Scribd
Upload
1K views1 page

Human Conduct

Human conduct consists of voluntary acts that are consciously and deliberately willed by a person. Conduct has an ethical meaning and refers exclusively to human actions. There are two types of acts: 1) human acts or voluntary acts which a person is the master of and consciously controls and wills, making them responsible. These constitute human conduct. 2) Involuntary acts of a man which are not consciously controlled or deliberately willed, and the person is not responsible, such as acts done during infancy, sleep, or insanity. Only voluntary acts have ethical significance.

Uploaded by

Julio Antonio Tolentino
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
1K views1 page

Human Conduct

Human conduct consists of voluntary acts that are consciously and deliberately willed by a person. Conduct has an ethical meaning and refers exclusively to human actions. There are two types of acts: 1) human acts or voluntary acts which a person is the master of and consciously controls and wills, making them responsible. These constitute human conduct. 2) Involuntary acts of a man which are not consciously controlled or deliberately willed, and the person is not responsible, such as acts done during infancy, sleep, or insanity. Only voluntary acts have ethical significance.

Uploaded by

Julio Antonio Tolentino
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 1

Human Conduct

Human Acts

A person’s actions taken collectively make up his or her behavior or conduct.


Behavior is a more psychological word and is applied even to animals, whereas conduct has
an ethical meaning and is exclusively human.
We distinguish between the parts of the body we can control and those we cannot
control between those who can move more or less we want and those that move in spite of
us, between the striped, or voluntary, muscles and the smooth , or involuntary, muscles.
The words voluntary and involuntary are interesting here because they ethical rather than
biological words and refer to the fact that certain actions are or are not subject to our will.
In ethics we are not concerned with the muscles we use but with the actions choose to do
with or without them, and especially with the governing factor in us, whatever it may be,
that we call the will . For the moment we speak of the will as our ability to ourselves, to be
master of ourselves, to do what we want to do rather than have it forced on us, so that as a
result we are held responsible for what we do. Two main things that would prevent our
acts from being voluntary, from being willed by us are ignorance and external force,
therefore a voluntary act is said to be knowingly or deliberately willed. We do not say yet
whether it mus also be free, and for the present we may overlook the hint of freedom in the
following classic statement: St. Thomas puts it as follows:

“Of actions done by man those alone are properly called human which are
proper to man as man. Now man differs from irrational animals in this that he is
master of his actions. Wherefore those actions alone are properly called human of
which man is master. Now man is master of his actions through his reason and
will, whence too the free will is defined as the faculty of will and reason. Therefore
those actions are properly called human which proceed from a deliberate will.
And if any other actions are found in man, they can be called actions of a man, but
not properly human actions, since they are not proper to man as man.”

Hence there are two kinds of acts:

1. A human act or Voluntary act (actus humanus) is one of which man is master, one that is
consciously controlled and deliberately willed, so that the agent is held responsible for it. These
human acts constitute human conduct and form the subject matter of ethics.

2. An act of a man or Involuntary Acts (actus hominis) is one which a man happens to perform,
but he is not master of it, for he has not consciously controlled it, has not deliberately willed it, and
for it he is not held responsible. Such are acts done in infancy, sleep, delirium, insanity, or fits of
abstraction; they have no ethical significance and do not constitute human conduct.

You might also like