Article — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology
First Article. On The Nature Of Moral Acts
63. Which acts are moral. 1. Moral is said first and properly of an action, and that a human one. Whatever besides this is called moral (moral order, moral law, moral virtue, etc.) is so called secondarily and improperly.
For moral is said from mos, custom; but mos properly signifies the same mode of acting often repeated in free agents. Therefore moral first and properly pertains to free actions; improperly, whatever is referred in some way to a moral action is called moral.
- Those acts are called moral which are performed freely with knowledge of the morality of the object. Therefore a twofold condition is required in order that an act can be called moral:
a. That it be free: for a necessary act can be called neither moral nor properly human.
"The genus of morals," says St. Thomas, "begins where dominion of the will is first found."1 And indeed a moral act by the consent of all makes a man worthy of praise or blame, reward or punishment; but only that which is done with liberty makes a man worthy of praise and reward or of blame and punishment.
b. That the moral quality of the object be apprehended and intended: for liberty alone does not suffice to constitute the morality of an act, but it is further required that the will tend toward an object which is apprehended by the intellect and represented to the will under a moral aspect; for there cannot be a moral act except from a tendency of the will toward a moral object, just as an act cannot be good or evil except from a good or evil object.
a. We distinguish the physical order, or order of nature, and the moral order, or order of reason. To the physical order belongs everything which conduces to developing, preserving, and perfecting nature, whether sensitive or spiritual, and which therefore brings delight or at least utility to the agent. But to the order of reason, or the moral order, belongs that which befits rational nature, which is fitting to its dignity. If one operating in some action apprehends and intends nothing other than the delight or advantage of nature, he does not exercise a moral action, even if the action should pertain to the spiritual order. For example, one who in the study of mathematics or music knows nothing except that it pleases or perfects a man, and intends only this delight or utility, does not exercise a moral action. In order that an action be moral, he must apprehend and will the moral quality of the object.
b. The object of a moral act can be a thing whose nature is so constituted that it befits a rational being to exercise an act either of love or of aversion concerning it, as God, who is to be loved by man; or it can be an action which by its nature is of such a kind that it befits a rational being to place it or avoid it; thus it befits a rational being to speak the truth and to flee perjury.
c. Therefore not every human act is at the same time moral; but there are human acts which are not moral. And indeed not only do children act deliberately without their acts being moral, because they do not yet apprehend the notion of moral good and evil; but adults also sometimes deliberately exercise acts without any attention at all to their moral character, especially when they look at indifferent things, read, write, etc.2 Moral authors are of different opinions in this matter. Some say that all human acts are moral, just as all moral acts are human.3 Others, on the contrary, hold that there are human acts which, because of defect of advertence to the moral order, are not moral. The patrons of the former opinion must affirm that man, as often as he acts deliberately, also adverts at least confusedly to the moral order; but this seems contrary to experience.
1 St. Thomas, II Sent., dist. 21, q. 3, a. 2.
2 Cf. Struggl, Theologia moralis, tract. 1, q. 1, n. 28. E. Muller, Theologia moralis, 3rd ed. (Vienna: Mayer, 1894), I, l. 1, § 97, n. 1.
3 Cf. St. Thomas, I-II, q. 1, a. 3. Lehmkuhl I, n. 28.