§ II. On the Voluntary in Species

Since no special difficulty occurs in the other species of the voluntary, we shall speak only:

6. The direct and indirect voluntary comes among theologians in a twofold sense. In one sense, indeed, according as something proceeds from the will directly, as from one acting (as to sink a ship by a war-cannon), or indirectly, as from one not acting, as the sinking of a ship from the helmsman, insofar as he ceases from steering.¹ The direct voluntary taken in this sense others call positive; the indirect, negative, according as acting denotes something positive, not acting something negative. Yet from this do not conclude that the voluntary consists in negation; for, as St. Thomas says,² "something is called voluntary not only because it falls under the act of the will, but because it falls under the power of the will. For thus even not willing itself is called voluntary, because to will and not to will are in the power of the will, and similarly to do and not to do."

But in another and more common sense, the direct voluntary (or, as others say, express³) is called that "which is willed in itself" (therefore it is also called voluntary in itself) "and immediately, as when someone steals something, because he has in himself the will of stealing";⁴ indirect is that "which is willed not in itself, but in another thing which is apprehended, at least confusedly,⁵ as the cause"

"of some effect." Hence it is also called voluntary in cause.¹ By others, for the same reason, it is also called implicit or virtual voluntary.²

Hence you will gather: a) An effect not only foreseen, but also intended, is directly voluntary.

b) What is intended in itself is directly voluntary, even in the case in which it is intended not for its own sake, or as an end, but only as a means; and therefore the killing of a fetus is directly voluntary, although it is intended only as a means of saving the life or reputation of the mother. "For voluntary is not only what we will for its own sake, as an end, but also what we will for another thing, as for an end."³

c) Sins voluntary in cause are imputed at that time at which their cause is voluntarily placed. Yet from this do not conclude that the evil effect itself, when in fact it follows (for example pollution in sleep arising from a voluntary cause), is not sinful, and therefore that it is sufficient to disclose in Confession the guilt of the cause itself. For, as the exterior act is the substantial complement of the interior act and each is morally one and the same act (n. 25), so, in the case, the effect is the substantial complement of the cause, and with it morally one and the same act. Wherefore, just as it is not sufficient to confess the interior act, so neither is it sufficient to confess the placing of the cause. Thus, as the truer opinion, St. Alph., L. V, n. 149, against others.

d) For the imputation of a sinful effect foreseen from a voluntary cause, it makes no difference whether the effect in fact follows or not; for, as was said under c), the effect is imputed when its cause is placed.

That the things to be said concerning the voluntary in cause may be rightly understood, it is useful to premise these things concerning cause. - The efficient cause, concerning which there is speech here, is that by which something is done. But this is:

1° Physical or moral. The former is that which, by acting physically, produces the effect, as fire produces a conflagration, the sun light. The latter is that which effectively moves another free cause to acting. Thus one commanding homicide is the moral cause of the killing.

2° Immediate or mediate. The former is that which produces the effect, no other cause intervening, for example, if someone pierces the breast of another, he will be the immediate cause of his death. The latter is that which does not produce the effect except another cause being interposed. Hence a moral cause is always a mediate cause.

3° Proximate or remote (in moral matters). A proximate cause has a necessary or ordinary connection with the effect; but a remote cause, although it is able to produce the effect, nevertheless does not have great force upon it, nor does it notably influence it; or it is that from which the effect does not frequently arise. Thus the drinking of wine for a drunkard will be a proximate cause, for a sober man a remote cause, of drunkenness.

4° A cause per se or per accidens. The former is that which from its own nature tends, or is ordered, to producing the effect. Thus excessive drink is a cause per se of drunkenness. But the latter is that which, although from its own nature it is not ordered to some effect, nevertheless sometimes, some circumstance being added, can produce it. Thus homicide can follow from drunkenness. For the most part this last division falls back into the preceding one.

7. - An evil effect following from the indirect voluntary, that is, from the direct volition of a cause, is imputed to the agent for fault, if he could and ought to have avoided the cause on account of such an effect. Hence these things flow:

Corollaries. - I. A threefold condition is required that an effect can be imputed to the agent, or to the one placing the cause, namely:

1° That the agent foresaw the effect, at least confusedly. The reason is that an effect in no way foreseen can in no way be voluntary; for nothing is willed unless it has first been known. Hence drunkenness is not voluntary, nor to be imputed to him who becomes drunk from a little wine, whose force he did not know. Therefore, as some have contended, it is not sufficient for fault that the evil effect could have been foreseen or ought to have been foreseen; for the supposition must be denied, namely that an effect can be foreseen if in fact it is not foreseen, at least confusedly; for the first idea of some thing is not in man's power. Hence also, not even indirectly, is the omission of acts voluntary concerning which a man in no way thinks, as, for example, the omission of Vespers in him who, wholly immersed in studies, does not notice the twelfth hour of the night approaching, before which he had determined to finish them. Nevertheless, voluntary in cause and imputable to sin are the blasphemies, impurities, quarrels, which are wont to be done by someone in drunkenness. For such things are sufficiently foreseen from the custom of doing such things in this state.

2° That the agent could have not placed the cause; for otherwise, liberty being lacking, the voluntary would necessarily be lacking. Besides, an obligation cannot be given when it cannot be fulfilled. Hence the axiom: No one is held to the impossible. Thus a priest who gives Communion to a hidden sinner publicly asking for it is not guilty of sacrilege; for he could not, in those circumstances, not place the cause of the sacrilege which this man will commit.

3° That there be present a law by force of which the agent is held not to place the cause, or to remove it once placed; for where there is no law, neither is there transgression. But no one is held not to place the cause, or to remove it once placed, if he has a right of placing it, founded in necessity, utility, or honesty; for from the rule of law: to one pursuing his own right an effect following beyond intention is not imputed. Hence inordinate motions are not voluntary, nor therefore imputable, to a physician or surgeon in the exercise of his art, or to a theologian in the study of Moral Theology, provided, namely, that the proximate danger of consent is absent or remote; because the former are not held to omit their art, nor the latter his study, in order to forestall this effect, but on the contrary they have a just reason for giving work to them. Thus also evil desires of the curious are in no way imputed to a woman honestly adorning herself.

8. II. - It is lawful to place a good or indifferent cause from which there immediately follows a twofold effect, one good, the other evil, if there is present a proportionately grave reason and the end of the agent is honest, namely if he does not intend the depraved effect.¹

The reason of this principle is that, if this were not lawful, the agent would sin either from the intention of the depraved effect, or from the placing of the cause, or from the foresight of the evil effect. But none of these can be said. Not the first; for the end is supposed honest. Not the second; for the cause is supposed good, or at least indifferent. Finally not the third; for in the hypothesis the depraved effect is not intended, but merely not avoided; and there is present a proportionately grave and just reason for not avoiding it.

Moreover, five conditions which are directly or indirectly enunciated in this principle are altogether required, namely: 1° that the end of the agent be honest, that is, not disordered; 2° that the cause which is placed, or once placed is not removed, be good or at least indifferent; 3° that the good effect be immediate; 4° that there be present a grave reason for placing the cause, or not removing it once placed, nor is the agent held by justice, or by office, or by charity to omit it, or to remove it once placed; and 5° that practically there be no prudent judgment that the agent will consent to the illicit effect.

Therefore, 1° a good end is required; that is, one placing the cause or not removing it once placed must not intend the evil effect,² because otherwise he would intend something disordered, and therefore would sin. Thus in the example just adduced of the physician, surgeon, student of theology, woman honestly adorning herself, it would be a sin if besides the honest end a dishonest one were sought by them. 2° It is required that the cause which is placed, or once placed is not removed, be good or at least indifferent; namely that the act not be opposed to some law from which here and now he is excused by no legitimate cause. The reason is evident. For if the cause were not of this kind, it would induce guilt per se. Hence a girl gravely sins who, pregnant from a crime, procures abortion in order to avoid infamy; for the cause is not indifferent, and besides the 3rd and 4th condition fail. 3° It is required that the good effect follow equally immediately from the cause. The reason is that, if the cause directly and immediately has a depraved effect, and only by means of that depraved effect the good effect exists, then good is sought from evil; but it is never lawful to perpetrate evil, however slight, for procuring any good whatever; for according to the commonly known axiom, drawn from the Apostle,³ evils are never to be done that goods may come. Thus it is not lawful for you to lie, even for saving the life of a man. 4° It is required that there be present a proportionately grave reason for placing the cause, nor is the agent held from another obligation to omit it; because the natural law obliges us to avoid evils and to forestall harms to the neighbor, when we can do this without proportionately grave harm.

When a reason is proportionately grave will be explained in n. 307, 308. 5° It is required that practically there be no prudent judgment that the agent will consent to the illicit effect when it is produced. For consent into sin is never not to be avoided. Suppose, for example, that from riding there is wont to follow pollution for someone, and that the one riding does not intend this (the evil effect), but honest recreation (the good effect). Nevertheless he knows by experience that, notwithstanding the purpose of not consenting and of employing the means for forestalling consent, frequently, because the means have not in fact been employed, or have not been employed seriously enough, he consents; on this man certainly the obligation rests of abstaining from riding.¹

Note. - a) That it may rightly be decided whether the cause of permissively bearing oneself toward an evil effect is proportioned, the advantages and disadvantages which will follow from the action are to be compared with one another; but not only those which will arise in this or that particular case, but also those which would exist for society considered universally, or for the human race, if either it were necessary to abstain from the action, or it were lawful to place it. Wherefore, if I offer a just wage to a worker, and he demands more than the just amount, I am by no means held to consent to it, although I foresee that he will therefore blaspheme; for from this there would exist for society, or for timorous men, this grave harm: that whatever they asked would have to be furnished to those scoundrels, in order to forestall their blasphemies, which otherwise would not only not be forestalled, but to which a more frequent occasion would also thereby be given. On the contrary fornication will never be lawful, because permission for it, if it were given in any event, would yield to the harm of the human race (n. 493, I, under 2°).²

b) If the effect is lightly evil, it can never be imputed unto grave fault; but if it is gravely evil, it will not therefore always be imputed unto grave fault. For, as I said in n. 7 under 3°, in order that an effect can be imputed to one placing a cause, it is required that there be present a law by force of which the agent is held to avoid the cause on account of such an effect, or insofar as it is the cause of such an effect. But the obligation of this law, and likewise the degree or quantity of the obligation, depends both on the causality which intervenes between the action and the effect - namely whether the action influences the effect per se, or only per accidens, and, if per se, whether proximately or remotely - and on the reason which one has for placing the cause of such an effect. - Therefore under grave fault a gravely sinful effect will be imputed if it follows per se and proximately from the action (pollution from an immodest touch); but the killing of an unjust aggressor will in no way be imputed to you if this is necessary for the defense of your life, since you have a just reason for placing a cause producing even per se and proximately the death of the aggressor. - Under grave fault also will be imputed an evil effect which tends to grave harm of the neighbor if either no reason for placing the cause is present (no good effect follows for you from the cause), or a reason is indeed present, but not proportioned to the harmful effect (the good effect to follow from the placing of the cause is so little that, considering the gravity of the harm that will occur to the neighbor, it is to be esteemed as nothing). A case, for example, would be if, by not placing some action from the placing of which you can abstain without any inconvenience, or at least without proportioned inconvenience, you would avoid a cause, although only remote, of so grave a harm (suppose the killing of a neighbor), that you are held under grave fault by charity to avoid that harm, even with this inconvenience. Besides this case, there is not given a grave obligation of avoiding an effect, although gravely evil, if that effect follows from an act as from a cause per se, but only remote. Wherefore, by force precisely of this principle, inordinate motions following from honest conversation (a remote cause), although useless, are excused from grave fault; but if the conversation is truly useful, those motions by themselves are free from every fault. Notice, however, that a cause remote of itself can, for someone, considering his special disposition, be proximate. Examples are had in n. 502, I, under 2°.