IV.

NATURE OF MORALITY AND ITS ULTIMATE END

• For Christian theology, the moral character of human

action is essentially determined by their relation to
God’s will.
• Man’s actions are morally good if they agree with
God’s will; and they are morally bad if they disagree
with it.
• But God’s will is not primarily expressed in a set of
codified rules and laws.
NORMS OF MORALITY

A. MORAL LAW (Objective norm)

1. Definition of Law – is any constant way of acting or reacting,

any directive rule of activity.

• Thus, we speak of laws of physics, chemistry and biology,

which work by causative, physical necessity.
• We speak of grammar of or arts, which direct free human
activity, yet with regard to closer, contingent goals.
• Moral law in its most universal meaning is A
DIRECTIVE ORDERING MAN’S ACTIVITY TOWARDS
THE ULTIMATE END.
2. Division of Moral Law

• Law as the objective norm of morality is divided in

NATURAL LAW, THE REVEALED LAW OF THE OT and NT, and
HUMAN LAW.

2.1. NATURAL LAW is that moral order which arises from the
nature of man and creation and which can be recognized
by man’s reason.

• It is also called DIVINE NATURAL LAW because its origin is

directly traced back to the will of God who created nature
and who therewith also willed the laws resulting from it.
2.1.1. Properties of the Natural Law

a.. Natural Law is universal.

– It binds all men without exception.
– For its basis is the very nature of men.
– The most universal principle of natural law: “Do good,
avoid evil.”
– Other secondary principles of natural law:
• Maintain your bodily health.
• Lawful authority must be obeyed.
• Contracts must be honored.
• The Golden Rule (Do unto others what you wish them
to do to you).
b. Natural law is immutable and dynamic.

• Immutability: certain fundamental norms concerning

good and evil will exist as long as human nature
exists.

• Dynamic: the evolution from taboo ethics to the

principles of human rights

c. Natural law is indispensable.

• Why? Because it is identical with God’s will.
2.2. REVEALED DIVINE LAW – The norms contained in the
word of the Sacred Scriptures of the OT and the NT is
looked upon as.
• It may spell out obligations of Natural Law in order to
impart a clearer knowledge of them.
E.g. Ten Commandments
• It may enjoin additional obligations, such as the precept of
the Sabbath rest and the ceremonial law in the OT.
• The revealed law of Scriptures is also called DIVINE
POSITIVE LAW.
• They are always more or less adequate insights of human
beings as to what is morally right.
2.3. HUMAN LAW

• Distinguished from DIVINE LAW, whether NATURAL or

REVEALED, is HUMAN LAW.
• Immediate source of origin is human authority.
– Human law may also reaffirm obligations of natural law.
e.g. the prohibitions of murder or stealing
• It will also set up regulations which are not direct
requirements of natural law, but which to a certain extent
depend on the free, though reasonable will of the lawgiver.
• e.g. the voting age, or the time needed for the
prescription of a debt.
• Human law is subdivided into the CIVIL LAW of the State
and the ECCLESIASTICAL LAW of the Church, which in the
Catholic Church is called CANON LAW.

• All JUST human laws bind in conscience.

• UNJUST laws in principle do not bind in conscience, and
often it is not even lawful to obey them, which means
that from a moral point of view they are not valid laws at
all.

• From the moral point of view therefore, NOT

EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED WHICH IS NOT FORBIDDEDN
BY THE HUMAN LAW.
2.3.1. Value and Limits of Human Law

a. Value

• Stable social norms are indispensable for peaceful

communal life.
• They co-ordinate the activities of the many.
• They provide the individual and the opportunity to acquire
modes of behavior that as a rule have every chance of
success and set him free from his search for the best
possible solution.
• They also make it possible for human relationships to be
lasting and set man free from uncertainty with regard to
the other’s behavior.
b. Limitations

• The obligation of the law ceases by causes which

exempt or excuse from the law, by dispensation, and
by privilege.
• Extrinsically a law may cease through the act of the
legislator or through contrary customs.
• Intrinsically a law can lose its force because its
purpose ceases to exist.
• If the purpose of the law ceases in its whole extent
and for all, the law ceases entirely.
B. CONSCIENCE (Subjective norm)

• For most Filipinos, conscience is understood as a kind of

inner voice (tinig ng budhi) which guides us in moral life.

1. Nature and Concept of Conscience

a. Scriptural Basis
– “It judges our behavior, approving what is good and
condemning what is evil” (Rom 1:32)
– Thus, it is our conscience that indicates for us how, in
our daily thoughts, words and deeds, we are to love God
and our neighbor.
b. As Moral Faculty
• Manifests to men/women their moral obligation and impels
them to fulfill them.

c. As Moral Judgment
• Tells men/women in the concrete situation what their
moral obligations are.

• Therefore, conscience is the proximate norm of personal

morality, our ultimate subjective norm for discerning moral
good and evil, with the feeling of being bound to follow its
directive.
• It is the inner voice:

– Summoning us to love the good and avoid evil, by

– Applying objective moral norms to our particular acts,
– And thus commanding us: do this, do not do that!

• If We Are Morally Obliged By Our Conscience To “Do

Good,” Are We No Longer Free?

– We are exercising authentic freedom in obeying moral

law and our consciences.
– The objection is based on the common erroneous idea
of freedom as “doing what I want.”
2. Types of Conscience

• “Correct” conscience corresponds to objective moral values

and precepts;
• “Erroneous” conscience which mistakenly judges something
as morally good which is objectively evil.

• Our moral responsibility is to develop a properly

“informed” conscience, and to correct any erroneous
conscience we may have had.
• Our conscience must decide on the following three
essential aspects:
I. the nature or object of the act,
II. the intention of agents or doers of the act, and
III. the circumstances which affect the morality of the
act. WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WITH , WHAT
MEANS, WHY, HOW, WHEN
• (group work)
3. Division of Conscience

• Antecedent conscience – if the judgment precedes the act

to be performed.
• Consequent conscience – if it passes judgment on acts
already performed.
• Certain conscience – passes judgment without fear of error
that some act is either lawful or
unlawful.
– An absolutely certain conscience however can still
be erroneous.

• Doubtful conscience – uncertain concerning the morality of

an action.
– It suspends its judgments; or it passes judgment
but with reasonable fear of erring.
• Right conscience – when it deduces correctly from true
principles that some act is lawful.
• Erroneous conscience – when it decides from false
principles considered as true that something
is lawful which in fact is unlawful.

▪ Invincibly erroneous conscience

- is inculpable because the person has no
awareness of the possibility of error
▪ Vincibly erroneous conscience
- is culpable because with some good will its
error could be corrected
Kind of the Erroneous Conscience

a) Scrupulous – which for useless and almost ridiculous

reasons judges or, rather, fears that an act is evil when
in fact it is not.

a) Perplexed – which sees sin both in the performance

and in the omission of some act.

a) Lax – which judges on insufficient grounds, to judge a

thing to be lawful which is sinful, or something to be a
light sin which is actually a grave one. OR
• Judges on insufficient ground that there is no
sin in the fact, or that the sin is not as grave as
it is in fact, or it is insensitive to a moral
obligation in a particular area.

d. Pharisaical – minimizes grave sins but

maximizes small ones.
Principles (Conscience)

a. True and false conscience

• Everyone is obliged to use serious care to possess on
all occasions a true conscience.
• Everyone is obliged to follow his conscience whether
it commands or forbids some action, not only when it
is true but also when it is in invincible error.
• It is not permissible to follow conscience when it is in
vincible error no matter whether it commands or
forbids some action; other hand one cannot act
contrary to such a conscience, the error must be
corrected before any action is taken.
b. On Perplexed Conscience
• Suspend action or seek advice. If this is morally
impossible, choose that which seems to be less of two
evils.

c. On Doubtful Conscience
• No one is allowed to perform an act while in a state of
practical doubt.
4. Freedom of Conscience

• The certain judgments of conscience are the proximate

subjective norm of human activity.
• These judgments a man/woman is bound to follow
faithfully and he/she cannot disobey them without
incurring guilt.
• The right to freedom of conscience comprises two claims:
– The right not to be forced to act contrary to one’s
conscience;
– The right not to be restrained from acting according to
one’s conscience (unless it contradicts with the common
welfare).
• Freedom of conscience is not a right without problems and
difficulties.
• Freedom of conscience does not mean freedom from
conscience.
• The person who disregards the voice of his/her conscience
does not only sin, he/she is guilty before the community.

5. The Duty to Form One’s Conscience

• Conscience is a norm which must conform to the higher

norms of the objective world of truth. (Jesus is the Way, the
Truth and the Life).
• It is the proper task of conscience to move the will in
accordance with the truth.
• Since conscience stands in need of illumination and
guidance, a man/woman is responsible for its
formation.
• Unwillingness to inform one’s conscience is already
an unwillingness to respond to the true God.
• The sources of information are the order of creation,
the word of God, man/woman’s personal
communion with Christ, the living faith of the
Christian community, and the findings of ethical
sciences.
Formation of Conscience

• Our consciences formed gradually through the natural

educational agents of our family upbringing, our school
training, parish catechesis, and the influence of friends and
social contacts.

• A “Christian Conscience” is formed gradually in faith and

through personal and ecclesial prayer-life:
– By attending to the Word of God and the teachings of
the Church,
– By responsiveness to the indwelling Holy Spirit, and
– By critical reflection on our concrete moral choices and
experiences of daily life.
• “Heart factors” include reading and prayerful reflection on
Jesus’ teaching and actions, and our own prayer and
sacramental life.
• “Mind factors” refer to a deepening in understanding of
Sacred Scripture and Church teaching, especially Catholic
moral principles, and sound moral guidance.

6. Conscience and the Civil Law and Church Teaching

• Conflict between conscience and authority are a problem

as old as mankind. (e.g. artificial means of birth control)
• Conflicts between the decision of the civil or ecclesiastical
authorities and the individual conscience can readily arise,
caused by shortcomings on either side.
• Both sides sought to be cautious in their affirmation and
rejections. Yet the presumption is in favor of the authority.
• This is particularly true in the case of civil laws and church
teaching which have been formulated with assistance and
advice of many experts and competence scholars.

• Hence, the insights of the individual are far more limited

and more exposed to error.
• If an individual conscience stands against the common
opinion of experts, he/she must become extremely careful,
lest he/she become guilty of acting irresponsibility and with
obstinate pride.
• Authorities are not free of error. The opposite danger is
that freedom of conscience is abused to justify unlawful
disobedience to authority.
• Vatican II urges everyone, to do their utmost to form men
and women who will respect the moral order and be
obedient to lawful authority.
V. MORALITY OF HUMAN ACTS

A. Human Acts And Acts of Man

• HUMAN ACTS – acts which proceed from insight and free

will.

• ACTS OF MAN – acts which are performed without the

intervention of intellect and free will.
– all spontaneous biological and sensual processes
(like nutrition, breathing, etc.)
 – all acts performed by those who have not the use
of reason (like people asleep, lunatics, drunken
people)
– spontaneous reactions (like first reaction of anger
or sympathy, jealousy).

B. OBSTACLES OF HUMAN ACTS

1. CONSTITUENTS OF HUMAN ACTS

1.1.Knowledge – is awareness/consciousness of the conditions

and implications of our actions.
• An act performed during sleep, or when a person is insane
or completely distracted is not a human act.
1.2. Freedom – means absence of constraint from within and
outside of man.
1.3. Voluntariness

ON KNOWLEDGE - IMPAIRMENTS OF REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE

1. Ignorance (lack of proper knowledge)

- Invincible ignorance: cannot be dispelled by such

reasonable diligence (inculpable)
- Vincible ignorance: if it could be removed by reasonable
diligence but is not because of negligence or bad will.
Degree of Negligence
1. Simply vincible – if some but insufficient diligence has
been used in dispelling the defect of knowledge

2. Crass/supine – if no serious effort has been taken to

remove the ignorance

3. Affected – if one deliberately wills to remain ignorant

Principles:

1) Invincible ignorance renders an act involuntary.

- A person cannot be held morally liable if he is not
aware of his state of ignorance.
e.g. A waiter who is not aware that the food he is
serving has been poisoned cannot be held for murder.

2) Vincible ignorance does not destroy, but lessens the

voluntariness and the corresponding accountability over
the act.
- A person who becomes aware of the state of
ignorance he is in has the moral obligation to rectify it by
exercising reasonable diligence in seeking the needed
information.
- To act with vincible ignorance is to act imprudently.
e.g. A waiter who suspects that the food he is serving
has been laced with poison has the moral obligation to
ascertain the fact, or at least, forewarn the guests about
his suspicion.

2. Error (due to wrong information)

- The origin of errors, prejudices, false opinions and
convictions may lie in deficient education, the influence of
bad company, the reading of misleading books and papers,
etc.
- Challenge: to escape the negative influences of those
forces which misguide him.
• “False convictions bring with them false attitudes to life.”
3. Inattention – An actual, momentary privation of knowledge.
(lack of 100% attention)

- If a person does not attend at all to what to what he is

doing, he does not accomplish a human act.

- If a person is only half-attending to what he does, the

acts he performs are only imperfect human acts.

• A perfect human act is only performed when full attention

is had to what he is doing.
ON FREEDOM – IMPAIRMENTS OF FREE CONSENT

1. Passion or Concupiscence
2. Violence
3. Dispositions and Habits
4. Fear and Social Pressure
1. Passion or Concupiscence

- is a movement of the sensitive appetite which is

produced by good or evil as apprehended by the
imagination.
- love, hatred, desire, aversion, joy, sadness, anger, courage,
fear, hope, despair.
- movements of the passions are frequently also called
FEELINGS, especially if not vehement.
- the passions become destructive and evil only if their
force is not controlled by reason.
(a) Antecedent Passion
- precedes the action of the will and at the same time
induces the will to consent. This takes place in involuntary
movement.
e.g. A delicious food served at table spontaneously causes
appetite and the desire to eat it.

(b) Consequent Passion

- follows the free determination of the will and is either
freely admitted and consented to or deliberately aroused.

e.g. In an evil sense by reading immoral literature

In a good sense by singing hymns of divine praise
Principles:

1) Antecedent passion always lessens the voluntariness

and sometimes precludes it completely.
– Passion lessens voluntariness because it hinders the
reflection of reason and weakens its attention.

2) Consequent passion does not give rise to lessened

voluntariness and is therefore good or bad.
– Consequent passion is freely accepted or even
deliberately roused; for this reason it is voluntary in
itself.
2. Violence
- is a compulsive influence brought to bear upon one
against his will by some extrinsic agent.

• Violence is absolute if the will dissents totally and resists as

best it can.
• Violence is relative if the will dissents only partially or
weakly and is perhaps deficient in its external resistance.

e.g. A person who is dragged to the altar of pagan gods and in

whose hands is put incense. As an offering, may be
tempted to give partial consent to the force, since it will
save him from torture and death.
Principles:

1) Absolute violence excludes any voluntariness from the

forced action.
- The reason is that lack of consent precludes a human act
and consequently imputability.

2) Relative violence does not impair voluntariness completely

but lessens it.
- Voluntariness is not completely taken away since there is
a partial consent of the will. But voluntariness is lessened
because relative violence makes a person carry out what
otherwise he would not do.
3. Dispositions and Habits

• Disposition – There are natural dispositions which incline

one man more than another to certain ways of reaction
and conduct and which have their roots in his character and
inherited propensities.
- When a person frequently follows out an inclination which
belongs to his nature, he acquires thereby the power to
perform the action easily.
• The inclination becomes stronger and finally grows into a
habit.

• Habit – a facility and readiness of acting in a certain

manner acquired by repeated acts.
Principles:

1) A deliberately admitted habit does not lessen

voluntariness and actions resulting there from are
voluntary at least in their cause.

2) An opposed habit lessens voluntariness and sometimes

precludes it completely.
4. Fear and Social Pressure

• Fear- is shrinking back of the mind on account of an

impending evil.

• Social Pressure – is an instinctive need for

acceptance, competitiveness, esteem, safety, shelter,
etc.
ON VOLUNTARINESS – DIVISIONS OF THE VOLUNTARY ACT
AND EFFECT

1. Perfectly voluntary act – is performed with full attention

and full consent of the will.

• Imperfectly voluntary act – is an act if attention or consent

of the will or both together are imperfect.

2. Directly voluntary effect – if it is intended in itself as an

end/if it is intended as means for another end.

• Indirectly voluntary effect – it is not intended but merely

permitted as the inevitable result of an object directly
willed.
3. Positively voluntary effect – if the will effects something
positively by exercising active influence on the causation
of the object.

• Negatively voluntary effect – by voluntary omission of an

act which could have averted an evil from another person
or helped him to secure a good.
MORAL DISTINCTIONS:

• Human acts are classified into three on the basis of their

relation to the norm of morality.

1) Moral Actions – are those actions which are in conformity

with the norm of morality
- They are good actions and are permissible.

2) Immoral actions – are those actions which are not in

conformity with the norm of morality.
- They are bad/evil and are not permissible.
3) Amoral actions – are those actions which stand neutral in
relation to the norm of morality.
-They are neither good nor bad in themselves.
- But certain amoral actions may become good/bad because
of the circumstances attendant to them.

• e.g. Playing basketball is an amoral act, but playing

basketball when one is supposed to be attending a class is
wrong.
• Playing basketball out of sense of duty to the team is good.
C. DETERMINANTS OF MORALITY OF HUMAN ACTS

1. The OBJECT

- The object of the human act is that effect which an

action primarily and directly causes.
- The object of theft is always the appropriation of
another person’s goods against his will, whether it is taken
from a rich or a poor man, whether its purpose is personal
enrichment or alleviation of extreme need.
- The object of an abortion is always the forcible removal
of the non-viable human being from the mother’s womb,
whether it is done to avoid public shame or for therapeutic
reasons.
2. The CIRCUMSTANCES

- The circumstances are particulars of the concrete

human act which are not necessarily connected with
its object.
- Circumstances can alter the morality of human acts.
- There are seven circumstances: WHO, WHAT,
WHERE, WITH , WHAT MEANS, WHY, HOW, WHEN
In the positive sense:

a) A circumstance can make better an act good in its object.

- If a poor man gives alms, the act of charity is greater.
b) A circumstance can make good an act indifferent in its
object.
- The friendly manner of an employer in the relations with
his employees impart to even his morally indifferent
dealings with them a moral goodness.
c) A circumstance can make less evil an act evil in itself.
- The denial of faith under threat of torture is less evil than
the denial of faith for a promotion in office.
In the negative sense:

a) A circumstance can make worse an act evil in its object.

- To be guilty of detraction before several people is worse
than to commit detraction before one person.
b) A circumstance can make evil an act indifferent in its object.
-The playing of a radio may become evil if it is so loud that
it seriously disturbs others.
c) A circumstance can make less good or evil an act good in its
object.
- Christmas carols, meant to cheer up old people, are a
good work, but it is less good if they are badly prepared.
3. The END

- The end or the purpose is the reason for which an

agent undertakes an act.
- A captured spy may kill himself in order not to
betray any national secrets.

(The object of this act is suicide, and the end is

prevention of betrayal of secrets.)
IMPUTABILITY OF INDIRECTLY WILLED EFFECTS (Side Effects)

• An effect is indirectly willed if it is not intended as an end or

a means, but only foreseen as the result of a directly willed
effect.
1. An indirectly willed good effect is not imputed to the agent.
- The human act must proceed from a man’s internal
consent, i.e., it must result from a decision of the will.
e.g. A man who steals a typewrites may sell it cheaply to a
poor student who otherwise could not afford to buy one.
This is a good side-effect of thievery. But it is not imputed
to the thief as a good work, even if he is aware of it, since
this indirect effect did not motivate him at all when stealing
the typewriter and selling it to the student.
2. An indirectly willed evil effect, on the contrary, is often
imputed to the agent; then namely when he could have
avoided it and when he should have avoided it.

Reason: Fundamental moral principle: “Do good, avoid evil.”

e.g. A drunken driver is considered guilty of the accident he
causes.
• Producers of medicines have to account for evil side-effects of
their products.
• The question when an indirectly willed evil effect should be
avoided and when, on the other hand, it need not be avoided
but can be admitted leads to the PRINCIPLE OF DOUBLE
EFFECT.
• This principle spells out the conditions when an indirectly
willed evil effect is not imputed to the agent and therefore
can be permitted.
THE PRINCIPLE OF DOUBLE EFFECT

• Four conditions under which an indirectly willed effect is

not imputed to the agent and therefore can be permitted:

1. The act may not be evil in itself, i.e., its very object must not
be of an inadmissible, evil nature.
- direct suicide, adultery, abortion, denial of faith

2. The evil and the good effect must at least equally directly
proceed from the act, or else the immediate effect must be
good. It may never be evil.
- A hemorrhage in the uterus during pregnancy may be
stanched by means of ergot preparations, which stop the
bleeding through contraction of the uterus.

- The contraction of the uterus however also endangers

the fetus, because in the course of this process the
placenta may be sheered off.

- (The same action results into two effects: a good and an

evil one, both of which proceed equally directly from the
act)
3. The intention of the agent must be good, i.e., the
agent may not will the evil effect.

- The bombing of military objects during wartime

often also involves the death of some civilians.
- This is an indirect effect of the bombing, whose
direct purpose and object is the destruction of
installations and plants of military import.
- Yet the agent may only intend the destruction of the
military object, not the death of the civilians.
- Therefore, if the military object has been destroyed
and some bombs are still left over, they cannot be
dropped on the living quarters of civilians.
4. A proportionately grave reason must be had in order to
justify the admission of the indirect, evil effect.
- A graver reason is required to run with one’s car into a
man than to run into a carabao.
- A graver reason is required to assist during an illicit
operation (e.g. abortion) than to prepare the operating
room before the operation.

• CASE: An operation to remove the cancerous uterus of a

pregnant woman, which will also kill her unborn child.
(Identify which condition?)
• The physician rightly decides that this is ethical
because his direct intention is morally good, i.e., to
save the woman’s life from the cancer.
• And he knows that he is being honest in his decision
because he would save the child’s life if he could.
• The value of the mother’s life is equivalent to that of
the child’s.
• The removal of the cancer is what saves the woman’s
life, not the child’s death.
Question: Why can evil effects be admitted?

- Otherwise life would be unbearable. Much good could not

be done because of possible evil side-effects of an action.
• Every electrical installation carries with it the risk of fire or
death by faulty wires.
• The benefits of big technology are accompanied by hazards
to health and environmental pollution.

- If indirectly willed evil effects were never to be admitted, all

these
• ventures could not be allowed, in spite of the good effects
which they produce and which by far prevail.
• Question: Why are indirectly willed evil effects more
readily justified than those directly willed?

- Directly willed effects are aimed at with deliberate

purpose and definite determination, so that they
come about with greater certainty.

- The indirectly willed evil effect is not pursued with

the same singleness of mind and firm determination
to bring it about.