LANCE ADRIAN S.

DECENA November
26, 2022
BSME 2A
ETHICS

Norms of Human Act

Human Acts
 An act that is performed only by a human being and thus is proper to man.
When a human being does such acts, they are called acts of man but not
human acts.
 Are also directed to their true end by Law by which it is applied by
Conscience.
 Hence, law and conscience are the directives or norms of human acts.
Law
 “An ordinance of reason, promulgated for the common good by one who
has charge of society” – St. Thomas
 “Is a rule of external human action by a sovereign political authority” –
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
Classifications of Laws
According to their:
a. Immediate author – Divine Laws
b. Duration – Temporal or Eternal
c. Manner of their promulgation
d. As they prescribe an act or forbid it
e. The effect of their violations.
Immediate author (Divine Laws)
 Laws are distinguished as divine laws, which come directly from God.
Human laws which are the enactments of Church or State. Human laws
enacted by the church are called ecclesiastical laws, while human laws
enacted by the State are called civil laws.
Manner of their Promulgation
 Laws are distinguished as the Natural Law and Positive Law.

Natural Law – in the widest sense is that which directs creatures to their end in
accordance with their nature and so understood, it coincides with the Eternal Law.
 Physical Law are the laws govern irrational creatures in their being and
activities.
 Moral Law which is apprehended by sound and matured human reason is
called the natural law
Positive Law – are laws enacted by a positive act of legislator, and these fall under
the classification already made as divine and human.

As they prescribe an act or forbid it

 laws are affirmative or negative
 Negative Laws are also called prohibitory laws.

The effect of their violation

 laws are distinguished as moral (violation of which is fault or sin).
 Penal (violation of which is renders the violator liable to an established
penalty, but does not infect him with sin).
 Mixed (violation of which involves both fault and penalty).

Conscience
 Conscience is the practical judgment of reason upon an individual act as
good to be performed or as evil to be avoided.
 It is a judgment of reason, that is, it is a reasoned conclusion.
  Although the term conscience is also used to designate the act of reasoning
out the right and wrong of a situation before choosing what to do, it is more
properly employed as in our definition to signify the judgment which the
practical judgement of reason upon an individual act as good to be
performed, or as evil to be avoided.
 Now, an act of reasoning requires a principle or set of principles from which
the process of reasoning proceeds. By principles we mean things known
with certainty with which we may compare new facts or proposed actions
and so discover new truths-new applications of the principles.
 We acquire these principles-many of them - in early life and when we have a
workable grasp of them, we become responsible for our conduct, we cease to
be infants and we are said to have "come to the use of reason"
 Now this acquired equipment of moral principles is called syntheresis.
Synteresis is the starting point of the reasoning process which ends in the
judgment of conscience.
Nature of Conscience
 Knowledge of right and wrong
 Values and Principles
 The urge to do what is good
 Ability to choose freely
Nietzsche's Contention
 For Nietzsche, conscience does not merely tell us what is right or what is
wrong; conscience fulfills a much more fundamental, much more important
role: conscience is our awareness of responsibility. Nietzsche's most in-
depth analysis of conscience occurs in On the Genealogy of Morality.
Kinds of Conscience
 Correct or True Conscience: judges what isgood as good and what is evil as
evil.
 Erroneous or False Conscience: judges thatwhat is evil is good and good is
evil.Causes:Mistake in inferential thinkingIgnorance of the LawIgnorance of
the fact and circumstancesIgnorance of future consequences.
 Certain conscience: is a subjective assuranceof the lawfulness or
unlawfulness of a certainact.
  Doubtful conscience is a vacillatingconscience, unable to make a definite
judgment on a certain action.
 Scrupulous conscience: is a rigorousconscience extremely afraid of
committingevil.
 Lax conscience: is one which refuses to bebothered about the distinction of
good andevil.

Joseph Butler's Concept of Conscience

 Butler considered conscience to be a process of intuitive judgement against
conflicting desires, rather than a rational reflection.