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Module III – Principles behind our Moral Disposition Frameworks

Lesson 6: Human Actions in Moral Experience

Learning Objectives:
At the end of this lesson, the students should be able to:
1. distinguish human acts from acts of man;
2. explain internal and external principles of human acts;
3. discuss the human freedom and its kinds; and
4. elaborate the salient components of human acts and their functions..

Key Reading:
Joseph Rickaby, S.J. “Human Acts.” JMC: Four-Square, University of Notre Dame.
https://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/etext/foursq05.htm
In this article, Rickaby describes human acts as actions that imply responsibility towards
fellowmen and to God. What is not a human act can never be a sin. What is not a human act
can never be an act of virtue, nor go towards the building up of a habit of virtue. Only through
his own human act can a man ever come to the torment of hell-fire. When a man has sinned
actually and grievously, some human acts on his part is a necessary condition of divine
forgiveness.

Introduction
Not everything that a man does is a human act. A perfect idiot does no human acts, nor
a child that has not come to the use of reason, nor a man asleep or under an anesthetic. Things
that we do mechanically, automatically, without thinking, have little of the human act about
them. The beating of the heart is not a human act, nor digestion, nor respiration for the most
part. "Human act," then, is a technical term; and a thorough understanding and bearing in mind
of this technicality is a wonderful encouragement under temptation, and a great safeguard
against scruples. A human act is an act of which a man is master, to do or not to do: it is an act
of free will. It is an expression of self. It is a man's own act, not of other agents about him. It is
not an organic process going on in his body: it is an output of his soul and spirit.
 Human Acts vs. Acts of Man
Human acts are actions that can be performed only by a human being; thus, it is proper
only to man.

Not every act that a human being does is a distinctively human act. Some acts that
human beings do are performed also by animals, e.g., vegetative acts and acts of perception
and of emotion. When a human being does such acts, they are called acts of man but not
human acts. Acts of man, therefore, are actions shared in common by man and other animals,
whereas human acts are proper solely to human beings.

What makes an act performed by a human being distinctively a human act is that it is
voluntary in character, that is, an act in some way under the control or direction of the will, which
is also proper only to man but not to other forms of animals. One can therefore identify the
human act with the voluntary act. A voluntary act proceeds either from the will itself—for
example, an act of love or of choice—or from some other human power that can in some way
be moved by the will, whether an act of the intellect, of sense cognition, or of emotion; even an
act of some bodily member as commanded by the will can be a voluntary act.
A moral analysis of the human act depicts the human act in relation to the good that is
sought and insofar as all acts are moved to their ends by the will. A psychological consideration
of the human act distinguishes the internal and external principles of the human act, treats the
notion of human freedom, and analyzes the human act into its component parts.

Online Activity:

1. Please watch this 2-minute YouTube video to have a further understanding about the nature of
human acts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUv4tPcp8Gs

Internal Principles of Human Acts

The internal principles of human acts include the intellect, the will, the sense appetites, and the
habits— both virtues and vices—with which these powers, or faculties, are endowed.
1. Intellect. As a power of the human soul, the intellect is the principle of all intellectual acts
of knowing. The human intellect is either speculative or practical, a difference deriving from
the end to which knowledge is ordered (see cognition speculative-practical). If the end in
view is the consideration of truth itself, the intellect is speculative in its mode of knowing.
Thus through acts of understanding and reasoning man arrives at scientific knowledge,
when possible, or at something less than truth and certainty—opinion, for example. If the
end in view is operation or action of some kind, then the intellect is practical in its knowing,
as in the making of works of art or in judgments of prudence in regard to actions one is to
 perform. And just as in speculative knowing ordered to arriving at truth where there are first
principles grasped by the special habit of understanding, from which true and necessary
conclusions follow, so in practical knowing there are the primary practical principles grasped
by the special habit of synderesis, enabling man to know the common precepts in regard to
good and evil action.

2. Will. The will, as intellectual appetite, is a power directed to some object under the aspect of
universal good. Because the good so understood is the object of the will, it moves the will as
an end, and in this sense the will presupposes the intellect, which thus moves the will to its
appropriate end; the intellect, in other words, moves the will as specifying the act of the will.
The will, on the other hand, moves the intellect in the manner in which one thing moves
another as an agent. Since each power is directed to a good suitable to it and since the
object of the will is the universal good, the good of the intellect, to know the true, falls within
the scope of the will. Although the will tends to objects as universal, it tends also to singular
things existing outside the mind by tending to them under a universal aspect. One person
loves another, for example, because of the latter's virtuous character, which is a good
realized in this person. The desiring of a good in this way, and in general the desiring of an
immaterial or spiritual good, distinguishes the will as rational appetite from sense appetite.
3. Sense appetite. This is related to sense cognition as the will is related to intellectual
knowing, each appetite tending to a good as apprehended. But since sense cognition
cannot apprehend the good as universal, the sense appetite cannot be directed to the
common notion of the good. Hence the will and the sense appetite can be basically
contrasted as desire for a universal good and desire for a particular good. There are two
fundamentally different aspects of the particular good that differentiate the sense appetite, or
emotion, into two main parts: the concupiscible and the irascible. The concupiscible appetite
is concerned with a particular good as pleasing and suitable; the irascible appetite is
concerned with repelling and combating harmful aspects of objects that prevent the attaining
of a particular good.
4. Habit. In addition to the various human powers, habits are also internal principles of human
acts. A habit can be understood initially as a disposing of a power to act in a determinate
way. In virtue of the intellectual and appetitive powers man has, he is able to do a variety of
acts, but without the disposing influence of habit upon his powers of acting, most of his
distinctively human acts would be done irregularly. A habit therefore develops and
strengthens a human power, enabling the power to operate more effectively and with more
facility.
Accordingly, habit can be defined as a firm disposition of power to act regularly in a
determinate way. Man's power is largely indeterminate with regard to their objects. But the
prompting of habits, acquired by repeated acts of a certain kind, dispose and determine powers
more readily and more determinately to their objects. Hence a habit, far from being merely
mechanical in operation and somehow alien to good human action, actually enters into the
performing of human acts intrinsically that it may be regarded as a second nature; habit makes
its distinctive act a kind of natural act just as a power is the first source of a natural act. For this
reason, in addition to a habit's producing uniformity in operation and enabling an act to be done
more quickly and effectively, a habit makes human action pleasurable in operation. The
meaning of habit as developed here restricts habit to the intellectual and appetitive human
powers.
The notion of habit as bettering human action is not in conflict with the division of habit
into good and bad, that is, into virtue and vice. Any habit permits man to operate better than he
otherwise would, but whether a habit is good or bad is a moral consideration, distinct from the
psychological point showing how any habit develops a power more fully. In general terms, the
distinction between virtue as a good habit and vice as a bad habit turns on whether the habit
produces acts conducive to promoting man's moral good or evil. Acts of virtue are those that are
suitable to human nature; that is, they are acts habitually performed according to the rule of
reason. Acts of vice are opposed to human nature inasmuch as they are habitually opposed to
the direction of reason.
Virtue may then be defined somewhat as St. Augustine phrased it: virtue is a good habit
of the mind, by which one lives righteously and of which no one can make bad use. In a
somewhat more specific way, virtue can be defined also as a habit inclining one to choose the
relative mean between the extremes of excess and defect. Vice, as the contrary habit, would
incline one to choose either of the extremes, both morally evil.

External Principles of Human Acts

Among the internal principles of human acts, virtue is the primary means of directing
man to the good of human happiness. Other means by which he is ordered to leading the good
life are law and grace, both of which may be referred to as external principles of human action.
1. Law. As is evident from experience, the common good is the end or purpose of all law, and
without an understanding of what the common good properly is, the nature and function of
law in directing human acts cannot be appreciated. A common good is clearly distinct from a
private good, the latter being the good of one person only, to the exclusion of its being
possessed by any other. A common good is distinct also from a collective good, which,
though possessed by all of a group, is not really participated in by the members of the
group; as divided up, a collective good becomes respectively private goods of the members,
as in the manner in which a man's estate is divided up among his inheritors.
A true common good is universal, not singular or collective, and is distributive in
character, being communicable to many without becoming anyone's private good. Moreover,
each person participates in the whole common good, not merely in a part of it, nor can any one
person possess it wholly. The distinctive common good to which human law is ordered is the
civil, or political, common good of peace and order. Such direction of human acts by law is
clearly indispensable for human development and perfection.
There are several kinds of law, namely:
a. Civil Law. The classic definition of law is based on the foregoing notion of the
common good: law is a certain ordination of reason for the common good,
promulgated by one who has care of the community. This common definition of law
applies proportionately or analogously to the different kinds of law. According to
man's mode of knowing, civil, or human positive, law primarily realizes the common
definition of law. Hence law is first understood to be an ordinance of reason by one
 who has authority to direct the political society and its members to the common civil
good, a happiness consisting primarily in peace and order. Civil law directly concerns
the external acts of human beings, presupposing the interior principles and acts.
Although civil law therefore does not directly aim to make men virtuous in their
actions, it does command certain acts that dispose men to become virtuous and
forbid other acts that lead to vice and tend to make life in society impossible.

b. Natural Law. Every civil law, insofar as it aims at the common good and is
accordingly a just law, carries an obligation to be obeyed. Yet this obligation rests on
more than civil law itself. It derives from a law more fundamental than civil law and its
political sanction, viz, what is called natural law. This is the "unwritten law" that, in
its most common precepts, is fundamentally the same for all. The natural law
expresses, in universal form primarily, the fundamental inclinations of human nature
formulated by reason in a judgment naturally made, that is, with little or no discursive
reasoning. Such law, then, is natural on two scores: (1) it is not law made by reason
so much as discovered by reason; and (2) all men thus naturally know the most
universal precepts expressed in natural law. Natural law, so understood, is clearly a
fundamental principle for directing human acts.

c. Eternal Law. One other kind of law must still be mentioned: eternal law. It is even
more fundamental than natural law, being the law in which even natural law
participates. Eternal law refers to the idea of the government of things that exists in
the mind of God; it is the plan of God's wisdom by which all action and motion of the
universe is directed. It directs the universe as a whole to the common good of God
Himself. This is not the law given through revelation (see law, divine positive). The
knowledge about eternal law can be arrived at by reason alone, though usually
indirectly. Eternal law is therefore the ultimate source of all law and the ultimate
directive principle of all acts and motions of creatures to their proper ends.

2. Grace. As a principle of human action, grace differs from virtue not only as an external
principle differs from an internal one, but also in that grace is infused directly into the human
soul itself, whereas virtue is realized in some power of the soul. Grace differs from law in
that, though both are external principles, law directs man by instruction and command,
whereas grace supernaturally elevates him so that he can participate in the divine life,
receive assistance in doing so, and attain the happiness that is eternal life. Hence
sanctifying or habitual grace is a supernatural quality of the soul by which man participates
in the divine nature and is thereby enabled to perform acts meriting supernatural happiness.
It is clear that such a principle directing human action is absolutely necessary for all human
beings if they are to obtain eternal life.

Human Freedom
A discussion of the internal and external principles of the human act is logically followed
by a consideration of the human act itself. Prior to an analysis of the human act into its
component parts, however, it is convenient to treat how and in what way the human act is free.
At the beginning of this lesson, the human act was identified with the voluntary act, an act
proceeding either immediately from the will or from some power or act in some way under the
control and direction of the will.
It is now necessary to distinguish between a voluntary act and a free act; for although
every free act is necessarily a voluntary act, not every voluntary act is strictly a free act. A free
act, most properly speaking, is an act of choice. There are occasions, however, when it makes
sense to say that man has no choice and that what he wills to do he must will to do. Such acts
are voluntary in that they still proceed from the will as a principle, but they are not free, at least
in the usual and proper sense of the term.
It must be recognized, however, that there are two types of free act, or two kinds of
freedom. They are as follows:
1. Freedom of Exercise. This is the freedom of an agent to act or not to act in an absolute
sense; freedom of exercise is thus said to be about contradictory alternatives. In any given
situation, a man at all rational can will to act or not. This sort of freedom man as a
voluntary agent always has; and as related to the interior act of willing or not willing, the
voluntary act and the free act, for all practical purposes, are identifiable.

2. Freedom of Specification. This is the sort of freedom one usually has in mind when he
speaks of man as being a free agent and is what he means by the act of choice. This
freedom arises not in terms of the agent as acting or not acting (which is freedom of
exercise and is presupposed) but in terms of some object specifying the act to be done by
the agent. Freedom of specification, in other words, is the choice of this alternative rather
than that alternative or, to put it more precisely, the choice of this means in relation to a
desired end. The free act as choice, therefore, is concerned with means properly, not with
ends as ends. In this context, one can distinguish voluntary acts that are not free acts
strictly. To will an end as an end is not a matter of choice but a matter of simple
willing. An act of the will centering precisely on the means is the act of choice. This
meaning of freedom, the freedom of specification exercised by choice, is the relevant
meaning of human freedom in the discussion here.

The Limits of Freedom

Many contemporary authors pointed out that, to be fully human (in the exercise of his
acts), the will must be free both philosophically and psychologically. Philosophical freedom is
the power, given certain prerequisites of knowledge and motivation, of saying yes or no freely to
a proposed action or of choosing freely between two alternative courses. It means that at the
time the choice was made, the person could have made the opposite choice even though with
difficulty or repugnance. Psychological freedom is a freedom from obstacles and pressures that
make the exercise of philosophical freedom difficult. Philosophical freedom is freedom to
determine its own choices; psychological freedom is freedom from the obstacles,
pressures, and impediments which make choices difficult. In the minds of some
contemporaries, the classical tradition in moral theology seemed to take for granted the human
person's freedom as a perfectly autonomous power of decision hindered in the exercise of its
sovereignty only accidentally by factors that are rather exceptional. Contemporary authors seem
to be less reluctant to admit that freedom of the will can be influenced only in exceptional cases.
They tend to see human freedom as "freedom in situation" and they insist that the dialectic
between freedom and determinism is essential for every human action.
Moreover, many contemporary moralists indicate the presence in all of the human
person's actions of a determinism traceable to three sources—the biological, the social, and the
psychological. They point out that recent discoveries of neurosurgery, endocrinology, and the
use of drugs have demonstrated the influence of biological factors on the freedom of moral
action. The pressure of society can also exert great influence on free activity and pressure
groups and pressure factors have enormous determining potential in contemporary society.
Finally, studies in depth psychology reveal constant neuroticizing factors under which many
people live within the course of their growth and development as human beings.

Salient Components of Human Acts

The full grasp of what the free human act is and the role it plays in human action cannot
be appreciated without an analysis of the whole human act as it is exercised in the concrete
order, involving both the intellect and the will. Presupposing what has been said about the
internal and external principles of human action one may distinguish the component parts or
specific acts that make up the complex human act, which is always concerned in some way with
ends and means. The list below analyzes the human act in terms of its various steps.

Fig. 5: The table shows the distinction of the functions between Intellect and Will

Intellect Will

Concerning the end Concerning the end

Apprehending an end Willing an end

Judgment about an end Intending an end

Concerning the means Concerning the means

Deliberating about means Consent to means

Judgment about choice of the means Choice of means

Concerning execution Concerning execution

Command to execute choice Use of powers to execute

Judgment of end attained Enjoyment of end attained

 This list outlines a fully conscious human action in dealing with a more or less complex
practical situation. Not every human act man performs involves all these individual steps, but
every human act in the practical order does involve seeking some end, a judgment and choice
of means, and a consequent decision to attain to a desired end by carrying out the chosen
course of action. It is well to bear in mind also that man does not always proceed in his human
action in so orderly a way as the diagram list suggests. Often, indeed, particularly in difficult
situations, he vacillates between one act on the part of the practical intellect and a
corresponding act on the part of the will. But the knowledge of these various steps within the
complex human act is helpful for successfully carrying out human decisions and choices; such
knowledge is helpful also when one cannot resolve a practical problem, for he can, with
reflection, ascertain where he is in the process and which step is holding him up or preventing
him from attaining a resolution.
The numbering of the steps, evenly divided between the intellect and the will, manifests
the intimate connection between the intellect and the will in human action. On the one hand, the
intellectual acts specify the acts of the will, for what one wills does depend on what he knows;
on the other hand, each act of the will subsequently moves the intellect to a further act of
knowing until the will is brought to some rest in an enjoyment of what was initially desired or, if
unsuccessful, to a sorrow in not attaining what was initially desired. It should be noted that the
human act is outlined here in terms of its intrinsic parts; the role of the emotions and other
influences have also to be taken into account. Primarily, however, the human act is constituted
of individual acts on the part of the intellect and the will.
And lastly, this analysis of the human act enables one to understand human freedom
better and to see, more precisely, what constitutes the free human act, which is usually spoken
of as free will. One can now comprehend that actually a man's free act is a joint product of
intellect and will. It is exercised principally, though not exclusively, in steps seven and eight of
the list, the judgment on the part of the intellect that is inseparably allied with the choice of
means. The connection between intellect and will is most intimate here. The intellect, in its
practical judgment with regard to a means, is a determining cause of the will's choosing one
object rather than another. But this is a determination coming from knowledge; and hence the
will, in exercising the act of choice, is still choosing freely what is proposed on the part of the
intellect. In a concrete instance facing man in knowing what he should do, his judgment of the
choice is made and the will accordingly freely exercises its act of choice. This is positive
freedom of specification: freely choosing to do what one knows one should do. Negative
freedom consists in one's being able to reject what he knows he should do. What is involved
here also is the judgment of con science, which is still distinct from the practical judgment of the
intellect in regard to choice. The latter judgment, as has been seen, is inseparably connected
with appetite—with the will in its act of choice. The judgment of conscience, analytically prior to
the practical judgment with reference to choice, is wholly an act of the intellect and thus apart
from an actual choice to be made here and now; in an act of conscience one judges that an
individual act is right to do as falling under a universal judgment or precept that acts of this kind
should be done. It is a judgment of conscience, for example, that this debt should be paid, as
falling under the universal judgment that debts should be paid. It is not yet the practical
 judgment with regard to choice and the ensuing act of choice, which takes place here and now,
and where freedom of the human act is ultimately and principally located.

ASSIGNMENT #5

(Submit your answer to our google classroom)

1. Create a brief summary of the Youtube video above.

2. Create a 20-sentence summary of the whole content of this lesson.