Treatise: On Human Acts in Themselves

S. Th. I-II, q. 1 and q. 21.

47. Notion of a Human Act. - After the treatise on the ultimate end, human acts must be considered, by which we must arrive at that end.

According to St. Thomas, who first of all wrote a distinct treatise on human acts:

1. Cf. our article: Le traite des Actions humaines dans la Morale thomiste, in Revue des Sc. phil. et theol. 1926.

1. Those actions alone are properly called human which are proper to man insofar as he is man, or which proceed from a man acting insofar as he differs from irrational creatures, not only as to substance but also as to the mode of operating.

But he differs in the mode of operating from irrational creatures insofar as he acts freely, and thus is master of his acts.

2. Hence those actions alone are properly called human of which man is master.

But he is master of his acts through deliberation of reason and election of will.

3. Therefore those actions are properly called human which proceed from a deliberate will. Other actions, however, which are done by man, are called acts of man; and although some are human as to substance, for example necessary actions of intellect and will, nevertheless they are not human as to the mode of operating, nor properly human, since they are not of man acting as man (q. 1, a. 1).

Therefore a human act can be defined as an act which proceeds from the deliberate will of man (q. 1, a. 1), or as an act which, proceeding from reason, is voluntary (De Malo 2, a. 6).

1. St. Thomas sometimes asserts that acts are human insofar as they are from reason (e.g., Q. D. De Malo 2, a. 4 and 6; I-II, q. 88, a. 6; q. 63, a. 2; q. 19, a. 1, ad 3; q. 18, a. 5 and 9; q. 58, a. 2; III, q. 19, a. 2), sometimes insofar as they are from deliberate will (De Malo 2, a. 5; a. 4, ad 10; a. 7, a. 3; I-II, q. 18, a. 5 and 6; q. 19, a. 1; Q. D. De Veritate 5, a. 10; II Sent. d. 24, q. 3, a. 2; d. 41, q. 2, a. 1; C. Gent. II, 23; III, 9-10). But there is no contradiction. They are from deliberate will as from the immediate and formal principle and proximate foundation; from reason as from the first, radical principle, and therefore the higher regulating principle: for reason, as the first principle, is their measure, and it also is the very thing which can order to the end, which is the principle in things to be done. Hence all acts which proceed from rational powers are human, whether through essence, or through participation, as is the concupiscible and irascible appetite. Cf. II Sent. d. 25, q. 1, a. 3.

Hence:

1. The following are not human:

a) acts (of vegetative or sensitive life) which man has in common with beasts both as to substance and as to mode of operating, such as eating, seeing, walking, sensing without deliberation;

b) acts of one who is incapable of deliberating: an infant, one fully sleeping, one delirious, drunk, or mad, one perfectly dependent upon the influence of hypnotism;

c) acts of one who can deliberate but which are placed without any deliberation, e.g., by a man fully distracted: these are called first-first movements.

2. Acts proper to man as to substance, such as understanding, willing, laughing, weeping, wondering, speaking, nevertheless are not human unless they are done from deliberation; on the contrary, acts common with beasts, such as eating, drinking, rubbing the beard, walking, are human if they are done from deliberation.

3. Beatific love, although it is an act proper to man as to substance, nevertheless is not such as to the mode of operating, because it is not free; whence it is not a human act.

2. It can nevertheless be called eminently human: for the necessary voluntary in the love of the highest good with full universality is the root of freedom, and therefore contains the free virtually and eminently, and so such an act is human eminently but not formally. Cf. Billuart and Gredt in o. c.

48. Properties of a Human Act.

Human acts, so called insofar as they are posited according to the mode of acting proper to men, are also called free insofar as they proceed from a free will; moral insofar as they are conformed or deformed with the rules of morals, inclination to the ultimate end, right reason, law, and therefore have the character of rectitude or sin; imputable insofar as they can be attributed to man as author and master, who must render an account of them, and thus are worthy of praise or blame, praiseworthy or culpable; meritorious insofar as they are referred to another into whose profit or harm they yield, whether an individual person, or a community, or God, the ruler of the universe and ultimate end.

3. Imputability and responsibility differ. Imputation is the attribution of a moral act, or the judgment by which a moral act is attributed to the author as master of the act itself; whence imputability is the property of a human act by reason of which it is attributed to the author as master of the act itself. - The concept of responsibility is related; but imputability is on the part of the act, responsibility on the part of the agent: the act is imputable, man is responsible in his act. Responsibility is the property by force of which man is obliged to answer for his acts. It is twofold: moral and juridical, according as someone must answer in the forum of conscience or in the external forum before a judge. Thus Lehu, Philosophia Moralis et Socialis, c. 4, a. 2.

All these acts are really the same, although they are distinguished by reason insofar as they are considered under a diverse respect (q. 21).

1. Cajetan, in I-II, q. 21, a. 1: "A human act is constituted in the being of good or evil as if from a formal cause, and upon this is founded that from order to the end it has the notion of right or sin, from order to the efficient cause, of praiseworthy or culpable, from order to another, of meritorious or demeritorious." Conformably to St. Thomas: "Thus therefore it is clear that a good or evil act has the notion of praiseworthy or culpable according as it is in the power of the will; but the notion of rectitude and sin according to order to the end; but the notion of merit and demerit according to the retribution of justice toward another" q. 21, a. 3.

49. Division of the Treatise. - The treatise is divided into three parts:

The first treats of human acts according to material or physical and psychological being:

A. Concerning the condition of human acts: 1) concerning the subjective element of the human act: a) concerning the voluntary, both according to itself, and positive and negative, direct and indirect, and in itself and in cause; b) concerning the impediments of the voluntary, that is, violence, fear, concupiscence, ignorance; c) concerning the free; d) concerning the impediments of the free, namely, passion, habit, and more remote impediments; 2) concerning the objective element of the human act: a) the object, b) circumstances.

B. Concerning the division of human acts: a) elicited acts; b) commanded acts.

The second part treats of human acts according to formal or moral being:

A. Concerning the morality of human acts in general: 1) concerning the essence and species of morality; 2) concerning the foundations of morality: a) concerning the intrinsic distinction between good and evil; b) concerning the subjective criterion or norm of morality; c) concerning the objective criterion and ultimate foundation of morality; d) concerning errors to be noted in this matter; e) concerning the cognitive faculty of morality; 3) concerning the principles or sources of morality in general; 4) concerning the specific distinction between a good and an evil act; 5) concerning the specific distinction between various good or evil acts a) from the object, b) from circumstances, c) from the end.

B. Concerning the morality of human acts in species: 1) concerning the goodness and malice of the interior act; 2) concerning the goodness and malice of the exterior act; 3) concerning the goodness and malice of the external effect; 4) concerning the goodness and malice of the passions; 5) concerning the goodness and malice of other circumstances.

The third part treats of human acts according to supernatural and meritorious being: 1) concerning supernatural merit; 2) concerning the conditions of merit.

50. The Treatise Is at Once Theological and Philosophical.

In the established division, the first part is rather philosophical, providing notions necessary for the understanding of the remaining parts; the third is wholly theological, as treating of the supernatural element; the second is at once theological and philosophical, because it is taken not only from reason but also from revelation. For revelation, by divine oral tradition and partly by the sacred Scriptures, also and more certainly teaches us the most universal moral principles and their immediate and more general conclusions, from which the whole moral science is deduced. Whence to declare, confirm, explain, and apply these belongs to theology as to philosophy.

51. Importance of the Treatise.

The treatise is the most principal of all, because it is:

1. More universal, since it hands down the most general notions and principles of the whole moral science, to be applied in all parts; and therefore

2. More fundamental, because upon it the edifice of the whole moral science is built. For moral science treats of nothing except human acts, and all other things, whether ends, means, rules or counsels, virtues or vices, it considers only insofar as they pertain to human acts. Whence the treatise is entitled concerning human acts in themselves. Hence

3. It is more necessary: for it is impossible to acquire for oneself a knowledge, not common or merely historical, of moral things, but scientific, founded in reasonings, unless the doctrine concerning human acts is well understood and rightly applied.