Ch 3 Morality in Law and Action

Question 1

What is law?

Answer 1

an ordinance of reason

Question 2

What is eternal law?

Answer 2

God’s wisdom as manifested in the nature of acts and movements

Question 3

What ecclesiastical law?

Answer 3

the body of laws and regulations of the church

Question 4

What is civil law?

Answer 4

a rule of conduct imposed by civil authority; the body of such rules binding on members under control of the authority whether from formal enactment or custom.

Question 5

What are just laws?

Answer 5

an ordinance of reason that exists for the common good, having been made by legitimate authority and legislated through an appropriate and recognized process

Question 6

What is the analysis of the human act?

Answer 6

• the act itself
• the intention of the person committing the act
• the circumstances surrounding the act

Question 7

What is the act?

Answer 7

• carries the most weight
• an intrinsically evil act can never be justified regardless of intention or circumstances
• a good act could still be immoral based on intention or circumstances

Question 8

What is the intention?

Answer 8

a movement of the will toward an end

Question 9

What are the circumstances?

Answer 9

The condition or state of affairs surrounding a moral decision; these include the consequences of an action. It can increase or diminish the responsibility of a person, but they cannot change the moral quality of the acts themselves; they never make good an act which is in itself evil

Question 10

What is the principle of double effect?

Answer 10

an act may be performed, even if accompanied by an unintended bad effect, if the act itself is good or indifferent, the good effect far outreaches the bad effect, and the intention of the act is the good effect

Question 11

What is the common good?

Answer 11

the total of social conditions that will allow both individuals and groups to reach their human and spiritual fulfillment more easily

Question 11

What is the common good?

Answer 11

the total of social conditions that will allow both individuals and groups to reach their human and spiritual fulfillment more easily

Question 12

What is objective truth?

Answer 12

reality as it is, even outside a person’s intellect and independent of his acknowledgment of its existence

Question 13

What is subjective truth?

Answer 13

a state of reality that can change depending on who is perceiving it, or where or when it is being perceived

Question 14

What are laws of nature?

Answer 14

descriptions of the behavior of the material universe

Question 15

What is universality?

Answer 15

the ability to be applied to everyone in every situation

Question 16

What is unjust law?

Answer 16

a human law that contradicts or otherwise fails to conform to divine and natural law. Such a law is never binding on a person’s conscience and must be opposed

Question 17

What is conscience?

Answer 17

a practical judgment of reason made by intellect that helps a person decide the goodness or sinfulness of an action or attitude