Human act
| Latin | actus humanus |
|---|---|
| Locus in Aquinas | Summa theologiae I–II, qq. 1, 6, and 18 |
| Branch | Moral theology |
| Controlling authority | Catechism 1749–1761; Veritatis Splendor; Thomistic synthesis |
| Doctrinal standing | The morality of deliberate acts by object, end, and circumstances is Catholic doctrine; the full scholastic anatomy is theology |
| School | Thomism |
Human act is, in Thomism, an act proceeding from deliberate reason and will, specified morally by its object, ordered to an end, and qualified by circumstances.[1]
Mastery through reason and will
Summa theologiae I–II, question 1, article 1, calls those actions human which proceed from a deliberate will, because man is master of his actions through reason and will. All such actions are for an end, since the object of the will is the good and the end. Article 3 adds that moral acts receive their species from the end, as from principle and terminus of a voluntary movement. The 1913 article on human acts follows this: only free and deliberate acts of the will are human in the scholastic sense.[2]
The interior act of the will and the commanded exterior act are not two moral lives. Question 18, article 6, takes the end as the object of the interior act and the object of the exterior act as that on which the deed bears. The species is considered formally from the end and materially from the exterior object. He who steals in order to commit adultery is, strictly speaking, more adulterer than thief, yet both malices can be in one deed.[3]
Object, circumstances, and end
Question 18 derives the goodness of an action first from its being as an action, then from its object, then from due circumstances, then from its end. An action is good simply only if it is good in all these ways, because evil follows from any single defect. Catechism 1750–1761 receives the three sources of morality—object, intention, circumstances—and teaches that a good intention does not make behavior that is intrinsically disordered good, and that circumstances can increase or diminish goodness or evil without changing the species unless they themselves become specifying conditions.[1]
Veritatis Splendor later insisted on the object as the primary moment of the voluntary act, against theories that would locate morality only in a fundamental option or in foreseeable consequences. The Thomistic human act is therefore not a bare event plus a private meaning. The chosen object already has a moral species as related to reason. Some species are evil in their genus, such as taking what belongs to another.[4]
Freedom, hindrances, and indifference
Question 6 treats voluntariness and its diminutions: violence on commanded acts, fear as mixed, concupiscence as intensifying voluntariness rather than destroying it, ignorance as concomitant, consequent, or antecedent. Catechism 1731–1748 teaches the same in pastoral form. An individual action that is indifferent in species, such as picking up a straw, is not indifferent as a deliberate act, because reason either orders it to a due end or fails to, as question 18, article 9, argues.[5]
Indeliberate movements remain acts of a man, not human acts. The distinction prevents both a reign of terror over reflexes and a flight from responsibility for chosen objects. Merit and demerit, praise and blame, attach to the human act. Grace can elevate it toward the supernatural end; it does not replace the act with a trance.[6]
Binding moral grammar
The Church binds Catholics to the reality of free acts, to the three fonts of morality, and to intrinsically evil acts. She has not defined every scholastic diagram of elicited and commanded acts. Thomism remains the classical servant of that grammar. Other Catholic schools may emphasize personalism or the role of circumstances if they do not evacuate the object.[6]
The human person is responsible for what is chosen; the reason of the choice matters; so do the circumstances; some deeds may never be chosen. The human act is the name of that responsibility. It is also the name of the dignity Dei Filius and the Catechism ascribe to a creature who is not a thing among things, but a subject who can know the end and move himself toward it—or away.
References
- Back to citation occurrence 1.0 Back to citation occurrence 1.1 Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1749–1761 — Authoritative teaching that the morality of human acts depends on object, end, and circumstances, and that some acts are intrinsically disordered.
- Back to citation Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I–II, question 1 — Primary treatise on man's last end, the distinction of human acts from acts of a man, and the specification of moral acts by the end.
- Back to citation Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I–II, question 18 — Primary account of the good and evil of human acts from object, circumstances, and end, including intrinsically evil species.
- Back to citation John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor — Encyclical on the moral law, the natural law, virtue, and the relation of human freedom to eternal and divine law without reducing morality to mere consensus.
- Back to citation Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I–II, question 6 — Primary analysis of the voluntary and involuntary, including knowledge of the end, violence, fear, concupiscence, and ignorance.
- Back to citation occurrence 6.0 Back to citation occurrence 6.1 Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), Human Acts — Public-domain distinction of human acts from acts of man, and of imputability as following upon deliberate self-determination.