ARTICLE II: ON DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE

48. Definition. - A doubtful conscience is a suspension of judgment concerning the goodness or malice of some act in particular. This happens, namely, when conscience suspends its assent for each part of the doubt, and remains uncertain and hesitating concerning the morality of its action. Moreover, since conscience is a practical judgment of reason, and here there is had only a suspension of judgment, it is clear that a doubtful conscience is not conscience in the true and proper sense of the name, but only improperly and in the usage accepted by the Schools.

Division. - Doubt is divided:

1. Into positive and negative. Positive doubt is either strict, and exists from equal or almost equal reasons for each part (which coincides with a probable opinion), or broad, when for one part alone there is present a grave motive, or a certainly graver one than for the other. Negative doubt is when reasons are supplied from neither part, or only very slight ones; and this also is deservedly called strict, for as a balance, so also the mind stands in equilibrium, whether there are no weights on either side, or equal ones.

2. Into doubt of law and doubt of fact. Doubt of law is when there is doubt either about the law, for example, whether fasting on such a day has really been prescribed in the law; or about its obligation, for example, whether the law of fasting obliges in such a case or not; or about the legitimate authority of the legislator, for example, whether he can prescribe fasting in such a case. Doubt of fact is when there is doubt about some fact, for example, whether the medicine which I am about to take is healthful or poisonous; whether he who lies hidden in the woods is a man or rather a beast.

3. Into speculative and practical doubt. Speculative doubt is when there is doubt concerning the goodness or malice of an action in itself, abstracting from the execution of the action itself: for example, whether to paint on a feast day is a servile work or not. Practical doubt is when there is doubt whether a singular action, with its circumstances and in order to the end of the agent, may lawfully be given over to execution; for example, whether it is licit for me, constituted in these circumstances, to do a servile work on a feast day; whether it is licit for me, a servant, to obey my master commanding me in this matter. Wherefore between each doubt there intervenes the same distinction (which indeed intervenes very widely) as between true and licit. For speculative doubt, although obliquely and secondarily, or consequently, it regards also the licit, nevertheless directly and principally regards the true. But practical doubt directly, immediately, and primarily regards the licit itself. According to this twofold species of doubt, even doubtful conscience itself can, indeed must, with St. Alphonsus, be divided in two ways, namely into a speculatively doubtful conscience and a practically doubtful conscience.

49. Principles. - I. A merely negative doubt is to be held as nothing, because it is founded upon absolutely no reason, or upon a very slight one: therefore, even if it remains, the obligation still urges, or liberty stands, according as it existed before; nor can it effect that the moral certainty of the opposite be overturned. But if a prudent suspicion of error arises for you, you are bound to inquire. And so, when hereafter cases of negative doubt occur, you will easily solve them, once this rule has been established; and therefore we shall attend only to positive doubt.

II. It is never lawful to operate with a practically doubtful conscience, but the safer part must be followed. The reason is clear from what has just been said concerning certain conscience, principle I, n. 47. - But sometimes it is lawful to operate with a speculatively doubtful conscience, namely when, the practical doubt having been laid aside from a practically certain dictate, or from certain reflex principles, conscience is formed, as we shall soon say when treating of Probabilism.

50. Resolutions. - 1° As often as someone doubts whether an act which he is going to perform here and now is licit or not, he is bound to employ diligence in seeking the truth, congruent with the gravity of the matter and the condition of the person and place; namely, to consult upright and expert men, to investigate their practice, and to weigh the reasons with the sole pursuit of truth: otherwise he exposes himself, by negligence of inquiry, to the danger of violating the law, and sins in that very thing.

2° If he cannot inquire, nor is able of himself to weigh the reasons of each part, nor in another way, for example, through reflex principles, to free himself from doubt, let him embrace the safer part; because otherwise he would act in practical doubt, that is, with a truly doubtful conscience, and without any certain judgment concerning the honesty of the action.

3° He who, after diligent and sufficient inquiry has been made, still doubts whether there is present a law commanding or prohibiting, is not bound to obey this law; because he can form for himself a conscience from a reflex principle, namely that a law which cannot be found cannot oblige, as will be said below, where Probabilism is treated.

51. Questions. - Quest. 1° Does one sin gravely when operating with practical doubt concerning the gravity of sin?

Resp. Affirmatively. For he who acts with a practically doubtful conscience, according to common principles, sins with that species of sin, both moral and theological, concerning which, practically, while he acts, he doubts. The reason is that he violates a certainly grave obligation of taking precautions lest through voluntary ignorance or inadvertence he fall into transgressions of law which can be grave.

Quest. 2° Does he sin gravely who knows that his action is evil, but does not attend to its gravity?

Resp. It is disputed; but for St. Alphonsus¹ the sentence of those who say that such a one, of himself, sins only venially is sufficiently probable. The reason is that for sinning mortally it is required that someone consent directly or indirectly to what is mortal; but he who in no way thinks of or suspects what is mortal can in no way be said to consent to what is mortal. Therefore. Yet I have said: of himself, that is, supposing a) that he does not apprehend, at least confusedly, the danger of sinning gravely, or the obligation of investigating the matter; b) that the object is not certainly of itself a grave sin, of which kind, for example, it is in external sins whose gravity is known of itself to all, such as homicides, adulteries, thefts in grave matter, concerning which no one prudently supposes that they can be committed without advertence to grave malice, or at least without doubt about it, or without notable remorse of conscience; c) that the agent is of a fearful conscience; for otherwise, at least indirectly, he must be judged to consent to what is mortal.