§ 2. On the Morality of an Indirectly Voluntary Effect

313. Things to be noted beforehand. For a right understanding of the things which follow, certain notions concerning cause and effect must be premised (II, 63 seqq.; III, 571).

A. A multiple CAUSE is distinguished:

1. By reason of influence, it is physical or moral. Physical is that which acts through a physical influence, as fire produces conflagration, the sun light. Moral is that which efficaciously moves another free cause to acting. Thus one commanding homicide is a moral cause of the killing.

2. By reason of mode, it is immediate or mediate. Immediate is that which produces the effect with no other cause intervening: for example, if someone pierces the breast of another, he is the immediate cause of his death. Mediate is that which does not produce the effect except with another cause interposed. Hence, if you except the sin of scandal, a moral cause is always a mediate cause.

3. By reason of connection with the effect, it is proximate or remote. Proximate is said of that which has a necessary, or at least ordinary, connection with the effect which it produces for the most part: for example, poison, administered in an undue quantity, is a proximate cause of death. That is called remote from which the effect, for the most part, does not occur: for example, the reading of a slightly base thing is a remote cause of pollution.

4. By reason of the order of production, there is given a cause per se or per accidens. A cause per se is that which by its nature tends or is ordered to producing the effect: thus excessive drink is a cause per se of drunkenness. A cause per accidens is that to which an effect is joined beyond the ordination of nature. Thus homicide can follow from drunkenness.

Especially to be kept before the eyes are the two latter distinctions, which give place to a fourfold hypothesis, because both a cause per se and a cause per accidens can be proximate and remote (cf. n. 315).

B. The EFFECT is voluntary either directly and in itself, or indirectly and in the cause (cf. n. 272, 7). Now, an effect voluntary in itself is certainly to be morally imputed, since it is truly intended by the will. An effect voluntary only in the cause cannot be imputed to good: for goodness is not contracted unless it is intended (cf. n. 309, II); but an effect of this kind can be morally evil and be imputed to fault. When this happens will be clear from the following principles.

314. PRINCIPLES. I. An evil effect, voluntary only in the cause, is imputable to fault when it is foreseen as going to follow in such a way that it could and ought to have been impeded, and nevertheless is not impeded. Therefore three things must concur, namely:

1. That the effect was foreseen, at least confusedly. The reason is because if it was in no way at all foreseen, it was not voluntary; for nothing is willed unless foreknown. Hence neither is it voluntary, nor imputable to fault, when drunkenness follows from a moderate drinking of wine whose intoxicating force was unknown. On the contrary, blasphemies, quarrels, obscene speeches, which are accustomed to accompany the drunkenness of wine-drinking men, are voluntary and imputable as sin. For that such things would occur is sufficiently clear from experience.

2. That the effect could have been impeded, that is, that it was in the power of the agent either not to posit the cause, or to remove it once posited: for with liberty lacking, the voluntary lacks; nor is there ever any obligation concerning the impossible. Hence a priest is not guilty of sacrilege who gives Communion to a hidden sinner publicly asking it; for the cause of the sacrilege which is committed, in such circumstances, he cannot fail to posit.

3. That the effect ought to have been impeded, that is, that the agent is bound not to posit the cause, or to remove it once posited, and indeed precisely for this end, lest such an effect follow: For where there is no law, neither is there prevarication (Rom. 4:15), nor does he sin who uses his right.

If therefore a law, although it exists, has not yet begun to urge, for example, if someone, for the sake of recreation alone, already on Wednesday undertakes a long journey, then certainly the evil effect (omission of Mass), arising from this, cannot be imputed to him. Cf. Lehmkuhl, Cas. Consc., I, n. 97.

But here a great question arises: When ought the effect to have been impeded? when is the agent bound to omit the cause, lest a depraved effect follow from it? Resp. He is bound whenever not all the conditions are present which make the positing of the cause lawful. But what these conditions are, the following principle will indicate.

315. II. It is lawful to posit an honest cause from which there immediately follows a double effect, one good, the other evil; provided that only the good is intended by the agent, and there is present a proportionately grave cause for permitting the evil effect. The reason is because, when a proportionately grave cause accedes, the law ceases by force of which that evil effect had to be guarded against. For fear of grave harm excuses from law (n. 223). But when the law ceases, nothing now stands in the way of the effect being permitted. Cf. St. Alph., III, 483; ed. G., I, p. 702; St. Thom., 2.2, q. 64, a. 7.

The conditions which therefore are required from this second principle are precisely four, namely:

It is required 1. That the cause which is posited, or once posited is not removed, be honest, that is, good, or at least indifferent, that is, not intrinsically evil, and therefore already in itself and independently from every effect illicit, as a lie, adultery, etc., would be. Hence a girl sins gravely who fornicates in order to avoid death.

2. That the good effect follow immediately from the cause, just as the evil; for, if it followed mediately, namely with the evil effect intervening, this evil effect would now obtain the nature of a cause with respect to the good effect: which the Apostle forbids by the words already cited, saying: Let us not do evils, that goods may come (Rom. 3:8).

Hence it is not lawful for a servant to write amorous letters, so that he may please his master.

3. That the evil effect not be intended, nor approved, but merely permitted. Whence it is necessary that there not be present a danger either of intending the depraved effect, when its cause is posited, or of consenting to it, when afterwards it is produced.

Thus a physician who treats women, a student of theology who studies matters little chaste, a confessor who hears sins against chastity, are bound both to remove a dishonest end and to guard against consent in base movements, if perhaps they arise from their action.

4. That the effect not be permitted except from a proportionately grave or sufficient reason; because the natural law by which we are bound to guard against an evil effect ceases only then, when, the nature of things having been weighed and the order of precepts inspected, a cause is had properly excusing, or just and sufficient for permitting the effect. Now, in order that someone may be able, in view of a good effect, to permit an evil, the greater is the excusing cause required, the worse the effect is, or the closer to the act, or also the more probable (Konings, Theol. mor., n. 8).

a) Worse. Hence one must see what the gravity of the evil effect is. For, for example, a reason sufficient for permitting slight harm to another will not be sufficient that someone expose himself to the danger of killing another.

But for weighing this gravity, it will often be useful to attend to what law the evil effect must be guarded against by, whether by the law of charity, or of religion, or of justice? For not all laws oblige with the same rigor. Thus a cause sufficient

for excusing from a common obligation perhaps is not sufficient for excusing from a special obligation which someone has from office.

b) Closer to the act. Hence one must see whether the cause influences the effect proximately or remotely. If it influences the evil effect just as proximately as the good, the good effect ought to compensate the evil, because otherwise the good effect would not cancel the evil.

Whence a physician can treat women, although he feels base movements (provided that he does not consent to them), because the good effect, or the restoration of health, compensates the evil. But if it influences the evil effect only remotely, a lesser necessity or utility is required than in the preceding case. Hence you are not bound to abstain from an honest and useful conversation with a person of the other sex on account of carnal movements perhaps arising from it.

c) More probable. Whence one must consider whether the cause influences the depraved effect per se or per accidens. If per se, the effect will be more probable, because a cause per se is one which by its nature is ordered to the effect. If per accidens, the various circumstances which make the effect more or less probable must be weighed (Billuart, Diss. I, a. 1).

Note. 1. What effect, namely good or evil, some cause is naturally apt to produce, and what kind its influence is, must be judged from the estimation of prudent men. Many cases will be discussed in their own places, especially where the discourse is on cooperation, on scandal, on justice, on the sixth, etc., where also the studious reader will be able to see various examples of the indirect voluntary. Cf. n. 515, 521, etc.

2. The question concerning the imputability of effects which are voluntary in the cause has been weighed here only in a general way; below (n. 322) it will be said when this imputability begins, and how it ought to be judged.