Editor’s Note: This lesson on medical-moral issues is taken from the book Catholicism & Ethics. Please feel free to use the series for high schoolers or adults. We will continue to welcome your questions for the column as well.
Special Course On Catholicism And Ethics (Pages 27-37)
While there are three elements involved in determining the morality of a human action — the act itself, the purpose of the act, and the circumstances surrounding the act — knowledge and free will play a part in deciding the moral guilt of the person. Murder or theft or abortion or lying are objectively bad actions, but the subjective guilt of the person committing the act can be mitigated or even removed entirely by seven particular conditions. Let’s look at each one.
Ignorance — In general, ignorance is lack of knowledge in a person who is capable of knowing something. Two major categories of ignorance are vincible ignorance, which means that the person ought to know something is right or wrong but makes little or no effort to find out the truth. Thus, a person suspects that missing Mass deliberately on Sunday is a sin, but fails to take the steps to determine the truth.
Invincible ignorance is that which cannot be dispelled usually because the person simply does not know that there is a problem. In other words, the individual is ignorant of his own ignorance. No one ever told him that drunkenness is a sin, so he sees no problem in getting drunk. Invincible ignorance eliminates moral responsibility for one’s actions, while vincible ignorance lessens the responsibility without eliminating it.
Fear — Fear is a disturbance of mind resulting from some present or imminent danger. Fear can be light, as when an elderly person sees a stranger on the sidewalk outside her home, or grave, when the person suspects that a burglar is inside her house. Fear can diminish the voluntary nature of an act, such as hitting the suspected burglar with a baseball bat, only to find out it was the next-door neighbor. A pharmacist who gives narcotics illegally to a person because she fears a violent attack is less morally responsible than if fear were not present.
Concupiscence — This is the tendency of human nature, stemming from Original Sin, to do something evil. St. Paul commented on this inclination toward evil that we all have when he said: “What I do I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate” (Romans 7:15). Concupiscence can be affected by such passions as love, hate, joy, grief, desire, hope, despair, fear, and anger. These passions are not evil in themselves.
For example, there is such a thing as just anger, as Jesus demonstrated when He chased the moneychangers out of the Temple. There is also a proper use of the sex passion in the way God intended to express love between husbands and wives and to bring new life into the world. But there is also the all-too-common misuse of God’s gift of sex that leads to the sins of adultery, fornication, sodomy, contraception, abortion, pornography, and trafficking of children for sex.
These passions can influence one’s state of mind, affecting the use of reason and free will and reducing one’s responsibility for certain moral actions. Thus, a teenage girl succumbs to the passions of fear or despair when she is pressured to get an abortion.
Violence — Violence is an external force applied by one person against another to compel him to perform some action against his will. It is perfect violence when the victim gives complete resistance to the attack; it is imperfect violence when the person offers insufficient resistance. A captured soldier undergoes beatings and torture but refuses to reveal military secrets. He is the victim of perfect violence and has no moral culpability attached to his actions. A woman at first strongly resists the rough sexual advances of her boss, but then gives in. She is a victim of imperfect violence because she showed some resistance to the attack, but not as much as she could have. Her moral guilt is lessened but not removed.
Habit — The voluntary nature of human actions is also affected by habit, which is an inclination to perform some action due to constant repetition. Some habits, such as waking at the same time, or eating the same foods, or sitting in the same place in church, have nothing to do with morality. But others, such as cursing, lying, drinking, or telling obscene jokes, have strong moral implications. We are at least partly responsible for acts done from habit as long as the habit is consciously allowed to continue. If we take no steps to break bad habits, such as prayer, the sacraments, and practices of self-denial, then we bear some responsibility for our actions. By consciously doing something repeatedly, knowing the outcome, we are willing that which follows.
Temperament — This refers to those native qualities or dispositions that characterize an individual and can affect the way he acts. For instance, a strong-willed person might be less guilty when he loses his temper than a normally easygoing person. A person who despairs easily might be more affected by temperament than someone who is optimistic. An individual who is cold and calculating will bear a different responsibility for her actions than one who is pleasant and agreeable.
Nervous Mental Disorders — Disorders such as hysteria, neurosis, melancholia, or hypochondria can will. We should be careful, however, not to use a mental state as an excuse for immoral actions. Not every terrorist or rapist is mentally ill; some are just plain evil. We leave it to God to judge these cases.
Please use the word list below to answer the following questions (pages 27-37):
List Of Answers:
CONCUPISCENCE
CONDITIONS
DISORDERS
FEAR
IGNORANCE
INVINCIBLE
HABITS
PASSIONS
TEMPERAMENT
VIOLENCE
Quiz:
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