Voluntariness and Responsibility
Comes from the Latin word “voluntas” referring to the will.
Condition or accounts of which an act proceeds with a previous knowledge of the end.
1. Perfect Voluntariness – is present in a person who fully knows and fully intend an act.
2. Imperfect Voluntariness – is present in a person who acts without fully realizing what t he means to do, or without fully intending an act.
3. Conditional Voluntariness – is present in a person who is forced by circumstances beyond his control to perform an act which he would not do under normal conditions.
4. Simple Voluntariness – is present imn a person doing an act willfully, regardless of whether he likes to do it or not.
Types of Voluntariness
1. Direct Voluntariness – an act is directly voluntary when the act is intended fort its own sake, either as a means or as an end.
2. Indirect Voluntariness – is an act which is not intended for its own sake but which merely follows as a regrettable consequence of an action directly willed.
1. Relation between Voluntariness and Ethics.
2. Between Morality and Voluntariness
3. Human acts and Voluntariness
4. Responsibility and Voluntariness
The Moral Principles involved in Actions having Two Effects
Involves four conditions:
1. The act in itself should be good, or act at least morally indifferent.
2. The good effect must not come from the evil effect.
3. The evil effect should not be directly intended but morally allowed to happen as a regrettable side issue.
4. The good effect must outweigh the evil results in its importance.