moral quality
of our actions. The three are: the object, the circumstances and the intention. The object is the thing with which the
action is essentially concerned, for example, lying, praying the rosary, stealing, helping a blind person cross the
street. For a morally good act, the object of it must be good, that is, the thing with which the action is concerned
must confirm to the law of God. The circumstances of the act are the second determinant of the morality of any
action. The circumstances are such things as the person involved, the time, the place, the occasion, which are distinct
from the object, but can change or completely alter its moral tone. Circumstances can make an otherwise good
action evil, as when a soldier deliberately goes to sleep. They can increase the guilt, as when a girl lies to her
mother; or minimize the guilt, as an unpremeditated lie in order to get out of an embarrassing situation. Since all
human actions occur at a certain time and at a certain place, the circumstances must always be considered in
evaluating the moral quality of any human act. The third determinant of the moral quality of any human act is the
intention or end or purpose. Every human act, no matter how trivial, is done for some purpose. The Sunday driver
who blocks traffic and seems to be driving aimlessly has a purpose: he may not be going anywhere definite but he
does seek the joy of just driving around and looking. For 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. Some actions,
like blasphemy and stealing, are always wrong and no purpose, no matter how noble, can make them good. Other
actions may be either good or bad, depending on why we do them. Taking a drink is not sinful; drinking in order to
get drunk is. The morality of many things that we do is determined by the intention -- such as walking, talking,
reading, and so forth. Many such activities are said to be indifferent morally in themselves, but they receive their
moral quality from the intention behind them.

For our actions to be good our intention must be good. It is good to help the poor, but if I donate to the poor out of
vanity or from revenge, then it is not a good act even though, incidentally, the poor are helped. On the other hand,
we must avoid the common contemporary error of thinking that the whole morality of any action is determined by
the intention. The most noble intention cannot make an intrinsically evil action a good action. Thus, the bombings
and killings perpetrated by terrorists in order to change some form of government are still murder. Stealing from the
rich in order to help the poor a la Robin Hood is still stealing. The idea that "the end justifies the means" is very
common today. Good by ill-advised people who are concerned about over-population or the proper raising of
children resort to abortion in order to cut down on the number of births and to avoid unwanted children. But a good
intention, no matter what it is, does not make something essentially evil, such as abortion, into something morally
good.

We have reason to be alarmed at the increased use of the principle that "the end justifies the means." As well
instructed Catholics we should know that the morality of every human act is determined by the object, the
circumstances and the intention. If any one of the three is evil, then the human act in question is evil and should be
avoided.

You might also like