Case 1. Constituents of a Human Act

Among the parishioners and penitents of Titius the priest is Paul, who for several years has been addicted to drunkenness. Paul, however, is not continuously intoxicated, but, after intervals of about two months given to sobriety, thereafter for a month or six weeks he is never perfectly sober. When Titius, however, warns him about the injuries inflicted by drunkenness upon himself and his family, as well as about the scandal given to others, and proposes remedies, Paul says to him that he is no longer able to restrain himself from being borne at fixed times, like a brute animal, toward excessive drinking, all motives to the contrary being well known but in no way standing in the way. Titius indeed has heard of the disease of the will which is called aboulia by some, and he knows that men sometimes become insane through drunkenness; but his penitent, in other matters when he is sober, is as far as possible removed from insanity. Therefore, he does not know how Paul is to be treated, either inside or outside the confessional. Hence it is asked:

1. What is required for a human act and for sin?

2. Are there persons insane in one matter who nevertheless are sane in others?

3. Are habitual sinners who have lost free choice thereby guiltless if they indulge the vice?

4. What is to be said concerning the case?

1. What is required for a human act and for sin to be imputable?

We are not responsible for those actions over which we have no control. We are responsible for those which we freely produce. Such are called by divines “human acts,” and they proceed freely from the will with an intellectual knowledge of the end. Hence three conditions are required in order that an action may be imputed to us: (a) It must proceed from the will; all moral responsibility lies there; it is not sufficient if we are forced against our will to do it, nor if it proceeds merely from the reflex action of the nerves and muscles. (b) It must proceed freely from the will. If our will is inevitably determined to action by the antecedent circumstances, we can not be blamed for what follows; we could not help it. (c) In order that free will may act, a suitable object must be proposed to it by the intellect — Nil volitum quin precognitum. An action which is against right reason and known to be such will be imputable to us as sin if those three conditions are verified.

2. Do monomaniacs exist?

Suarez and some other theologians denied that they did on the ground that capacity for free moral action depends on the power of apprehending general principles and drawing conclusions from them. But one who can not do this in one class of matters can not do it in others. In reply it may be said that this would be true if special matters did not exert a special disturbing influence on kleptomaniacs, for example. When certain objects are put within the reach of those unfortunates, the desire to steal them becomes so overpowering that the deliberative faculty is in abeyance, and the resulting theft is not free. In other matters there may be no such disturbing influence at work, and kleptomaniacs are therein free and sane.¹

1 Frins., De Actibus Humanis, part i, nn. 236, 237.

3. Are those who have lost self-control through habitual indulgence in vice on that account guiltless?

This question supposes that self-control may be lost by habitual self-indulgence in vice. The fact is notorious. It does not follow that such people are not responsible for what they do in their insanity. In so far as they are the free cause of their loss of self-control, the evil that they do in this state will be voluntary in causa, like sins committed by a drunken man, and therefore imputable to them.²

2 St. Thomas, Summa, I–II, q. 77, a. 7.

4. Paul, the parishioner of Titius, has been addicted to drink for many years. However, he did not get drunk regularly; he would be sober for a couple of months, and then he would have a drinking bout for a month or six weeks, during which time he was never perfectly sober. Titius points out to him the ruin he is bringing on himself and on his family, and the scandal he causes to others. Paul asserts that he can not help it, and that he is driven to drink like a brute when the fit seizes him. This may be true. As Cardinal Mercier says: “Sans doute, sous diverses influences — hérédité, alcoolisme, débauche, habitudes vicieuses, certain régime des prisons, etc. — la responsabilité est, chez plusieurs sujets, atténuée; il est vraisemblable que chez quelques-uns elle n’est pas ou n’est plus suffisante pour justifier le qualificatif criminel. Il y a des monstres sociaux qui ne devraient pas tomber sous les coups de la justice pénale, mais contre lesquels la société a néanmoins le droit et le devoir de se prémunir ou de se défendre, au nom de la mission générale de gouvernement qui lui incombe.”¹

1 Psychologie [Psychology], vol. ii, p. 146.

Literal English translation of the preceding French quotation: “Without doubt, under various influences—heredity, alcoholism, debauchery, vicious habits, a certain prison regime, etc.—responsibility is diminished in several subjects; it is likely that in some it is not, or is no longer, sufficient to justify the designation criminal. There are social monsters who ought not to fall under the blows of penal justice, but against whom society nevertheless has the right and the duty to protect or defend itself, in the name of the general mission of government incumbent upon it.”

If what Paul asserts is true in his case, the best remedy would be to get him to go to a home for inebriates, or to undergo treatment for alcoholism. We must suppose the habit to have been voluntarily formed with at any rate some confused advertence to the danger incurred, and so Paul can not be held guiltless even if now he can not help getting drunk. But absolute loss of control should not readily be presumed. Between this stage and that of the temperate man there are innumerable grades of greater or less power of self-control. The confessor will be wise if he presumes guilt, but sometimes, as in Paul’s case, leaves its degree to the judgment of God. If Paul can not go to a home, the confessor will prescribe the avoidance of occasions of sin, constant occupation, and work, preferably in the open air, fervent prayer for help to God, and the frequent reception of the sacraments; and eating an apple or drinking some harmless beverage may be suggested when the craving for drink comes on. He may also usefully advise Paul to join some Catholic association for the cultivation of temperance, such as the League of the Cross.