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BEFORE we consider conscience itself, it is necessary to enquire into the nature of those human actions upon which conscience passes judgement. For clearly not all actions come within the sphere of conscience, but only those which properly merit the title of human actions.
In every human action there are
two essential ingredients - knowledge and choice.
Only those actions that proceed from knowledge and choice are properly called human actions,
because knowledge and choice -
or reason and free will -
are the distinctive endowment of the human race as compared with the rest of creation.
Therefore, all so-called automatic reflex actions in which there is no element of knowledge and choice are not human actions,
properly speaking; the natural motions of the body - digestion, the beating of the heart, and so on - are actions of this kind.
Not being human actions, they are excluded from the study of Moral Theology. Also excluded, and for the same reason, are actions
performed by madmen, by men asleep and men hypnotised. Quick responses to "stimuli", which occur so suddenly that they
precede any act of the reason or will, such as, for example, movements of sudden anger or disturbances of the sexual organs, are
not human actions.
Neither are actions done wholly under compulsion.
A human action is one that the agent consciously chooses to perform.
It involves an act of deliberation, and an act of will.
It is therefore necessary to consider in some detail
what degree and kind of deliberation and choice are necessary in order to constitute a human action, and in what ways variations
of degree and kind affect the morality of an action. For a human action, since it includes the knowledge and the choice of the
agent, is an action of which he is the master, for which he is responsible and for which he may rightly receive praise or blame.
In according this praise or blame it is of the first importance to know what degree of knowledge or freedom the agent possessed.
For if he were wholly or partially ignorant, or wholly or partially compelled, he merits less praise or blame than if he were
wholly aware or wholly free.
And so first of Ignorance.
It is clear that if a man is to be held responsible for his action, he must be in some degree aware of what he is doing. In respect of awareness, there are three possible states. A man may be perfectly aware of what he is doing, all the time that he is doing it. In such a case there is no question but that the agent is fully responsible, so far as awareness is concerned. Secondly, a man may be perfectly oblivious of what he is doing, all the time that he is doing it. This is the state of the madman or the sleep-walker. It is equally clear that here there is no responsibility. Thirdly, a man may have a confused or partial awareness of what he is doing. This state of mind diminishes but does not destroy responsibility. The reason is simple. Since there is a partial awareness, there is some element of knowledge and of choice. This is enough to make the action a human action. Yet because there is not full knowledge and choice, there is not full responsibility. For in so far as the agent is unaware of what he is doing, he makes no choice. This is the state of the man who is half asleep, or partially drunk. Thus responsibility for an action varies in proportion to the degree of awareness.
In this matter of awareness, a further distinction is to be drawn. A man may be aware of the act which he is performing, but not of its goodness or badness. For example, a man may absent-mindedly pick up an umbrella, being fully aware that he is taking an umbrella, but unaware that the umbrella is not his. Here there is awareness of the act, but unawareness of its morality that it is, in fact, a theft. Compared with the man who deliberately takes an umbrella, knowing that it is not his, this unawareness of the morality of the act clearly makes a difference. How far, or in what conditions, this unawareness destroys responsibility will be considered later. It is bound up with yet another distinction between an actual awareness, both of the act and its morality, and a virtual awareness. A virtual awareness is a perhaps misleading phrase used to describe the state in which an agent might and ought to be aware of what he is doing, but, owing to some accident, is not. So that virtual awareness means a de facto unawareness coupled with some kind of possibility or obligation of being aware. Thus the absent-minded umbrella-snatcher has a virtual awareness that picking up other people's umbrellas is wrong, and that this umbrella is not his. It is fortuitous that he did not happen to be attending to either of these points at that moment. How far such virtual awareness destroys or diminishes responsibility will be considered in a moment. First we will deal with another kind of unawareness - Ignorance.
Ignorance is not quite the same thing as unawareness. This latter connotes a forgetting, an
inattention, a not knowing at the time of acting; ignorance implies a continued state of not knowing, prior to, as well as during,
the time of acting. Thus all ignorance involves unawareness, but not all unawareness involves ignorance.
Ignorance may be either VINCIBLE or INVINCIBLE.
This is a distinction of the utmost importance.
Invincible ignorance is that which cannot be avoided or dispelled, and for
which, therefore, a man cannot be blamed.
As St. Thomas says (S.T. I, 11, quaest.Ixxvi, art.2), "a man is not blamed for negligence if he is ignorant of what he
cannot know: therefore such ignorance is called invincible, because it cannot be overcome by effort (studio)". This
does not mean merely physically or absolutely impossible, such as the impossibility of knowing every language, or of having read
every book on a subject, but "morally impossible". Morally impossible, means impossible by ordinary methods, and in
ordinary circumstances - that ignorance which cannot be overcome by the kind of care and attention that prudent men normally show
in such matters. What this care and attention is varies with the circumstances. It is greater in a matter of greater importance,
less in a matter of lesser.
But where a man has shown reasonable care in informing himself, and yet remains ignorant, his ignorance is said to be invincible.
It may even happen that there is invincible ignorance when no effort at all has been made to acquire information.
This situation arises where no doubt or question has entered the agent's mind, and there is no reason why such question should
have. Where a man is brought up to believe a certain action is legitimate, which is in fact illegitimate, and where all those who
associate with him share this belief, it is possible and probable that no doubt or question will enter his mind. But in that case
it is impossible for him to stir his will to seek knowledge about a matter of which he is thus certain. Thus the inquisitor who
without question or hesitation sent heretics to the rack or stake was in invincible ignorance, and his ignorance was not
imputable to him. It is probable that modern propaganda induces invincible ignorance of this kind among masses of the population.
Vincible ignorance, on the other hand, is imputable, because it could be overcome by a reasonable effort, but, for some cause
attributable to the agent, that effort is not made.
The ignorance is therefore due to a culpable negligence or a deliberate bad choice on the part of the agent. This may come about
in several ways.
For example, from deliberate negligence when a man refuses to find out the truth, so that he may be at liberty to go on as he is
going, or when, because of pleasures and other distractions, he cannot be bothered to find out. Or it may come about from a
deliberate will to indulge a particular passion, which later, in its heat and fury, clouds and obscures the mind, and so brings
about a state of ignorance. Or again, ignorance may be the result of an evil habit, which has so blunted the conscience that the
sinner is, or thinks that he is, ignorant of the wickedness of his actions. Lastly, ignorance may be caused by a refusal to stop
and consider further, although a doubt has arisen; this is characteristic of hotheaded and impetuous people who are impatient of
reflection.
This vincible ignorance admits of three degrees of seriousness, dependent on the way in
which it has been brought about.
First, it may be "simple".
That is, it is caused by a simple, not gravely culpable negligence.
For example, a shop assistant, asked the price of an article, glances at an adjacent price ticket and says two-and-six. The actual
price is four shillings, as any of his colleagues could have told him. This is not a case of total negligence - he looked for
and - saw a nearby ticket which he immediately assumed to refer to the article in question - but of a neglect to make sufficient
enquiries, a readiness to take things for granted beyond what a reasonable and prudent man would allow.
Secondly, this vincible ignorance may be "crass" or "supine".
Here the negligence is total or relatively so, in a matter in which care was a clear duty and easy of fulfilment.
Our shop assistant, too lazy to make any effort at all to find out the price, is content with a mere guess. The gravity of the
blame due to "crass" ignorance depends on the gravity of the matter at stake.
Thirdly, such ignorance may be "affected" or deliberate.
That is, it is the result of a direct conscious act of will.
The agent deliberately keeps himself in ignorance, lest by finding out the truth he should be prevented by his conscience from
doing what he wants to do.
This is the worst, most blameworthy, form of vincible ignorance.
There is a second distinction commonly drawn in the matter of
ignorance,
namely, that of antecedent, consequent and concomitant ignorance.
As the distinction between simple, crass and affected ignorance turns on the question "Is the ignorance blameworthy or no, is the man in any way responsible for his ignorance?",
so this distinction asks the questions "How did the ignorance arise, and how
did it affect the subsequent action?"
It is clear that the two distinctions overlap.
Antecedent ignorance is
so called because it precedes any act of the will, that is, it is wholly involuntary.
It is, therefore, the same as invincible ignorance.
But the term also connotes a particular relation to the act that follows.
Antecedent ignorance is itself the cause of the action, so that if there had been
no ignorance, there would have been no action.
The ancient example is that of a man out hunting who shoots his friend in mistake for a stag. But for his ignorance, for which he
was in no way to blame, that what he thought was a stag was in fact his friend, he never would have shot. A more modern example
would be that of a driver of a car at night who, exercising every reasonable care, yet knocks down a pedestrian. Had he known the
pedestrian was there, he would not have run over him. In this way the ignorance was the cause of the action.
Consequent ignorance is so called because it follows upon an act of the will;
it is, therefore, precisely the same as vincible ignorance.
It is willed either directly, and so is "affected", or indirectly, through culpable negligence or the indulgence of a
passion, and so is either "simple" or "crass".
This consequent ignorance is also the cause of the action, since it is to be supposed that, had the agent known what, in fact,
he took care not to know, he would not have acted as he did.
The reason for "affected" ignorance is, precisely, that knowledge
would restrain or prevent one from doing what one wants to do.
Similarly in the case of "simple" and "crass" ignorance it is to be assumed that the action is
caused by the ignorance.
To revert to the example of the car driver at night. He knows that it is dangerous to drive at more than a certain speed, and
would not knowingly exceed that speed; but the night is fine and the car is running well, and either deliberately or carried away
by the pleasurable emotions of the moment, he does not look at his speedometer. He drives too fast, because he is ignorant that he
is driving too fast.
It might be objected that such a man would drive too fast in any case, whether he knew or not. That is the third kind of ignorance, called "concomitant". It is so called because it accompanies the action, but does not cause it. This ignorance is not deliberate, but purely accidental. In this respect it is the same as invincible ignorance. For, ex hypothesi, the agent has no motive for desiring or willing the ignorance; he is going to do what the law forbids, in any case. Yet this ignorance does bring it about, that the action that it accompanies is non-voluntary, because since the agent was ignorant of what he was doing, he cannot be said to have willed it here and now. If a man, who has made up his mind to murder his enemy, kills him out hunting in mistake for a stag, he cannot be convicted of murder on the ground of that action. It is true that he would have killed his enemy just the same, if he had known that it was his enemy and not a stag at which he was shooting. Yet he did not will to kill him in that act. To put it another way, it was not because he was ignorant that he killed the man; that would be antecedent ignorance. He killed him in ignorance. It is as though a gangster set out in a car, armed with a revolver, to shoot his rival. On the way, he knocks down and kills a pedestrian. The pedestrian turns out to be his rival. He has killed him in concomitant ignorance. He is, of course, morally guilty of an un-withdrawn resolution to commit murder: he has not actually committed murder.
We come now to consider the way in which ignorance affects the morality of an action, that is, its imputability, its praise or blameworthiness. The main principle is that invincible ignorance excuses. Wherever it can be shown that an action was performed because of ignorance, and that the agent was not to blame for the fact of his being ignorant, the action is not imputable morally to the agent. This is the case of all antecedent ignorance. In the case of concomitant ignorance, though the agent is not guilty of the external act, whatever it may be, which he performs in ignorance, he is guilty of the internal act of a deliberate and un-withdrawn resolution to perform that act.
Vincible ignorance, unless it is "affected", diminishes the moral responsibility of the agent.
It palliates his offence, because what is not known is not willed. Had the agent
known, he would not have acted as he did. He is, therefore, not so guilty as he who does what he knows to be wrong, with a clear
and certain knowledge.
Yet he is not guiltless.
Since the agent is in some degree himself responsible for the fact of being ignorant, he is also in some degree responsible for
the actions that follow from the ignorance.
The ignorance being voluntary, its consequences are voluntary also.
Thus vincible ignorance extenuates but does not wholly excuse.
"Affected" vincible ignorance, being itself deliberately
and determinedly willed, carries over into the action the same quality of voluntariness.
Since it generally arises either from open contempt of the right or from an express resolution to sin with greater freedom, it
increases rather than diminishes the guilt of the action which flows from it.
Hence, affected ignorance is said not to excuse but to accuse.
A single example may help to make clear the effect of the different kinds of ignorance on the morality of actions. A farmer, anxious to preserve his hay, puts up a notice by the gate into his field: "No picnics allowed; trespassers will be prosecuted". A foreigner who is unable to read English comes along the road, and seeing the field, decides that it is the ideal spot for lunch. It is not his fault that he cannot read English, that the notice is therefore unintelligible to him, and that he is therefore ignorant that he ought not to enter the field. His ignorance is invincible, and he is in no way to blame. Let us now suppose that during the night the notice has been blown down and now lies face downwards in the ditch by the gate. A party enters the field to picnic. It is true that they notice a board lying by the side of the gate, but they think nothing of it. They eat their lunch in ignorance that they are doing anything wrong. This is an example of simple ignorance. No doubt the sight of the board ought to have suggested to them the possibility that it was a notice, and they ought to have turned it over and seen what it said. Still, there was no notice, plain to see, forbidding entry, and their negligence in the circumstances was slight. They are blameworthy, but not greatly blameworthy. It would be different if the notice had lain face upwards, or still more, if it had been in its proper place, and they had neglected altogether to read it. That would have been crass ignorance, and they would have been greatly to blame. But not so gravely to blame as if they had entered the field knowing that entry was forbidden. Lastly, we may imagine a party entering the field from the other side, through a gap in the hedge. It is clear that the gap is not a proper place of entry, so that an owner wishing to prevent people from coming in might reasonably be expected to put a notice there. Indeed, by entering there rather than through a gate, the party comes near to being guilty of "breaking in". Further, one of their number sees the gate farther on, and by it a notice-board. He proposes that they should go in that way, and see what the notice says. But the others say, "No. It may say 'Trespassers will be Prosecuted'. It is much better that we should not know. We can honestly say that we have not seen any notice. And anyway it may only say 'Fishing Prohibited'." This is "affected" ignorance. It affords them no kind of excuse; if anything, it aggravates their offence. They are every bit as guilty as if they had knowingly and wilfully entered the prohibited ground.
What has been said of ignorance applies also to awareness. Actual invincible unawareness renders the action involuntary. The man who takes someone else's umbrella from the club hall-stand in a fit of absent-mindedness is not guilty of stealing: that is, on the assumption that there is excuse for his carelessness. If, on the other hand, the carelessness is imputable to him - if, let us suppose, he has found his absent-mindedness to be profitable in the past, and has been careful to take no steps which would be likely to induce a greater alertness of mind; then the consequent action of umbrella-taking becomes culpable. Invincible unawareness on a particular occasion, due to some sudden abstraction of mind, or caused by some unusual circumstance, is quite frequent. Invincible unawareness of something that is normally always present to one's mind, on the other hand, is exceedingly rare. The plea of a married man that he forgot he was married and only meant to commit fornication, would be very hard to maintain, as would that of a trustee who said that he forgot he was a trustee and only meant to speculate with his own money.
Vincible unawareness, then, does not make an action inculpable.
For this reason actions performed while drunk are culpable if they were to any extent foreseen. For although at the time of
action the agent is unaware, or only imperfectly aware of what he is doing, yet before he got drunk he was aware of what was
likely to happen, and in spite of that awareness willed to get drunk. The actual unawareness is a willed vincible unawareness:
there is a virtual awareness. If, on the other hand, a man gets drunk in complete ignorance of the probable consequences in
action, it is a case of invincible ignorance. An example will make the distinction plainer. A man of mild temperament gets drunk
for the first time. He is perfectly drunk, so that he does not know what he is doing. The effect on him of being drunk is to
arouse his normally dormant instinct of pugnacity. As a result, he assaults and kills his companion. Because he had temporarily
lost the use of his reason, and because the result was not and could not have been foreseen, the ignorance or unawareness is
invincible, although brought about by the conscious determination to get drunk. For the reasoning that underlies the principle,
"ignorance for which the agent is responsible does not excuse", is that such ignorance could and should be avoided.
But one can only take steps to avoid a danger of which one is aware. That as a result of being drunk one would commit murder is a
danger that could not occur to the mind of one who had never been drunk. He cannot therefore be said to have willed even
indirectly the putting of himself into such a state of ignorance, for he did not know it would be that kind of ignorance. Such
ignorance, therefore, though the direct result of willing to be drunk, is not itself imputable to him, for it was not one of the
things which he foresaw or could have foreseen as likely to be one of the results of getting drunk. It is quite different with the
case of the man who is often drunk, or with the normal results of being drunk, of which no ordinary man can be ignorant. Then the
results are foreseen or foreseeable - that is, it is foreseen that under the influence of drink one is likely to do certain
actions. If nevertheless I get drunk, I have willed the state of ignorance in which I know such actions are likely. I am therefore
guilty of such actions, for I have consciously willed the ignorance in which I perform them, knowing it to be an ignorance of
that kind, and likely to have those results.
All this applies only to "perfect" drunkenness, where the use of reason is temporarily lost altogether. In earlier stages of drunkenness, sins are imputable because the agent is capable of some degree of awareness of what he is doing. In so far as the sins were foreseen or foreseeable, they are wholly imputable, for the same reasons as in the case of perfect drunkenness: in so far as they were not foreseen, their imputability varies with the degree of awareness present. A man is guilty in so far as he knows what he is doing.
This brings us to another aspect of this problem. For it is possible, as we have said, to know what one is doing, physically, but to be ignorant, morally. Thus a man may know that he is picking up an umbrella, but be unaware that it is not his. Theologians dispute as to how far it is necessary to be aware of the moral nature of an act for it to become imputable. The dispute is between those who hold that there must be actual awareness and those who hold that virtual awareness is enough. It is clear that if virtual awareness is taken strictly to mean the bare possibility of awareness, it cannot be true that that is enough to make an act imputable. If it were so, then "vast numbers of men would find themselves burdened with mortal sins without ever having had the slightest knowledge of them" (St. Alphonsus, II, De Pecc. i, 6). On the other hand, if clear actual awareness is always necessary, many, and those who are the most hardened sinners, will be adjudged blameless. The solution is to be found along the lines of vincible and invincible ignorance. If a man is unaware of the moral nature of his act through no fault of his own, the act is not imputable: if the unawareness is his fault, whether deliberate or from negligence, it is imputable. Nor need the awareness of the moral nature of the act be clear and precise. It is enough that there be a confused and vague appreciation that the act is wrong. In short, unawareness of the moral nature of the act only excuses if it be complete and involuntary, i.e. invincible.
If an action is to be the object of a moral judgment, the agent must have chosen to do
what he did.
One essential ingredient in choice is, as we have seen, knowledge.
What is not known, or has not been considered, cannot be said to have been chosen.
A moral or human action must be done with deliberation and consent.
It is for this reason that automatic instinctive reactions that precede both any act of deliberation and any consent are not
moral actions.
It is for this reason also that actions done with only partial deliberation and consent, such as the actions of those who are half
asleep or under the influence of overwhelming passion, are only imperfectly human or moral and therefore only imperfectly
imputable to the agent.
Only those actions that proceed from full deliberation and to which the will has fully consented are wholly human, moral and
imputable.
It is this element of consent that we shall examine now.
One may consent to a thing directly or indirectly.
This distinction takes a number of forms, and different authors employ different terminologies.
For example:
(1) That may be said to be the direct object of the will, which proceeds from the will as the result of positive action: for
example, I kill my enemy. An indirect object of the will is that which proceeds from the will as a negative cause, because the
will refuses to prevent it: for example, I make no attempt to save my enemy from drowning. The death of my enemy is in the first
case directly willed; in the second case, indirectly.
(2) A thing may be said to be the direct object of the will, when it is willed in and for itself alone, as an end; the indirect object when it is willed only as a means to something else. Thus in stealing a bank note I may have no other object than the possession of the bank note; that possession, then, is the direct object of my will. Or I may will the possession only in order that I may be able to relieve the poverty of a friend; in this case, the possession is the indirect object of my will. Similarly, sailors who throw overboard their cargo to save their lives, will the loss of their merchandise indirectly.
(3) A thing may be called the direct object of the will, which is willed absolutely, wholly, in all its parts, without any reluctance or repugnance. An indirect object of the will is that which is willed reluctantly, because it is inseparably connected with something else, which cannot otherwise be secured. Thus, a glass of port may be a direct object of the will: a glass of bitter medicine is an indirect object, only drunk because it is necessary to the recovery of health. Similarly, the sailors, as the inescapable, essential means of saving their lives, indirectly will the loss of their cargo. It is possible to say of the glass of medicine and the loss of cargo that they are relatively voluntary; relative, that is, to the end that they serve. It is also possible, and better, to say that they are relatively involuntary. For this reason: if the action is considered here and now in all its circumstances, the will has consented to it, freely and after deliberation; it is therefore, simply, voluntary. It is only relatively to other circumstances, e.g. if I were already in good health, or safe in harbour, that the action is displeasing or contrary to my will. This fact - that what is willed because of something else - though with reluctance - is simply voluntary, is of great importance when we come to consider the effect of fear on consent.
(4) Lastly, a thing may be indirectly willed, because it follows, as effect from cause, from something else that is directly willed. This is the most important form of the distinction between the directly and indirectly voluntary. If a glass of port in the evening always gives me a twinge of gout in the morning, in drinking the port I will, indirectly, to-morrow's gout. We have already seen other instances of this kind of indirect willing, in considering the imputability of actions done while drunk.
Two questions are here raised,
(1) How far am I responsible for all the results
which follow from my action, or, as the case may be, my omission to act?
Responsibility depends on
the presence of three conditions.
First, the effect must
have been foreseen or foreseeable.
Because I cannot be said to will, or be responsible for, that of which I was ignorant, unless the ignorance was my own fault,
therefore I am not to be held responsible for remote improbable consequences which I could not reasonably be expected to
foresee, if in fact I did not foresee them. Thus if I strike my opponent a blow of moderate strength, as a result of which he
slips and falls, and cracks his skull, which is unusually thin, I am not responsible for his death, for I could not reasonably be
expected to foresee that his death would follow. On the other hand, if the consequences are naturally to be expected, as normally
or frequently following this or that action, then I am responsible, whether I foresee them clearly and specifically or only
vaguely and confusedly, or indeed if I did not foresee them at all, since such lack of foresight could only be the result of
culpable negligence.
Second, it must be
possible for me either to do or refrain from doing the act that causes the consequences.
If I have no choice here, neither can the consequences be attributed to me. If I see a child about to cross the readjust in front
of an on-coming bus, but am too far away to do anything about it even by shouting, I am clearly not responsible for the child
being run over. It would be otherwise if I were close at hand and either did nothing or actually pushed the child into the road.
Then I should be responsible for the "accident" which naturally followed.
Third, the conclusion that I should be responsible for the
accident to the child if, being able, I did nothing to prevent it, holds because of the assumption that a third condition was also
present, namely, that I had a duty or obligation to prevent the child being run over.
The obligation, in this instance, arose from the law of love, or common kindness, which demands that I should, if possible, always
prevent serious loss or damage to another.
But it is possible to hold that this law of love does not always bind in all circumstances.
It is common to say, for example, that it does not bind if it involves very great inconvenience. This, at first sight, seems
somewhat offensive, for we like to think that there is no limit to the duty of loving our neighbour and doing him service. But as
we shall see when we consider the virtue of love, some limit there must be. And on reflection, common sense will show that if the
law of love over-rides any and every degree of inconvenience, the living of our lives would be impossible. The offensiveness
perhaps arises from the tendency in our selfish nature, and the loophole that is here given to it, to allow an inadequate or even
trifling degree of inconvenience to be an excuse for ignoring the claims of love.
An example may serve to make all this clearer. If I am driving in my car and observe a party of pedestrians about to enter a field of growing hay, what is my duty? If I do not stop them, am I responsible for the damage that will be done to the hay, and would the farmer be justly angry with me? Let us suppose, first, that I am a doctor on my way to an urgent case, where every minute is important. To stop the car, and go back and speak, will consume valuable time. It might be argued that this is merely a case of the absence of our second condition: to act is, not indeed physically, but morally impossible, because of my duty to get to my patient as quickly as possible. But it might also be argued that the very great inconvenience, in the form of pain or danger to life, to a third party overrides here the claim of the farmer on my kindness, and that therefore I have no duty here to prevent damage to his hay. But let us alter the conditions and suppose that to stop the car would cause inconvenience only to myself: suppose that it will mean my missing a train, waiting about and wasting several hours, and finally arriving home very late. Is it clear and certain that, at the cost of this great inconvenience, I still have a duty to prevent damage being done to the farmer's hay, especially if the damage is not likely to be extensive - On the other hand, again, if the only inconvenience caused to me is the trouble of stopping the car and walking back a few yards, it would seem that the claims of common kindness and neighbourliness would impose on me the duty of doing so. Or again, the obligation may arise from some special position that I occupy; for example, if I am a policeman, or if the pedestrians are my own children, I have clearly a duty to take action. If I have such a duty and yet refrain from taking action, then the results that follow from my omission are my responsibility. If I have no such duty, then whatever happens has nothing to do with me.
So then, to be held responsible for the consequences of
my failure to act, it must be shown
(1) that I foresaw or should have foreseen the consequences;
(2) that I could have acted; and
(3) that I had a duty to act.
The same is true of the consequences that follow from a positive act of mine. It must be shown that I foresaw or could have
foreseen them; that it was possible not to act and that, in the circumstances; I had a duty not to act, in order to prevent these
consequences. For example, if I light a bonfire when the wind is in a certain quarter, the smoke will blow into my neighbour's
windows and be a nuisance to him. I am responsible for that nuisance: I foresaw it. I could have waited and lit my bonfire on
another day; as a matter of neighbourly duty, I should have done so.
(2) This brings us to
the second question, of "double effect".
When, if ever, is it lawful to perform an action, one of the foreseen consequences of which will be bad?
Or, in other words, when, if ever, have I no duty to refrain from an action that I foresee will be productive of evil?
Roman Catholic theologians lay down four essential conditions,
(a) The action, considered in and by itself, must be right and legitimate; that is, the immediate object of the action, that towards which it naturally tends, and which is its natural
result, must be lawful. For the morality of an action is determined by its object.
(b) The good result must be the immediate result and
precede the bad result.
This comes to much the same thing as the first condition, for if the immediate result of the action is a bad result, the act
itself is wrong. The reason that underlies these two conditions is a proper fear of the maxim "Do evil that good may
come". An unqualified admission of that maxim opens a wide door to laxity and self-deception. It has therefore seemed better
to Roman Catholic moralists to shut the door firmly by condemning any action whose immediate consequence is evil, no matter how
much good may reside in its other consequences. Yet this position is one of extreme difficulty, and appears to lead to very
unsatisfactory results. For example, in the ancient problem "May I lie to a band of pirates in order to save the lives of
their captives?", this position makes it necessary to say "No". Because to tell a lie is an action whose object,
considered in and by itself, is bad. Or again, in the problem of the legitimacy of performing an operation on a pregnant woman,
which is necessary to save her life, but which must involve the death of the unborn baby, the operation has to be pronounced
illegitimate because its first immediate result, i.e. its object, is the killing of an innocent life, and this is evil. The
difficulty seems to arise from a too rigid and artificial isolation of certain elements in an action from the rest, and calling
the one set the object, and the rest the circumstances. For example, in the case of the sixth Commandment, "Thou shalt not
kill", the physical object of the act of killing is the destruction of a human life. Roman Catholic theologians are agreed
that this does not constitute the moral object of the act. This is provided by certain other circumstances; for example, if the
agent is the public executioner and he holds a warrant, the moral object is a lawful execution; if he is a gangster with a tommy
gun, the moral object is murder. It would therefore seem that more than the immediate result, that to which the action necessarily
tends, needs to be taken into consideration in determining the morality of an action. Other circumstances also, including the
results of the action, are relevant.
(c) The third condition laid down is that the intention must be good. That is, that the result consciously aimed at, and desired, must be the good result and not the bad one. For example, the bombing of the enemy's factories no doubt involves the loss of civilian lives. For this to be permissible, the intention must be the destruction of the factories and not the killing of civilians. But this seems to be irrelevant to any judgement of the morality of the action, however vital to a consideration of the goodness of the agent. We shall return to this and to the previous point later when we come to the subject of the morality of actions.
(d) The last condition is that there must be an adequate cause.
This is the root of the whole matter.
The points to be considered are these.
First, whether the good result to be obtained is as great, if not greater, than the evil involved. It is clear that it would not be right to do a great evil to secure a trivial good.
Second, whether it is impossible to secure the good in any other way, which
does not involve the evil.
Third, the magnitude of evil which will follow on the omission of the act; for example, the consequence of not bombing the enemy's factories is the prolongation of the war. The avoidance of
this great evil is the justification for an action that involves the killing of civilians.
certainly, or
only probably. For example, a greater compensating good is necessary to justify the throwing of
merchandise into the sea, where its total loss is certain, than for the storage of it in a place where there is risk of fire.
In other words, the legitimacy of performing an act, or refraining from an act, in consequence of which it is foreseen that an evil result will or may follow, depends on the magnitude of the good which will also follow, or of the evil which will be avoided, and on the degree of probability that the evil will in fact result, or the good aimed at be attained. In general, where the evil foreseen is great, and its degree of probability high, a great compensating good is required.
The last element in human action to be considered is freedom.
Free and voluntary are not quite the same thing.
The saint whose whole life is devoted to the love and service of God performs all his virtuous acts voluntarily, but not freely:
for his character and disposition are such that it is "morally impossible" for him to act otherwise than he does.
Similarly the acts of generosity of a man of naturally generous disposition are more voluntary than free, for it is difficult, if
not impossible, for him to resist his generous impulse.
A free act of choice is one made in conditions where there remains throughout a
possibility to the will of acting either one way or the other.
We are now to consider the conditions that impair this freedom of choice.
The opposite of freedom is compulsion.
Compulsion means
force originating outside the individual and driving him to action against his will.
Therefore in order to say that an act is done under compulsion it is necessary that there be pressure from outside and resistance
from within. No one, therefore, strictly speaking, can compel himself.
The will itself cannot be compelled: the act of willing is essentially free.
To suppose otherwise is to say that a man can will and not will the same thing at the same moment, which is clearly impossible.
To say "I was compelled to will this" is to say, "I willed this, though all the time I was not willing it".
This is nonsense: it has only meaning when it is interpreted in the sense "I was persuaded to consent to this or to will this
through fear or some other emotion". But that is a very different thing. External acts can be compelled, for it is possible
for us to be compelled to perform actions, although our will is resisting all the time, and our consent continuously withheld.
From all this it follows
(1) that every internal act of willing is free, voluntary and imputable.
Thus, if under strong temptation, for example, of fear, I consent to steal, I am in some measure (what measure we will consider
in a moment) to blame, for committing or willing to commit theft.
(2) External actions that a man is compelled to perform are not free, voluntary or
imputable, provided that he persists in resistance and with-holding of consent. It is not always
necessary that active resistance should be to the last ditch. If resistance is hopeless, and there is no danger of the will
consenting, the action remains involuntary, even though the victim adopts a merely passive attitude. Thus the journey of a
prisoner under escort is involuntary, although he does not kick and fight throughout its duration. Similarly a woman who is the
victim of a criminal assault is not bound actively to resist to the point of death.
The reason is
(1) the impossible is never a duty: no one therefore can be expected to resist more than is possible.
(2) The object of resistance is to prevent the action: if resistance is clearly fruitless, it no longer serves any useful purpose.
(3) The essence of a compulsory action is that the will continues to refuse consent to it: if, therefore, the cessation of active
resistance does not in itself involve consent of the will, nor render such consent highly probable, the action remains involuntary
and therefore is not imputable.
Nevertheless, in general, active resistance should be prolonged, because its hopelessness is not always or often certain, and
because active resistance is itself a strong protection against consent of the will. The degree of imputability of actions done
under outside pressure varies with the degree of pressure and the amount of resistance.
Most instances of "acts done under compulsion" turn into cases
of acts done as a result of fear, for the compulsion is usually not a physical compelling but a threat of physical or mental
suffering.
Fear is an emotion caused by a present or imminent danger.
It is a disturbance of the mind, caused by the imagination of danger, which influences the will in the direction of avoiding the
danger.
Fear may be either "entertained" when
it arises from some internal or natural cause, as when in sickness I have a fear of death or pain, or when I am afraid of
lightning; or it may be "aroused" when
it is created by some free external cause, that is, another man.
Fear which is aroused may be either justly or unjustly aroused; justly, when he who inspires the fear has a right to do so, as parents have in the case of disobedient children, or
judges with criminals; unjustly, when a man has no such right or abuses that right. For example, the highwayman crying
"your money or your life" unjustly inspires fear, as does the parent who threatens his child with excessive punishment.
Actions done through a fear so great that it totally destroys all power of reason and judgment at the time of action are involuntary, and therefore not imputable. All actions that result from panic, that is to say, are involuntary. Probably also this is true of a condition short of panic, in the case of women or timorous men suddenly confronted with danger. The matter turns simply on the question whether the mind and judgment were sufficiently undisturbed to be able to consider and to be aware of the action. If there was present an element of deliberate choice, the action, though done through fear, remains voluntary. That is because the action here and now is deliberately chosen, and cannot be said to be not chosen. It is, no doubt, undesired considered in itself, and apart from the existing circumstances: in this sense it is relatively involuntary, but directly voluntary. And as voluntary, it is imputable. It is therefore no complete excuse to say, "I committed this sin because I was afraid of what would happen if I refused". And so, if a man commits a sin through fear, he is to blame: and the extent of his blame will vary with the gravity of the sin and the degree of fear by which he was persuaded to do it. For although fear does not destroy the voluntariness of an act, it does diminish it, because it is to be presumed that if the fear were removed the man would not consent to the act.
Though fear does not therefore wholly excuse actions which are wrong in themselves, or generally considered to be so normally, yet it does excuse acts done in contravention of positive law, that is, acts which are wrong only because they are forbidden. For example, the law forbids a publican to sell alcoholic drinks during certain hours; if he does so to gangsters who threaten to shoot him if he refuses, no blame attaches to him. This is because the presumed intention of all laws is the welfare of the community and the individual, and legislators do not intend laws to be excessively onerous. It is accordingly to be presumed that in circumstances of extraordinary difficulty such laws do not bind. It is for a similar reason that actions involving a breach of agreement or faith are excused by fear. For instance, a caretaker who is charged to protect someone else's property and agrees to do so, is excused if he hands over the key of the safe to burglars under threat of great danger if he refuses. The reason is that it is to be presumed that the agreement was not intended to cover such circumstances, or, alternatively, that the owner has no claim injustice upon such extreme loyalty and obedience. But the excuse of fear does not hold good even in such cases, if by yielding to fear the public good is seriously endangered, or grave scandal and damage to souls would arise. Thus a soldier is bound to obey orders, however great the danger involved, and a Christian must openly confess his faith, when not to do so would lead to the apostasy of others.
Because fear does not make an act involuntary, contracts made under fear
are valid.
If I promise or give a robber money, when he threatens to shoot me if I do not, I have deliberately chosen to give him money, and
the money is his or due to him. This, at least, is the more probable view. But many hold that since the object of the contract is
only to be rid of an unjust vexation, a freedom to which I am, therefore, in any case entitled, I am not required to pay a price
for it, and the contract is therefore void. But this does not seem a good argument, for it does not touch the main point that the
contract, in spite of the fear, is voluntary, and all that is necessary for a valid contract is consent, and a subject matter
which is not evil. In this case the content of the contract, money, is my own property and therefore a fitting matter for
contract.
On the other hand, though the contract is valid, I can afterwards
cause it to be rescinded because it was made under the influence of fear unjustly inspired.
This I can do by means of the proper authority, i.e. the courts, who will always annul a contract proved to have been extorted by
threats. It is doubtful (see Alphonsus, Lib. IV, no. 717) whether I have the right to rescind the contract on my own authority,
because this would be tantamount to holding the contract to be already void. But the point whether a contract extorted by threats
is invalid or rescindable is not of great practical importance, since by the one way, or the other, the contract can always be
avoided. The difference, however, is made plain by an example. I have given a blackmailer £100. It is not the same thing to enter
his house and take back the £100 or its equivalent, and to recover by means of an action in the courts. The taking of the law
into one's own hands, on the assumption that the contract was invalid from the outset, is probably wrong morally, and certainly
wrong legally. Some contracts, however, particularly the marriage contract, are declared by canon law to be invalid if made
under the influence of fear.
A strong emotion powerfully influences the will.
This raises the question whether the existence of a strong passion at the moment of action makes the action involuntary.
In other words, is it any excuse for a blow to say "I lost my temper"?
We must first distinguish between antecedent and consequent emotion.
Antecedent emotion is that
which precedes any effort of the will or any judgment of the reason, as when an impulse of anger quickly
arises at a sudden provocation, or a glimpse of an obscene picture arouses an impulse of lust. Actions that follow immediately
from such antecedent emotion are generally involuntary. This is because there is no proper awareness of the action and therefore
no deliberate consent. But if the emotion entices the will that then consents, the action is voluntary. In this case we have an
instance of consequent emotion.
Consequent emotion arises
in two ways.
First, as the result of an intense act of will, though not deliberately
intended.
Thus when I hear of some act of outrageous cruelty, my will violently opposes it, and at the same time
and in consequence I experience a strong emotion of anger.
Second, it arises as a result of a deliberate intention of the will, as when I resolve to punish my enemy, and work myself up into a passion, so as to carry out my purpose more easily.
Antecedent emotion may, and often does, become consequent emotion of this kind, when the will recognising the presence of the
emotion and before action, consents to it by not resisting it. Thus if I am aware of an emotion of lust but do not resist it, and
then proceed either to the enjoyment of impure thoughts or to the performance of an impure action, the lust from which the action
or enjoyment follows is consequent upon its acceptance by my will, and makes the action or enjoyment more rather than less
voluntary.
In general we may say that consequent emotion of the first kind, arising unintentionally from an intense act of will, neither increases nor decreases the voluntariness of the action. It is only a sign of the intensity with which the act is willed. Consequent emotion of the second kind, arising from a direct fostering by the will, increases the voluntariness of the act, for here we not only will the act, but will the emotion which makes the performance of the act easier. Consequent emotion arising from the consent of the will to antecedent emotion, makes the action more voluntary, but less free. More voluntary, because the will acts with greater intensity because of the emotion, as we see in the case of a man driven by lust, who stops at nothing to achieve the satisfaction of his lust. Less free, because the effect of the antecedent emotion is to present the object desired in a more attractive guise than it rightly possesses; it clouds the reason, exaggerating the desirability of the object and concealing its disadvantages. Thus the will is rendered less free to refuse its consent to the object. The action is wholly voluntary, because it is deliberately chosen, but not wholly free, because the will is swayed and the judgment deceived by emotion. It is for this reason that "crimes of passion" are less culpable than cold-blooded crimes. They are still culpable, because chosen and voluntary not only in themselves but in the emotion which produced them, to which the will yielded. They are only inculpable in the rare cases where the emotion arose antecedently and swept into action before the will had opportunity to consider or refuse. Such are cases of violent temper and immediate blows.
If consequent emotion increases blameworthiness if it leads to wrong actions, as in the case of the man who works himself into a temper, so it increases praiseworthiness if it leads to a good action. There is an additional matter for approval in the man who, by exercising his imagination, arouses in himself emotions of pity and generosity, compared with the man who acts only from conscience. The man who so acts is deliberately forming in himself a habit or virtue by means of which it will be easier for him on all occasions to act with that generosity which is his duty. This deliberate creation of a good habit, or of a disposition which prompts to right action, is itself a meritorious act.
As part of the subject of the influence of emotion on the will, it is convenient to note the effect of nervous diseases, such as hysteria or obsessions. These undoubtedly arise in the first instance apart from any act of the will, and affect actions in such a way as to destroy or greatly diminish imputability. In part they deprive the agent of his proper power of reasoning, and in part they rob him of will power. For either or both reasons, the voluntariness of his action is diminished. Yet they do not amount to madness and destroy all imputability. Hence the actions of such people are blameworthy, but deserving of special consideration and lenient treatment. It is of the greatest importance that confessors should be able to recognise these states, both because such persons are much given to false assertions and exaggerated statements, and because the treatment which would be right with normal persons may prove disastrous with them. Great patience is necessary. It is above all essential that confidence should be established, that the penitent be weaned from his absorption with himself and diverted to outside interests and pursuits, and that he be taught, especially, the virtue of obedience - to follow the simple unheroic instructions which the confessor will give him. It is important to avoid severity yet to remain stern, to be at once gentle and firm.