Article II. On the Indirect Voluntary, or Voluntary in Cause

The indirect voluntary or voluntary in cause, as has been said, is not intended in itself but in another thing directly willed, and from that, as an effect from a cause, is discerned as about to follow. Nevertheless it can be a true object of the will, although indirect; for he who wills the cause also wills the effect proceeding from it, if he foresees this effect and the other conditions have place. Hence the saying: he who is the cause of the cause is the cause of the caused thing. Therefore this voluntary is not always imputed unto sin; but that you may know when it ought to be imputed, attend to the two following principles.

A bad effect is then only imputed to the fault of the agent or of the one positing the cause, when the three following conditions are verified: 1st, that the agent foresaw the effect at least confusedly; 2nd, that he was able not to posit the cause; 3rd, that he is bound not to posit the cause, or to remove it once posited. For foresight at least confusedly is required, because an effect in no way foreseen and, as St. Thomas says, thought beforehand, can in no way be voluntary. It is further required that the cause could have been not posited, because liberty is the foundation of imputability, and a sin which cannot be avoided is repugnant. Finally there is required the obligation of impeding the cause, because no one is bound to remove a cause when he has the right of positing it, a right founded in necessity, utility, or honesty. Hence he is free from all fault who, while for his own or others' utility he studies matters of the sixth precept of the Decalogue, foresees that he will suffer base movements, or even pollution, and afterward in fact suffers them. Observe carefully, however, that sometimes there is no right to posit the cause; indeed there is a strict law against positing it; nevertheless the bad effect foreseen and afterward following is not imputed unto fault, because that law is not about avoiding the cause in order to such an effect. Wherefore he who eats meats on Friday with foresight of pollution indeed breaks the ecclesiastical law, but the pollution is not imputed to him. From this it is understood that for this voluntary not just any precept is sufficient, one which is as it were extrinsic and by accident by reason of such an operation, but that there must be a precept by which someone is bound to avoid lest from it another effect should follow, because a precept of this sort is what makes a moral change in the object, and not just any other precept. Cf. St. Alphonsus, nn. 10 and 14; and on the sixth precept of the Decalogue, nn. 483 and 484. - Voit, n. 6. - Baller., note (a), p. 396, vol. 1. - Suarez, De Vol. et Invol., disp. 1, sect. 4, nn. 22, 11.

It is lawful to posit a good or indifferent cause from which there immediately follows a double effect, one good, but the other bad, if there is present a proportionately grave reason, and the end of the agent is honest. The reason for the principle is that this cannot be illicit, 1st, by reason of the end, for this is supposed to be honest, and the bad effect which is foreseen as about to follow is not intended, but merely permitted; nor, 2nd, by reason of the cause, because this ought to be good, or at least indifferent; or even if it is bad, it is required that it not be bad on account of that effect about to follow, because then indeed the malice of the cause would be contracted, but not the malice of the effect. Besides, in order that the principle be true, beyond the two conditions just recounted, which regard the end and the cause, two others must be present.

Therefore it is required, 3rd, that the good effect follow at least equally immediately from the cause. The reason is that if the cause directly and immediately has an evil effect, and only by means of that does the good effect proceed, then good is sought from evil; but now it is never lawful to perpetrate evil, however slight, for procuring any good whatsoever; for according to the well-known axiom taken from the Apostle, Rom. iii, 8, evils are not to be done that goods may come.

It is required, 4th, that there be present a proportionately grave reason for positing the cause; because natural equity obliges us to avoid evils and to guard against damages to our neighbor, when we can do this without proportionately grave damage. But this damage is to be weighed not solely from the inconvenience which the agent would then suffer, but also, and much more, from the common inconvenience of all if this were generally required. I said a proportionately grave reason; for this ought to be the graver, the nearer the connection is between cause and effect, the greater is the malice of the latter, and the less right is had to the action considered in itself. Cf. St. Thomas, 2-2, q. 64, art. 7. - St. Alphonsus, on the sixth precept of the Decalogue, nn. 483 and 484.

Thus, it is lawful for someone who by horse flees an enemy and death at the same time to continue his riding when, in a narrow part of the way, there is in his path a child whom the horse will kill. Certainly that riding, through itself and from the intention of the agent, is not ordered to killing the child but to saving his own life by fleeing through that way; he enjoys a right to this safety, and indeed to obtaining it by riding: it is by accident that the death of the child follows, which he chooses neither as end nor as means; he wills it not directly but indirectly, that is, he wills this swift riding not on account of the connection which it has with the death of the child, but on account of the connection which it has with his own safety. Moreover, in these cases it is often useful to see whether the action, the bad effect being absent, would be lawful; e.g., a woman not pregnant suffers from a deadly tumor in the womb, or a man fleeing on horseback from a pursuing enemy by a narrow road in which this child is not lying; certainly the man possesses the right of fleeing so that his own death may be averted, and the woman the right to have the tumor removed by operation. Now then, it happens in the case of the one fleeing that the death of the child is induced by the riding, and in the case of the pregnant woman that the death of the fetus is induced by the operation. One and the same action has a double immediate effect: flight has safety and death, good and evil. Certainly the man has a right to the good; by this right he uses riding on account of safety; on account of this good he directly wills and posits his action. Very grave is the cause of positing that action whether the bad effect is present or absent; and the presence of that bad effect does not take away his right to posit the action on account of the good effect: the death of the child does not take away from him the right to flee his own death and to save his life; or, he is not bound to die, by omitting an action licit in itself, so that the child may not die. And the same is to be said, by equal reason, of the pregnant woman who suffers from that tumor. In both cases the agent directly wills the good effect and permits the bad; the good effect is directly intended, the bad is permitted, and each is equally immediate. Cf. De Lugo, De Jus. et Jur., disp. 10, sect. 5, nn. 123 seq.

You Will Resolve. 1st. Blasphemies, impurities, quarrels, or injustices which are done in drunkenness are voluntary in cause and imputable unto sin, when they can be foreseen and in fact are foreseen; but they are sufficiently foreseen from the custom of doing such things in this state.

2nd. A leader in war does not sin who, in time of siege, to ward off the enemy sets fields on fire, etc., even if by accident innocent inhabitants suffer. Likewise if he sets fire to a tower in which, together with enemies, perhaps pilgrims foreign to the war are enclosed; because the cause of this damage is honest in itself, but the damage of the innocent follows merely by accident, and is not intended, but only permitted.

3rd. A girl who, pregnant from a crime, procures abortion in order to avoid infamy sins gravely; because she directly intends abortion as the means by which she may free herself from infamy, and therefore seeks good from evil.

4th. If a cause remotely and lightly flows into a bad effect, and from it there also follows some good effect, although it would not preponderate or would not be equivalent to the evil, there is no obligation of removing the cause; because a lesser reason is required for positing a cause only lightly and remotely flowing into evil than if it flowed gravely and proximately. Hence you are not bound to abstain from an honest and useful conversation on account of carnal movements arising from it.

5th. But if the cause, remotely and lightly influencing, is in itself venially bad, or if no good effect follows from it, there will be an obligation of removing it, but a slight one and under venial sin only, unless there is question of grave damage to the neighbor; the reason is that this obligation is to be estimated according to the quantity of the influence of the cause. For since the effect is not voluntary except in the cause, and is contained lightly and remotely in the cause, it is lightly voluntary in it, and therefore lightly imputable unto fault; and for that reason there is present a slight obligation of removing the cause on account of that effect.

6th. The omission of acts about which a man in no way thinks is in itself and directly in no way voluntary; because those acts are impossible, since they wholly escape the advertence of the agent. Nevertheless such an omission can be voluntary and imputable in cause, if forgetfulness or inadvertence proceeds from preceding negligence.

7th. He who knowingly posits the cause of an action or omission, at that instant contracts malice before God, even if the action or omission does not in reality follow; and therefore he is bound to confess it as willed.

On the same principles concerning the indirect voluntary and the voluntary in cause depend innumerable other resolutions, especially where there will be discussion concerning scandal, and where concerning cooperation either toward another's sin, or unto the damage of one's neighbor.