Chapter 2 (Prt. 2) Flashcards
Modifiers of Human Acts
Ignorance
Passion or Concupiscence
Fear
Violence
Habit
Factors and conditions that affect to a considerable extent man’s inner disposition towards certain actions are known as ‘
modifiers of human acts
they influence specifically the mental and/or emotional state of a person concerned to the point that the voluntariness involved in an act is either increased or diminished.
This is significant precisely because the moral accountability of the doer of the action is also increased or decreased, as the case may be.
modifiers of human acts
“affect human acts in the essential qualities of knowledge, freedom, voluntariness, and so make them less perfectly human’
Modifiers of Human Acts
is the absence of necessary knowledge which a person in a given situation, who is performing a certain act, ought to have.
therefore is a negative thing for it is a negation of knowledge.
Ignorance
Ignorance is either
Vincible or invincible
, can easily be remedied through ordinary diligence and reasonable efforts on the part of the person who is in this particular mental state.
This specific type of ignorance is therefore conquerable since it is correctible.
Vincible ignorance
The ignorance of a student, for instance, regarding a particular assignment that he/she missed because of having been absent in class is vincible, since he/she can easily ask from his/her classmates about it through a simple act of texting. Hence, the student here, can be considered “at fault” of his/her ignorance.
Vincible ignorance
/is the kind of ignorance which an individual may have without being aware of it, or, having knowledge of it, simply lacks the necessary means to correct and solve it.
This type of ignorance is unconquerable, and thus not correctible,
Invincible ignorance
The ignorance of someone who lost something and has tried all humanly possible ways to find it is having an invincible kind of ignorance. Sometimes, it may happen that a person performs a certain act without realizing certain facts.
Thus, for example, a waiter in a restaurant might be totally unaware that the food he is serving to the customers contains harmful bacteria.
Invincible ignorance
Under the classification of_______ ignorance is the affected type of ignorance.
This is the kind of ignorance which an individual keeps by positive efforts in order to escape blame and accountability.
vincible
Principles Governing Ignorance
Invincible ignorance renders an act involuntary
Invincible ignorance does not destroy, but lessens the voluntariness and the corresponding accountability over the act.
Affected or pretended ignorance does not excuse a person from his/her bad actions; on the contrary it actually increases their malice.
/ A person cannot be held morally responsible or liable if he or she is not aware of the state of his or her ignorance.
To illustrate this kind of ignorance in the concrete, take a student who is not truly aware that the money he or she has paid for his or her tuition is actually counterfeit money, cannot be held for committing an act of deception.
Invincible ignorance renders an act involuntary
A person who becomes aware and conscious of the state of ignorance he or she is in has the moral obligation to correct it by employing enough diligence in finding the information required to make one’s ignorance disappear. “To act with vincible ignorance is to act imprudently.
An example of this specific kind of ignorance is when a student-nurse who is not sure whether the reading that he or she did on a patient’s BP is accurate or not, and has failed to double check, when it could have easily been done, is guilty of this kind of ignorance.
Vincible ignorance does not destroy, but lessens the voluntariness and the corresponding accountability over the act.
on the contrary it actually increases their malice. This specific kind of ignorance happens when a person really wants and chooses to be ignorant so that he/she can eventually escape any accountability arising from the wrongfulness of the act later on.
A good example here is a student who intentionally misses a committee meeting in order not to be given any task. he/she suspects to be assigned to members so as to avoid any responsibility that goes with it.
Affected or pretended ignorance does not excuse a person from his/her bad actions;
is here understood as a strong or powerful feeling or emotion.
It refers more specifically to those bodily appetites or tendencies as experienced and expressed in such feelings as fear, love, hatred, despair, horror, sadness, anger, grief and the like.
Passion or concupiscence
is also known by other names such as sentiments, affections, desires, etc.
Passion or concupiscence
is either an inclination towards desirable objects, or, a tendency away from undesirable or harmful things. It includes both positive and negative emotions.
Passion or concupiscence
Passions are either classified as
antecedent or consequent
/are those that precede an act.
It may happen that a person is emotionally aroused to perform an act.
_______ passions predispose a person to act.
Antecedent
do not always destroy voluntariness, but they diminish accountability for the resultant act.
weaken the will power of a person without, however, completely obstructing his freedom.
Thus, the so called ‘crimes of passion” are voluntary. But insofar as passions interfere with the freedom of the will, one’s accountability is diminished”
“Antecedent passions
do not lessen voluntariness, but may even increase accountability.
This is because_______ are the direct results of the will which fully consents to them instead of subordinating them to its control” (Panizo, ibid.).
“Consequent passions
is defined as “the disturbance of the mind of a person who is confronted by an impending danger or harm to himself or loved ones”
Fear
“may be considered a passion which arises as an impulsive movement of avoidance of a threatening evil, ordinarily accompanied by bodily disturbances”
Here, it is treated as a “special kind of passion, and hence also treated as another distinct modifier of human act since it is a kind of a test of one’s mental character.
Fear
