ANAYLYSIS OF HUMAN ACTION

The main objectives of this unit are:

 Ethics, as a science of morality, judges human conduct which is basically made up of

human actions. So having a correct understanding of the notion of human act is the first
aim of this unit.
 Secondly, this unit highlights the obstacles that could possibly obstruct the performance
of a human act.
 Thirdly, it is very important to analyse the factors that generally influence the morality of
human action.
 Lastly, this unit endeavours to comprehend the theories of determinism and
indeterminism as they are closely associated with the analysis of human action.

INTRODUCTION

Humans are said to be evaluative in nature. Whenever a person does something we find
others analysing his/her behaviour and commenting that it was good, bad or at times
indifferent. Ethics is said to be a philosophical treatise which studies human behaviour and
tries to determine whether the act performed was morally right or wrong. It cannot content
itself with simply registering facts; it attempts to reflect on the meaningfulness or
meaninglessness of such facts, establish or reject them on a rational basis, understand their
implications, draw relevant consequences and, above all, intuit their ultimate cause. There is
a continuous effort made for studying our own moral beliefs and our moral conduct and
striving to ensure that we, and the institutions we help to shape, live up to standards that are
reasonable and morally based. This contributes towards establishing sound moral foundation
on which people build their lives. Hence one can reasonably aver that Ethics represents a
broad framework for determining a core value system one uses for our day to day existential
situation.

The above discussion raises an essential question: How we judge certain actions as good or
right whereas others are regarded as bad or wrong? Any attempt to provide an adequate
answer to this query brings us to the analysis of a basic question: What is human action?

UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN ACT

Scholastic philosophy outlines a distinction between Actus Hominis and Actus Humanus i.e.
‘Acts of Man/Human’ and ‘Human Acts’ respectively. Not every act that a human being does
is a typically human act. Human activities, like the circulation of blood, heart beat, over
which normal people in general have no control are not classified as human acts. Such acts
which are beyond the control of humans and those which they share in common with animals
are called as ‘Acts of humans’. Acts of humans, then, are involuntary and therefore, not
morally responsible for them.

On the other hand a ‘Human Act’ is one which proceeds from knowledge and from consent
of free will. Or in other words it is an act which emanates from the will with a knowledge of
the end or goal to which the act leads. The Human act is to be distinguished from acts of
humans which are performed without intervention of intellect and free will. An act is termed
as distinctively a human act which is voluntary in character, that is, the human person under
consideration could have done it differently if s/he had so willed or chosen. It is an act which
is in some way under the control or direction of the will, which is proper to humans. Such an
act is performed by a person deliberately and intentionally in order to realize some foreseen
end/s. Thus one can rightly assert that a voluntary act proceeds from the will with the
apprehension of the end sought, or, in other words, is put forth by the will solicited by the
goodness of the object as presented to it by the intellect. Such acts, moreover, proceed from
the will's own determination, without necessitation, intrinsic or extrinsic.

THE CONSTITUENT ELEMENTS OF HUMAN ACTS

Constituent elements of the human act refer to the inner causes or the constituting elements
which generate a human person to undertake a certain act. The understanding of the human
act indicates that there are two essential elements which constitute a human act: The
Intellectual Element and The Volitive Element.

The Intellectual Element

Knowledge is one of the important qualities which distinguish humans from other sentient
beings. Absolute truth in all situations and matters might be beyond human capabilities. But
we humans can attain truth and that not all truths are relative are undeniable facts, as
Epistemology will have established. The denial of such assertions only results in re-asserting
them, by the very act itself. Universal scepticism and absolute relativism are found to be self-
contradictory and as such are philosophically untenable doctrines.

The faculty of willing can make a choice for something and seek it only when it is first
known. This act of knowing is undertaken by the faculty of the intellect. The human act is
voluntary when its different elements and its implications are sufficiently known by the agent
or the doer

prior to the operation of the will. This process of knowing entails certain important
conditions: (i) adequate knowledge of the aspired object, (ii) attention to the action by which
the particular object is to be pursued and (iii) judgement on the value of the act.

The fulfilment of the above elements is found to be essential, for, human person cannot
consciously and freely will something without having proper knowledge about what the
object one is concerned with and therefore conscious of the act one is to perform in order to
achieve the desired aim. It is also required that one evaluates the action undertaken in its
concrete nature as a desirable good or an undesirable evil. Such an appraisal includes
judgement on the moral or ethical value of the act.

Furthermore, the goodness or the badness of a particular human act is judged only under
those of its aspects which are sufficiently known. For instance a person who robs and kills a
person not knowing him to be his brother, he is guilty of criminal injury but not culpable of
offence of fratricide.

However, from the above discussion one should not presuppose that we have full knowledge
of the act and its implications every time we undertake a human act. There is still room left
for mistakes. What we affirm here is that with right effort the person can have sufficient
knowledge of the object and its other considerations which are essential for the making of a
human act.
The Volitive Element

Another important characteristic which sets apart the human person from animals is that of
voluntariness or what we commonly designate as free will. It is the task of the intellect to
conceptualize the good, to propose it to the will as something desirable, and to judge the
suitability of the means in its attainment. This awareness which is based on certain amount of
reflection is very important in the analysis of the human act. It can occur in varying degrees
depending on which, they can affect the morality of the act. However, just this awareness is
insufficient for the production of the human act. It is required that the presented good is
willed freely by the person. The volitive dimension points that the will can freely make a
choice of the concrete object in which the good is sought. Thus when we hold a person
morally responsible for his/her action, we assume that the act was done freely, knowing and
willingly. The idea of responsibility would seem then to connote and presuppose that of free
will.

If a human person for some valid reason is not free to choose what he/she would like
according to his/her insight and will, but has to act against one’s will, his/her action is not
free and consequently such an act cannot be designated as a human act. For instance a
mentally disturbed person feels compelled to do something again and again but he/she is
conscious of the object one is concerned with and also the end of the action with which the
object is pursued, yet such an act will not be voluntary because its execution is done with
psychic compulsion and not with free will. So an act to be a free act and consequently a
human act, it is to be done without any internal or external compulsion. The degree of
compulsion determines to a large extent the voluntariness of the action and consequently the
culpability of the person. For instance a high degree of compulsion may almost render the act
involuntary and subsequently reduce the degree of culpability.

One must note that anything that is an object of the will, we call the thing willed. But not
everything that is willed is necessarily an effect of the will; for e.g. the setting of a house on
fire which is not caused, but desired by someone, is something willed but is not the effect of
the will. Thus when what is willed is both the object and the effect of the will, we call it
voluntary.

One can conclude the discussion on the two constitutive elements of the human act:
intellectual and volitive, by affirming the essential union of the knowledge and will in the
generation of the human act.

Process involved in a Voluntary Act

Very often a voluntary act, performed by an agent knowingly and freely in order to realize
some foreseen end, is not a spontaneous reaction. It involves a dynamic process. Voluntary
action has its advent in the mind. It begins with a feeling of want or a craving or a desire
which is either real or ideal. Such an impulse, though to a certain extent painful, is mixed
with pleasure which arises from the anticipation of satisfaction of this craving by the
attainment of the desired object. The person also has awareness of the means that are required
to attain the proper object. In a simple action, where there is no conflict of motives, the
choice is easily made and the desired action is performed. However, in our daily course of
living many of our actions are of a complex nature which often involves a conflict of motives
thereby causing difficulty in the matter of choice that eventually delays decision and the
performance of the act. Hence, when the self is confronted with divergent and competing
motives the mind experiences a challenge generated by conflict of motives. In order to tackle
this, the mind deliberates on the merits and demerits of the different courses of action that are
available. After weighing the advantages and disadvantages the mind chooses a particular
motive and a particular action to achieve the end. This act of selection of one motive to the
exclusion of others results in decision. The decided motive is subjectively evaluated as the
strongest motive among the others. The decision phase is often converted immediately into
action and the decision is actualised. However at times the decision might be postponed for a
future fulfilment in which case there is scope for resolution. Resolution refers to the capacity
of remaining committed to the decided motive. The state of decision or resolution gives way
to the actual performance of a bodily action which is technically designated as a human act.
The undertaking of the external bodily action produces changes in the external world, certain
of these are foreseen consequences whereas many others are unforeseen consequences.

IMPEDIMENTS FOR HUMAN ACTS

In the process of performing a human act the individual might encounter certain obstacles
which though may not nullify the human act and make it involuntary but they may reduce the
imputability or culpability of the individual, thereby making him less responsible for the
particular act. In this section, we shall elaborate some of the main impediments which might
affect either the intellectual or the volitive constituent (or both together) of the human action.

Ignorance: This to a great extent affects the intellectual dimension of the human act. It is
elucidated as lack of adequate knowledge in an individual with regard to the nature or moral
quality of an act one is performing or proposes to perform. Ignorance is mainly of two
categories: Invincible ignorance and Vincible ignorance. The former is explained as that
ignorance which cannot be dispelled by reasonable diligence a prudent individual would be
expected to exercise in a given situation. Such ignorance almost renders the act performed as
involuntary and consequently the individual may not be imputable for the act for what is
unknown cannot be the object of volition. On the other hand, Vincible ignorance is that
which could be eliminated by the application of reasonable diligence. Here the agent has not
put in enough effort to gain the required knowledge and as such the concerned person is
culpable or imputable for the act performed under such type of ignorance. However the
degree of imputability depends on the extent of the individual’s cupable negligence.

Passion: It is often connoted as a powerful or compelling emotion or feeling for instance an

experience of strong hate or sexual desire. Passion is said to be a strong tendency towards the
possession of something good or towards the avoidance of something evil. The more the
intensity of the emotions, the less the capability for making balanced and objective
deliberation. Thus passion is considered as an obstacle to human act. One can enumerate two
main kinds of passions: Antecedent and Consequent. The former refers to passion elicited
without the consent of the will. Here the person might not be fully responsible for the passion
and as such the culpability is much less if not fully absent. Consequent passion is passion
which is within the control of the will, therefore the agent is responsible for the arousal of the
passion and as such imputable for the act.

Habit: Habit is an acquired tendency for doing something as a result of repeated practice. It
may be voluntary or involuntary, depending on whether it was imbibed with consent of a
person or without. Habits usually do not render an act non-human, because though they exert
certain coercion they can be overcome by a committed effort. As such imputability of acts
from habit increases or decreases depending upon the effort exerted.
Fear: It is defined as the shrinking back of the mind on account of an impending evil
considered to be difficult to avoid or even impossible at times. Fear may be grave or mild
according to whether it is caused by a grave evil whose avoidance is rather difficult if not
impossible, or only by a mild evil which can be easily avoided. Fear is characterised as highly
grave when it exercises great deterrence on an average person for e.g. fear of killing. Fear is
relatively grave when the threatened evil is generally considered as objectively slight but it
scares a particular person subjectively depending on the person’s emotional disposition. Fear
hampers the use of reason and as such destroys voluntariness. Fear in general does not fully
destroy the voluntariness of action but merely reduces its gradation and as such usually
lessens its culpability. Only in extreme cases when the highly grave fear totally impairs the
two constitutive elements the act done out of fear may be regarded as involuntary.

FACTORS DETERMINING THE MORALITY OF HUMAN ACTS

Analyzing the morality of the human act is said to be a complex enterprise since it is affected
by so many conditions which are within and without. Most of the moralists agree that to
judge the goodness or badness of any particular human act, three elements must be weighed
from which every act derives its morality. They are: the Object of the act, the
Circumstances surrounding the act, and the End or Intention that the one performing the act
has in mind.

The Object of the Human Act

It is that which the action of its very nature tends to produce. Or in other words it refers to the
effect which an action primarily and directly causes. It is necessarily the result of the act
without taking into account the circumstances or the end. For example the object of setting
fire to hut of a slum-dweller is to burn whereas the end might be revenge. The object is
usually regarded as the primary factor for moral judgement of a human act. From the
viewpoint of object an act is generally classified as morally good, bad or indifferent. For a
morally good act, the object of it must be good.

The Circumstances contextualising the Human Act

These include all the particulars of the concrete human action which are capable of affecting
its morality. They are such things as the person involved, the time, the place, the occasion,
which are distinct from the object, but can change or at times even completely alter its moral
tone. Circumstances can make an otherwise good action better for e.g. giving food to a person
who is almost dying of starvation. They can make good an act which is otherwise indifferent,
for e.g. sitting with a person who is feeling lonely. But they can also make worse an act
which is evil in its object for e.g. robbing a beggar from his/her only meal of the day. Since
all human actions occur in a particular context i.e. at a certain time and at a certain place, the
circumstances must always be considered in evaluating the moral quality of any human act.

The End or the Intention of the Agent in performing a Human Act

The end or intention of a human act is the purpose that prompts one to perform such an act.
Every human act, no matter how trivial, is done with some intention. It is the reason for
which the agent performs a particular act. It is the effect that the agent subjectively wills in
his/her action. At times it can so happen that the intention of the agent coincides with the
object of the human act, for e.g. offering a glass of water to a thirsty person to quench thirst.
However at other times both of them might be different. For e.g. a captured spy may commit
suicide in order to safeguard the secrets of the country. A human act to be morally good the
agent or doer must have a good intention—he must want to accomplish something that is
good in one way or another.

The end too can affect the morality of the human act just as circumstances do. A good
intention can make better an act which is good in its object, for e.g. helping a poor person to
start a small business with the intention of making him independent. Also the end can worsen
a act which is already evil in its object, for e.g. killing the father, who is the only breadwinner
in the family, so that his children might be on the street. To a great extent many of the actions
that we do which otherwise might be indifferent morally in themselves, but they receive their
moral quality from the intention behind them.

According to the moralists a human act is said to be morally good when it is good in its
object, circumstances and also in the intention, for it is believed that an action is good when
each of these three factors is conformed to order (Bonum ex integra causa). If even one of
these determinants is contrary to order, the action will be bad, at least in part (Malum ex
quocumque defectu).

DETERMINISM AND INDETERMINISM

The question of free will or human freedom in the matter of making a moral choice, has been
an issue which is discussed and deliberated by philosophers down the centuries. And the
complexity of problem makes it rather difficult to take a stand in the category of ‘Either Or.’
The problem is formulated thus: Determinism versus Indeterminism. Immanuel Kant has
given a sound articulation to this issue in his, Critique of Practical Reason. He states thus:
The concept of freedom is the stone of stumbling for all empiricists, but at the same time the
key to the loftiest practical principles for critical moralists, who perceive by its means that
they must necessarily proceed by a rational method.

Determinism

Determinism is a theory which explains that all human action is conditioned entirely by
preceding events, and not by the faculty of the Will. In philosophy, the theory is based on the
metaphysical principle that an uncaused event is rather impossible. The success of scientists
in discovering causes of certain behaviour and in some cases effecting its control tends to
support this doctrine. The deterministic view seems to be very much at home with the
scientific temper because the subject matter of any science rests on the principle of causality
which asserts that every event has a cause and the aim of science is to find a causal
explanation for anything that happens within the domain of that science. Accordingly one can
enumerate different categories of determinism based on a particular science. We have the
theory of Physical determinism stating that human interaction can be reduced to
relationships between biological, chemical, or physical entities. This has its origin in the
Atomism of Democritus. Theological determinism is the theory, which posits that there is
God, omnipotent and omniscient, who is determining all that humans will do, either by
knowing their actions in advance or by decreeing their actions in advance. German
philosopher Leibniz with his theory of monads advocated a form of theological determinism.
He averred that the monads (the simple, indivisible elements) seek their own perfection
through a ‘preestablished harmony’ instituted by God ‘the Prime Monad’. Psychological
determinism posits that we all possess certain mental qualities which govern our life. Freud,
with his psychoanalytic theory, expressed a form of psychological determinism that all we do
is due to mental factors some of which we are conscious but most of them are beyond our
conscious states. Biological determinism is the idea that all behaviour, belief, and desire are
fixed by our genetic endowment.

In summary we can say that in general, determinism is a doctrine which in some way holds
the stance that there is no such thing as free choice for any choice that we make is already
conditioned by a set of causes or is settled prior to our act of choosing. As such, the person
cannot be held morally accountable or responsible for his/her act.

Indeterminism

Indeterminism is a theory, though not denying the influence of behavioural patterns and
certain extrinsic forces on human actions, insists on the reality of free will or the capacity of
the humans to make a free choice. This view asserts that humans are an exception to the rigid
determinism that occurs in nature. Indeterminists accept the principle of causality but aver
that human free will or human choices are not totally bound by the causal law. Some of the
proponents of this view try to seek support for their claim by appealing to the Physicist
Werner Heisenberg’s ‘Principle of Indeterminacy’ which shows that randomness in the
universe is compatible with science. He questions whether it is possible to determine an
objective framework through which one can distinguish cause from effect. But one must also
note that according to some other thinkers Heisenberg’s principle has little to do with choice
or free will. Attempts have been also made to use the indeterminism of the latest theory of
quantum mechanics, which postulates irreducible physical indeterminacy, to buttress the
claim that human actions to a great extent are grounded in free will.

Efforts have been made to reconcile free will with determinism by introducing the theory of
soft determinism. This doctrine posits humans are free from external coercion and as such are
indetermined but they cannot make a free choice against their individual characters. In other
words it asserts that a person is free physically but psychologically he/she is determined.
However this reconciliatory tone too has been questioned: if a person is internally or
psychologically determined can we really hold that the person is free?

Another theory, which so to say strives to provide a mediating proposal to the problem of
determinism and free will, is that of self-determinism. It accepts the causality principle and
affirms that nothing can happen without a cause. Hence our so called free acts are also caused
but they are caused by the very person as a self-governing or free agent, so that agent could
have acted otherwise and freely choose not to do so. Self-determinist believes that though
humans are strongly influenced by the motives and as such are called to deliberate between
them, still they are not necessitated by them either way, they can make their own choices.

In concluding this section on determinism and indeterminism one has to note that the position
or the view one holds will obviously affect one’s interpretation of moral responsibility or
accountability.

KEY WORDS

Preestablished Harmony: It is a term from art which is used by Leibniz. It refers to the
order in the monads that is installed by God in advance in such a way that each subsequent
state is a consequence of the preceding one.
Universal Skepticism: It is elucidated as the philosophical doctrine which doubts that we
can have any certitude in knowledge

Fratricide: It is defined as deliberate killing of one’s sister or brother.