Human Acts vs Acts of Man
A human act is one that proceeds from the deliberate free will of man. It is an act
that is deliberate and knowingly performed by one having the use of reason. Therefore,
both intellect and free will are in play. It is an act proper to man as man. For example, if
a man decides that he needs a little exercise and so goes for a walk, he is performing a
human act. Again, when a nurse, following the doctor’s orders, administers a medication
to a patient, she performs a human act.
For an act to be considered a human act, it must possess the following
essential attributes:
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. 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: (a) adequate knowledge of the aspired
object, (b) attention to the action by which the particular object is to be pursued,
and (c) judgment on the value of the act. The fulfillment of the aforementioned
elements is found to be essential for the human person cannot consciously and
freely will something without having proper knowledge about what the object one
is concerned with, and therefore consciousness of the act one is to perform is
essential 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 judgment 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.
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, knowingly 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.
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 actualized. For instance, a
patient whose death is imminent is in pain and requires pain medication to
maintain comfort. The nurse needs to administer the pain medication but fears
that giving it may hasten death. The nurse then is torn between not acting
deliberately to terminate life and the nurse’s moral obligation to provide
interventions to relieve symptoms in dying patients even if the intervention might
hasten death. 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.
