Week 2: Moral Standards and Human Freedom

Humanity

Morality it must be noted, is present only in _______. Meaning man can only be moral if he is fully aware of his actions. Brutes have no morality for they are not guided by reason hence they are not responsible for their actions and are not classified as human acts.

Man is the only Moral Being

This principle is due to three things:

• a) Man is capable of action, - Being capable of action, man can employ his bodily activitiess to perform actions

• b) man has intellect and - With man’s intellect, he can discern the good or evilness of his actions and at the same time equate the repercussions of his actions once asked to justify them.

• c) man has free will - Free will is present and inherent in men unless thay are idiots and with that they have the freedom of choice whether to perform or not the action at hand

Man is the highest form of Animal

According to this principle: endowed with intellect, man can decide what’s best for him although their desires are the same with brutes such as hunger, thrist, pain and sensual needs; man moves based onr eason while their lower counterparts have only instinct. Sentient beings like animals rely on instinct which are natural biological drives, while men can decide whether an act is moral or not.

Man is a Rational Animal

According to this principle: Ratio is the Latin term for reason that means man has the power of abstraction - this is his ability to correlate ideas previously based on his mind as well as his understanding of the situation at hand, thereby giving him a logical or correct decision.

The intellect and the will

These two are correlative with each other because the intellect is the agent of knowing while the will is the agent of choice.

From intellect - knowledge is stored this will then guide the will to decide which is basically ‘‘good’’. They co-exist and from their partnership ‘‘virtue’’ is born.

A Voluntary act

It is under the control of the intellect and the will and must be answerable for their actions. As mentioned in the previous module, only human acts are valid in ethics and at the same time possess moral significance.

The four types of voluntary acts

1. Perfect Voluntariness

2. Imperfect Voluntariness

3. Simple Voluntariness

4. Conditional Voluntariness

Perfect Voluntariness

This type of voluntary act is when a person acts with full knowledge and complete freedom (We are fully aware of what we are doing)

Imperfect Voluntariness

This type of voluntary act is when a person acts without full understanding and no freedom (We are made to perform acts we did not like).

Simple Voluntariness

It is the disposition of a person doing the activity regardless to his liking or not - this may be positive or negative. The former is by making him to do something while the other is to prevent or stop him from doing things.

Conditional Voluntariness

It is the situation when the person was forced by circumstances or under duress which he would not do under normal circumstances.

Example is being extorted money by a neighborhood toughie in exchange for his ‘‘protection’’.

1. Ignorance

2. Passions

3. Fear

4. Violence

5. Habits

What are the modifiers of Human Acts?

Ignorance

This modifier of human acts simply means the absence of knowledge. A doer’s responsibility for his actions may be increased or decreased due to this. A person may have commited an act for he is unaware of it. There are three types of it.

1. Vincible Ignorance

2. Invincible Ignorance

3. Affected Ignorance

The three types of Ignorance

Vincible Ignorance

This type of ignorance can easily be corrected such as calling a person with a wrong name or entering the wrong classroom.

Invincible Ignorance

This type of ignoracne cannot be rectified, and example is a waiter who gave the wrong food to the customer or a killer that claimed the life of a wrong victim (friendly fire).

Affected Ignorance

this type of ignorance is the doer’s attempt to escape responsibility such as a suspect denying his complicity in a crime he has done.

Passions

This modifier of human acts are the psychic responses that may adhere or abhor them to either desirable or undersirable tendencies.

• Positive emotions such as love, desire or hope are manifestations of the first

• while hatred, horror and despair are examples of negative emotions.

• There are also two passions such as antecedent and consequent passions wherein the former are the passions that occur before the stimulus such as accidentally meeting someone special; while while the other came after a stimuli we ourselves caused for example meeting a special someone that we are already aware of his arrival.

Antecedent and Consequent passions

Two types of passions

Antecedent Passions

These are passions that occur before the stimulus such as accidentally meeting someone special.

Consequent Passions

This passion came after a stimuli we ourselves caused for example meeting a special someone that we are already aware of his arrival.

Fear

This modifier of human acts is the disturbance of the mind when confronted by danger to himself or a loved one. Actions whether done with this or out of ___ may affect one’s actions.

• Acts done with ___ are voluntary while acts done out of ___ are two different things

• If one moves with ___ - this means he as to decide and yet is afraid he might err an example is an amateur singer performing in front of a large crowd or driving a vehicle with limited know-how in driving.

• Actions out of __ fear are situations that needed immediate decisions decisions such as jumping out of a plane about to crash land or run away from a violent situation.

Violence

This modifier of human acts is the physical force given to a free person to coerce him to do or not to do something. Physical threats such as

• Torture,

• Starvation or

• Mutilation

are examples of ______ but wasfree will impaired? No, the free will is still there for they can still resist making their moral integrity intact, in short there isd still a choice.

Habits

This modifier of human acts is the readiness to perform habitual acts. _______ are done mechanically that thinking is no longer necessary may either be good or bad. It is second-nature to the doer and doing it is instinct.