Classification of Human Acts: Elicited Acts

Human Acts

• Human acts can be classified into two categories: Elicited Acts and Commanded Acts.

Elicited Acts

• Wish: a simple love or desire for something (e.g., "I wish it would rain.")
• Intention: a purposive tendency of the will towards a thing, whether realized or not (e.g., "I am going to Europe next summer.")
• Consent: acceptance by the will of the means necessary to carry out an intention (e.g., consenting to prepare for a trip to Europe)
• Election: selection by the will of the precise means to be employed in carrying out an intention (e.g., choosing to travel by ship or airplane to Europe)
• Use: employment by the will of power to carry out its intention by the means elected (e.g., using faculties to prepare for a trip to Europe)
• Fruition: enjoyment of a thing willed and done (e.g., enjoying a trip to Europe)

Commanded Acts

• Formal essential quality of a human act requires knowledge and freedom in the agent (e.g., a Catholic aware of their obligation to attend Mass on Sunday)
• Constituents of a human act:
  • Knowledge (awareness of the obligation)
  • Freedom (physical freedom to perform or not perform the duty)
  • Voluntariness (willingness to do one's duty)

Voluntariness of Human Acts

• Kinds or degrees of voluntariness:
  • Perfect and Imperfect (presence or absence of full knowledge and intention)
  • Simple and Conditional (performance of an act with or without reluctance)
  • Direct and Indirect (willing an act in itself or as a result of another act)
  • Ignorance of penalty (lack of knowledge of the precise sanction for an act)

Ignorance

• Ignorance in its subject:
  • Vincible ignorance (ignorance that can be dispelled by ordinary diligence)
  • Supine (crass) ignorance (ignorance resulting from a lack of effort to dispel it)
• Habitual ignorance (ignorance in the person in whom it exists, e.g., a person unaware of their habitual inclination or disinclination for a particular act)

Ethical Questions

• When is an agent responsible for the evil effect of a cause directly willed?
  • The agent must be able to foresee the evil effect
  • The agent must be free to refrain from doing the cause of the evil effect
  • The agent must be morally bound not to do the cause of the evil effect
• When may one perform an act, not evil in itself, from which flow two effects, one good and one evil?
  • The evil effect must not precede the good effect
  • There must be a reason sufficiently grave calling for the act in its good effect

Positive and Negative Voluntariness

• Positive voluntariness: present in a human act of doing, performing (e.g., a Catholic attending Mass on Sunday)
• Negative voluntariness: present in a human act of omitting, refraining from doing (e.g., a Catholic deliberately missing Mass on Sunday)

Actual, Virtual, Habitual, and Interpretative Voluntariness

• Actual voluntariness: present in a human act willed here and now (e.g., making a morning offering)
• Virtual voluntariness: present in a human act done as a result of a formerly elicited actual intention (e.g., making a morning offering and then forgetting it)
• Habitual voluntariness: present in a human act done in harmony with, but not as a result of, a formerly elicited and unrevoked actual intention (e.g., making a morning offering and then not revoking it)
• Interpretative voluntariness: present in a human act that would be actually present if opportunity or ability for it were given (e.g., a person making an actual intention to become a Catholic and then being baptized when unconscious)