CHAPTER 3: LESSON 1

THE HUMAN ACTS

Presented by Angel A. Ansaga
 OBJECTIVES
1. To understand the nature of human acts as acts of rationality
involving free will and understanding.

2. To distinguish between the types of human acts in relation to

reason: good acts, evil acts, and indifferent acts.

3. To explore the impediments of human acts such as ignorance,

passion, habit, and fear.

4. To delve into the determinants of the morality of human acts.

What is something good that you did
because you knew it was the right
thing to do, and how did it make you
feel?
 HUMAN ACTS

• are acts of rationality of man which

involves free will and understanding.
• can be done morally good or morally evil.
 KINDS OF HUMAN ACTS IN RELATION TO
REASON

GOOD ACTS EVIL ACTS

It refer to those actions This pertains to those
done by man in harmony actions done by man in
with the dictates of right contradiction to the
reason. dictates of right reason.

INDIFFERENT ACTS
any action that is
neither good nor evil.
 IMPEDIMENTS FOR HUMAN ACTS

Ignorance
It is elucidated as lack of adequate knowledge in an individual with regard
to the nature or moral quality of an act one is performing or proposes to
perform.
2 main categories of ignorance
Invincible ignorance
is doing something wrong when one could not have known better.

Vincible ignorance
is doing wrong when one ought to have known better.
 IMPEDIMENTS FOR HUMAN ACTS

Passion
It is often connoted as a powerful or compelling emotion or feeling for
instance an experience of strong hate or sexual desire. Passion is said to be
a strong tendency towards the possession of something good or towards
the avoidance of something evil.

2 main kinds of passion

Antecedent passion
refers to passion elicited without the consent of the will. Here the
person might not be fully responsible for the passion and as such the
culpability is much less if not fully absent.
 IMPEDIMENTS FOR HUMAN ACTS

2 main kinds of passion

Consequent passion

a passion which is within the control of the will, therefore the agent is
responsible for the arousal of the passion and as such imputable for
the act.
 IMPEDIMENTS FOR HUMAN ACTS

Habit
an acquired tendency for doing something as a result of repeated practice.
It may be voluntary or involuntary, depending on whether it was imbibed
with consent of a person or without. Habits usually do not render an act
non-human, because though they exert certain coercion they can be
overcome by a committed effort. As such imputability of acts from habit
increases or decreases depending upon the effort exerted.
 IMPEDIMENTS FOR HUMAN ACTS

Fear
It is defined as the shrinking back of the mind on account of an impending
evil considered to be difficult to avoid or even impossible at times. Fear
may be grave or mild according to whether it is caused by a grave evil
whose avoidance is rather difficult if not impossible, or only
by a mild evil which can be easily avoided.
THE DETERMINANTS OF THE MORALITY OF
HUMAN

1. THE OBJECT OF AN ACT

is the thing done. In reality, it is not distinct from the act

itself, for we cannot act without doing something, and
that thing that is done is the object of the act; say, of
going, eating, praising, etc. The act or object may be
viewed as containing a further specification.
 THE DETERMINANTS OF THE MORALITY OF
HUMAN

1. THE OBJECT OF AN ACT

e. g., going to church, praising God, eating meat. Now, an act thus
specified may, when considered in itself, be good, bad, or
indifferent; thus, to praise God is good in itself, to blaspheme is
bad in itself, and to eat meat is in itself an indifferent act. But for
an individual human act to be good, its object, whether
considered in itself or as further specified, must be free from all
defect; it must be good, or at least indifferent.
THANK YOU