INTENTION AND CIRCUMSTANCE IN MORAL ACT

Demonstrate how intention and circumstance determine the meaning of a moral act. How does the relationship between intention, act-in-itself, and circumstance influence moral reasoning in the ethics of war and peacemaking? Outline four conditions that characterize the principle of double effect and its implication in medical ethics.

The goodness of a moral act is determined by three elements: object, intention, and circumstances. At least one of these must be good; others may be indifferent; and none may be evil. A defect in any of these renders the act morally evil.
[1] The intention, or end, or purpose, or motive, of the person.
[2] The moral object, or object, or species, or nature, of the act itself.
[3] The circumstances, or consequences, of the intentionally chosen act; the morally significant accidents of the act.

Presuppositions

i.                    Our reason has been informed by divine law. The principles written into nature are the measure of action.

ii.                  Moral acts can be divided into good and bad acts, in or not in accord with objective principles.

iii.                Morally indifferent acts exist only theoretically. There are some moralists who propose a double distinction of a moral act: good-evil and right-wrong, meaning that there can be acts which are both good and wrong. Such a double distinction is denied by Veritatis Splendor (75), though an act may be morally wrong and without culpability: when the agent does not willingly perform an action.

iv.                So, the only relevant distinction between something is technically right or wrong. A will which is not right is evil.

v.                  But when the will is outside the will, it is outside the realm of morals. Only when we relate the act to the reason, we ask whether it is a good or an evil act.

vi.                Every moral act consist of three parts: (1) the objective act (what we do, the act-in-itself); (2) the subjective goal (why we do the act or the intention); and (3) the concrete situation in which we perform the act (circumstance).

vii.              That is why in order to determine a moral act questions such as: where, when, how, with whom, whom... are important.

Vii For an individual act to be morally good, these three parts must be good. But some acts, apart from the intention for doing them, are always wrong because they go against a fundamental or basic human good that ought to be comprised. e.g. direct killing of the innocent, torture, rape. Such acts are referred to as intrinsically evil acts, meaning that they are wrong in themselves, apart from the reason they are done or the circumstances surrounding them.

How intention and circumstance determine the meaning of a moral act?

It is important to know that the effects cannot be always predicted. Sometimes, bad effects flow from good action, and good effects can come from sins and bad action.

 

Viii How do the effects of acts flow into the moral qualification? If the effects are anticipated, then they enter into the object of the act and someone would be fully responsible for them. If the consequences are not anticipated, then one would be responsible for the necessary consequence of effect (e.g. drunken driving).

 

viii.            What about actions of several effects? Many good actions would have to be omitted, because there might always be evil-effects.

 

  Intention:

intention is about the end or purpose or motive of the action. What does the person intend to achieve? Intention is part of the objective act, or the act taken in its totality Intention is the internal part or the formal element of the moral action. It is the end for which we do what we do- the whole purpose of our action. It determines human action and gives personal meaning to it. It is the essence of an act.

–              a good intention makes better an act which is good in its very nature,

–              it makes good an acts which is unmoral or morally indifferent in its very nature

–              it does not modify or change an action which by its nature is evil

–              an evil intention makes evil an act which is good by its nature

–              it makes evil an act which is unmoral or indifferent by its nature

–              it makes worse an act which is bad or evil in its nature.

–               

    Circumstances: This refers to questions like Who? Where? When? What? How?

Circumstances differ from one person to another, one place to another, one culture to another. Circumstances help the see an act in its wholeness, situating it historically.

ix.                are secondary to the evaluation of a moral act

x.                  they contribute to increasing or decreasing the goodness or badness of the act

xi.                they may affect one's personal responsibility for the act

xii.              sometimes the circumstances qualify an act without qualification sometimes the circumstances have no particular influence on the act

The Act -in-itself  (finis operis), or the means-to-an-end. It is the external part, or the material element of a moral action.

The act-in-itself denotes the means that fulfills the intention. The means is typically external and physical since it is the material element of the moral act. The means takes the intention from the conceptual realm to the concrete realm. In this line, actions which have the same material features can have different moral meaning depending on the intention which directs the action. The moral quality of an action comes from the intention of the agent. For example, Janssens says, making a donation can be morally good when the intention is to bring relief to a person n need, but morally bad if intended to satisfy one’s vanity to win praise. Josef Fuchs gives the same idea with the example of killing as self-defense or because of avarice.

With these examples Saint Thomas tells us that different intentions constitute different actions. But can a physical action embody any intention whatever? Or can the end justify the means? For Thomas, an action can only absorb that intention which is adequately proportionate to it. Illustrating the relational tension between end and means, Thomas says that, in the case of self-defense, the use of violence which wounds or even kills is justifiable when it falls within the limits of what is necessary to save one’s own life. Therefore, killing as self-defense can be justifiable but in other cases it cannot. The difference lies in the proportionality of the means to the end.

We determine whether the physical action is proportionate to the intention by considering the action within its circumstances. The end and the means exist in tension to one another and to all the essential aspects which make up the circumstances. Only by considering the action in reference to the intention within the total context of its qualifying circumstances can we determine the true meaning of the action. We can uncover the relevant circumstances by asking the reality-revealing questions: who, what, when, where, why, how, what else, what if,…

Intention and circumstance have to be considered simultaneously. Not taking the act-centered morality, stressing the act and forgetting the intention of the person acting n a context; not the intention only or the circumstance only, but, the three-font-principle.

b) How does the relationship between intention, act-in-itself, and circumstance influence moral reasoning in the ethics of war and peacemaking? The example of Josef Fuchs explains this influence.

The relationship between these elements is complex and requires a careful understanding and interpretation before we can determine the true moral meaning of an act.

xiii.            After setting down the determinants of a moral act, we shall now apply them to war.

xiv.            In every moral act, three elements must be considered: the act-in-itself, the intention and the circumstance.

xv.              Not one of these may be contrary to the morale order if the act is to be considered morally good.

xvi.            Applying these principles to war means that to be just, a war must be good in its object, in its intention, and in its circumstances.

 

1. The war must be good in its object:

xvii.          it means that a war must have a just cause

xviii.        now wars are of two kinds, defensive and offensive.

xix.            A defensive war is just in its cause if it is waged to defend an essential and fundamental right (protection) unjustly denied.

xx.              An offensive war is just in its cause if it is the only means remaining for preserving an essential and fundamental right or justice unjustly denied.

xxi.            It is, of course, here presumed that the war is the last resort in preserving of justice; that every other peaceful means of righting the wrong must have been tried, and the importance of justice is proportional to the gravity of the ills which it would cause.

 

2. The war must be good in its intention:

xxii.          the only intention which can justify war is to promote common good and avoid evil.

xxiii.        The common good here means not exclusively the common good of the individual notion but the common good of the world, because today no nation is hermetically sealed but rather its order and prosperity is bound up inseparable with other nations.

xxiv.        So, though a war was declared by lawful authority or for a just cause, it could become unjust by reason of the wrong intention of the one who waged it.

 

3. The war must be good in its circumstances:

xxv.          a bad method could vitiate a good intention. Meaning that the methods must be justified rightly.

xxvi.        For the methods used for vindicating rights are means to an end, or constitute a relative end, not a final or absolute end.

xxvii.      As a means to an end, the methods for vindicating rights must be lawful and not intrinsically evil act.

 

c) Outline four conditions that characterize the principle of double-effect and its implication in medical ethics.

xxviii.    The question or the principle of double-effect is addressed by moral theologians who make a distinction between premoral or ontic evil and moral evil.

xxix.        It can also be found in Thomas Aquinas' discussion of self-defense, though the systematic formulation is from Jean Pierre Gury (19th) .

Conditions. Theologians commonly teach that four conditions must be verified in order that a person may legitimately perform such an act.

1.             The act itself must be morally good or at least indifferent.

2.             The good effect is not produced by means of the evil effect. The agent may not positively will the bad effect but may merely permit it. If he could attain the good effect without the bad effect, he should do so. The bad effect is sometimes said to be indirectly voluntary. In other words, the good effect must be produced directly by the action, not by the bad effect. Otherwise, the agent would be using a bad means to a good end, which is never allowed.

3.             The evil effect is not directly intended.

4.             A proportionate reason supports causing or tolerate the evil effect. The good effect must be sufficiently desirable to compensate for the allowing of the bad effect.

In medical ethics, the classical example we can use is that of a pregnant woman with a cancerous uterus. If nothing is done, both the mother and the fetus will die. If the uterus is removed, the fetus will die but the mother will live. The principle of double effect allows the uterus to be removed because:

ü  Removing the uterus is a morally indifferent action.

ü  Saving the life of the mother is not produced by means of killing the fetus, but by removing the uterus.

ü  The direct intention is to save the life of the mother.

ü  The proportionate reason is the mother’s life at stake.

Of these four conditions the first two are general rules of morality. A person is never allowed to perform a morally bad action. Nor may one ever positively will an evil effect of an action, even though the act would otherwise be lawful. Thus, a censor of books, who is allowed to read obscene literature, may not take deliberate pleasure in the evil thoughts arising in consequence, though he necessarily permits them to enter his mind. The third and fourth conditions enumerated above pertain specifically to the principle of the double effect.