291 REASON AND CONSCIENCE

YOUCAT Lesson 291

YOUCAT the catechism for Catholic youth

291  How can a person tell whether his action is good or bad?

A person is capable of distinguishing good actions from bad ones because he possesses reason and a conscience, which enable him to make clear judgments.  [1749-1754, 1757-1758]

Photo: …..Don L. Bragg with Oscar, the golden retriever, in 2008.  I have always prayed that God would give me a heart that would blame me.  So many are the days of my life in which better actions are urged by my conscience. …..291

The following guidelines make it easier to distinguish good actions from bad ones: (1) What I do must be good, a good intention alone is not enough.  Bank robbery is always bad, even if I commit that crime with the good intention of giving the money to poor people.  (2) Even when what I do is truly good, if I perform the good action with a bad intention, it makes the whole action bad.  If I walk an elderly woman home and help her around the house,  that  is good.  But if I do it while planning a later break-in, that makes the whole action something bad.  (3) The circumstances in which someone acts can diminish his responsibility, but they cannot change at all the good or bad character of an action.  Hitting one’s mother is always bad, even if the mother has previously shown little love to the child.  295-297

“In the Christian tradition, ‘conscience’, ‘con-scientia’, means ‘with knowledge’: that is, (we) ourselves, our being is open and can listen to the voice of being itself, the voice of God…In the depths of our being, not only can we listen to the needs of the moment, to material needs, but we can also hear the voice of the Creator himself and thus discern what is good and what is bad.”  Pope Benedict XVI, July 24, 2007

 “His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary.  There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.”  Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes

1749-1754, 1757-1758

ARTICLE 4
THE MORALITY OF HUMAN ACTS

…….1749   Freedom makes man a moral subject. When he acts deliberately, man is, so to speak, the father of his acts. Human acts, that is, acts that are freely chosen in consequence of a judgment of conscience, can be morally evaluated. They are either good or evil. –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

I. THE SOURCES OF MORALITY

…….1750   The morality of human acts depends on:

- the object chosen;

- the end in view or the intention;

- the circumstances of the action.

The object, the intention, and the circumstances make up the "sources," or constitutive elements, of the morality of human acts. –CCC

…….1751   The object chosen is a good toward which the will deliberately directs itself. It is the matter of a human act. The object chosen morally specifies the act of the will, insofar as reason recognizes and judges it to be or not to be in conformity with the true good. Objective norms of morality express the rational order of good and evil, attested to by conscience. –CCC

…….1752   In contrast to the object, the intention resides in the acting subject. Because it lies at the voluntary source of an action and determines it by its end, intention is an element essential to the moral evaluation of an action. The end is the first goal of the intention and indicates the purpose pursued in the action. The intention is a movement of the will toward the end: it is concerned with the goal of the activity. It aims at the good anticipated from the action undertaken. Intention is not limited to directing individual actions, but can guide several actions toward one and the same purpose; it can orient one's whole life toward its ultimate end. For example, a service done with the end of helping one's neighbor can at the same time be inspired by the love of God as the ultimate end of all our actions. One and the same action can also be inspired by several intentions, such as performing a service in order to obtain a favor or to boast about it. --CCC

…….1753   A good intention (for example, that of helping one's neighbor) does not make behavior that is intrinsically disordered, such as lying and calumny, good or just. The end does not justify the means. Thus the condemnation of an innocent person cannot be justified as a legitimate means of saving the nation. On the other hand, an added bad intention (such as vainglory) makes an act evil that, in and of itself, can be good (such as almsgiving). ( Compare Matthew 6:24.)³⁹ –CCC

…….1754   The circumstances, including the consequences, are secondary elements of a moral act. They contribute to increasing or diminishing the moral goodness or evil of human acts (for example, the amount of a theft). They can also diminish or increase the agent's responsibility (such as acting out of a fear of death). Circumstances of themselves cannot change the moral quality of acts themselves; they can make neither good nor right an action that is in itself evil. --CCC

IN BRIEF

…….1757   The object, the intention, and the circumstances make up the three "sources" of the morality of human acts. –CCC

…….1758   The object chosen morally specifies the act of willing accordingly as reason recognizes and judges it good or evil. --CCC