The Properties of Human Acts

a) The Imputability of Human Acts

A human act is, by definition, both knowing and free. It proceeds entirely from a knowing and free agent, from a rational being. Thus it belongs to the agent; it is his act. This is what is meant by saying that a human act is imputable to its agent, or that a human act has the property of imputability. Now, as we have seen, every human act has its morality; every human act, either objectively or in its end or circumstances, is, as an individual deed done, a good or an evil act. Hence it follows that, when an act is imputed to the agent, it is imputed to him as good or evil. Thus imputability involves the notion of praiseworthiness or culpability. Human acts are imputable, and hence the agent is responsible, accountable, answerable for them. He is answerable for them as good or evil, that is, he is answerable for them on the score of their morality, and, logically, his answer must be made to Him who imposes the Norm of Morality. Imputability, therefore, means the accountability that man must bear for his human acts before Almighty God. God has established an Eternal Law for his creatures, an eternal ordinance of the Divine Reason to direct and guide all things to their proper last end, which is Himself, His own external glory. All bodily creatures except man are necessitated by this law; but within the field of application of the Eternal Law there is a special place for God’s free creatures; and here man, while obligated by the Law, is not forced or necessitated. Now man has reason, and very early in life he acquires an equipment of reasoned moral principles which are really recognitions of the Eternal Law, and these his conscience applies in individual acts, so that he knows his obligation in evident moral matters even when he disregards it. By these acts, then, man must stand; he cannot disclaim them; they are his. And so we say that for every human act man stands liable to answer at the bar of Reason—of human reason (conscience) here, and of Divine Reason (God) hereafter. This, in fine, is the doctrine of the imputability of human acts. The extent of imputability has, of necessity, been treated as a matter pertinent to the very nature of human acts. The student is referred in particular to Chapter I, Article 2, b.

b) The Merit and Demerit of Human Acts

The dictionary defines merit as the quality, state, or fact of deserving well or ill. We may divide this definition, and describe merit as the quality, state, or fact of deserving well; and we may describe demerit as the quality, state, or fact of deserving ill. Nor is merit (or demerit) only a “quality, state, or fact” of human acts. It is a property of such acts, since it belongs to them by natural necessity. For human acts being what they are—free, knowing, imputable—it follows that good human acts “deserve well,” while evil human acts “deserve ill” at the hands of the Ruler of human acts. The Ruler of human acts is God. In the field of free choice God rules men by suasion, not by force; and His rule is the Norm of Morality, that is Divine Reason (the Eternal Law) and human reason (conscience). Thus, as the obedient subject of a true law deserves well of the lawgiver, and as the disobedient subject deserves punishment, so the agent of good human acts deserves well of God, the Divine Lawgiver, while the agent of evil human acts deserves punishment. Thus we see that merit and demerit are really extensions of the property of imputability in human acts: for such acts are imputed to their agent as worthy of praise or blame, of reward or punishment. Still, while a man “deserves well” for his good acts, he has in that fact no strict title to reward; nor does the subject of human law look for a premium from the State for being a good citizen. Something more is required to establish a claim to reward. The human act which is good, and which confers a benefit upon him from whom reward is looked for, a benefit not already due, and a benefit for the conferring of which it is somehow understood that reward will be forthcoming— such is the human act which establishes a claim to reward. Now, God has established his Eternal Law. He has made sanctions for it, i. e., inducements to lead reasonable men to obey its prescriptions, and punishments to deter men from violating them. By this very fact He has given promise of reward and threat of punishment. Man cannot, indeed, confer a benefit, strictly so-called, upon God, for man cannot give to God anything that is not already His; the most loving and devoted service man can render throughout his life is already owed to God. Still, by our good acts we can honor God, although it were possible, by abuse of free will, to dishonor Him; and thus, in some sense, we can do what is “beneficial” to God, and hence we can establish a sort of “claim” to reward. Certainly, in our bad acts, by denying God what is due Him, we render ourselves liable in strict justice to punishment at His hands. But the real foundation of human merit before God is the perfection of God Himself.’ God is necessarily true to His promises; and He who has implanted in the heart of man a quenchless thirst for happiness, will not allow that thirst to exist in vain; that thirst will be satisfied unless man, by evil human acts, rejects God who alone can satisfy it.

Summary of the Article

In this brief Article we have dealt with matters already spoken of passingly throughout the whole of General Ethics. We have singled these out for a short special consideration merely for the sake of completeness in our work. Here we have learned what is meant by the imputability, merit, and demerit of human acts, and we have seen how these belong to human acts by natural necessity and are therefore properties of human acts. The practical value of our study of this matter lies in the fact that it affords us a clear scientific knowledge of our responsibility for what we deliberately think, do, and say. No longer dare we outrage reason by attempting to shift the responsibility for our acts to others. No longer dare we say, “The others made me do it;” “I couldn’t help it;” “You know, it really wasn’t my fault that I did this.” Now we know, know definitely and scientifically, that we must stand by our human acts! They are our acts, not to be disclaimed !

A man does more easily that which he has done before, and the more frequent the repetition of an act, the easier becomes its performance. In a word, human acts tend to form habits. Since human acts have morality, the habit of performing any human act will be a moral habit. If it is a good moral habit, it is a virtue. If it is an evil moral habit, it is a vice. Vice and virtue are not matters of a single human act, nor of an act once or twice repeated, but of an act frequently repeated. Frequent repetition of an act makes the agent strongly inclined towards that act, and in this strong inclination lies the active or operative habit of so acting. Now the word “habit” is only the past participle of the Latin verb habere, “to have.” Literally, it is “thing had,” a thing possessed. It also involves the notion of some permanence in the possession. A habit is something that is close to one, that is, so to speak, carried about with one ordinarily, like a uniform dress—and, indeed, a uniform dress is called “a habit.” Habits may affect a thing in its substance (entitative habit) or in its active powers (operative habit). Thus, beauty or fatness is an entitative habit; painting or typewriting is an operative habit. Virtues and vices are operative moral habits.