The phrase ‘determinants of morality’ generally appears in old accounts of morality. It discusses the extent of accountability or culpability of a moral agent for his wrong action. In many situations, an individual who commits an offence is obviously guilty. But there may be valid reasons on account of which the wrong doer may be fully or partially freed of responsibility for his wrong deed. Before discussing the determinants of morality, we need to briefly discuss this aspect.
The judgement of rightness and wrongness can be passed only on those actions which are voluntary. They have to be willed by the doer or intended by him. Sometimes, an action may occur without premeditation as when a gun goes off accidentally. The concerned may be not held accountable except perhaps for negligence.
A moral agent’s act is voluntary, if it is based on adequate knowledge and is fully willed. Whatever diminishes knowledge, or partially supplants the will, takes off from the voluntariness of the act. Three considerations are seen as reducing the voluntariness of the act – ignorance, uncontrollable emotion and fear. Now we will consider the three factors briefly.
If an act is done through ignorance, it goes out of the realm of volition. Nothing unknown can be willed. Of course, affected or pretended ignorance cannot be an excuse. When someone knows or should know that people are suffering, as when they are starving, he cannot claim ignorance. His claim is pretence. There is also crass ignorance which is when an individual takes no pains to gain knowledge in an area which is important to him. Thus, if administrators take no pains to learn about important areas of their work, they are guilty of crass ignorance. On the other hand, uneducated
rural women with little access to information can be considered genuinely ignorant. One should remember that ignorance can never be an excuse for violations of law.
If a moral agent is overcome by emotions and loses control over his will, then his action becomes involuntary. This is a factor taken into account in law as when a criminal is given a lower sentence if he commits a crime under sudden and grave provocation. Moral thinkers argue that passions are held in check by an individual’s will and reason. When passions overpower the will, the action becomes involuntary. However, an individual has to rein in his emotions, and cannot let them go haywire. This will not be an excuse except in rare cases.
Finally, men may be driven into involuntary acts under duress or threats of violence. If someone holds a gun to the cashier’s head and the cashier parts with money, evidently the cashier’s act is involuntary. He incurs no guilt for the act though he did physically handover the cash.
Moral thinkers discuss this question to determine when acts are voluntary and when individuals can claim exemption from moral responsibility for their actions. We have considered the question from a general perspective. The question can be discussed also in relation to specific actions. The morality of any action is determined by three elements, the end in view, the means used, and the circumstances that accompany the taking of the means. These three aspects of an action need to be examined in order to determine whether an action is right or wrong. This is the general approach, and the answer in any particular case will need detailed analysis. In what follows, we discuss the determinants of morality of individual actions based on the account given by Patrick J. Sheeran in Ethics in Public Administration: A Philosophical Approach. This account uses slightly different terminology largely derived from the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas.
For morally evaluating an action, this account divides it into three parts: the object of the action; the circumstances under which an action takes place; and the purpose of the action.
Every action has an object which is its nature or essence. We need to note that this definition varies from the common meaning of ‘object’ in modern usage. One meaning of ‘object’ is target or victim or recipient, as in target of unfair criticism. Another meaning of ‘object’ is purpose, intention or aim.
But in Sheeran’s list of the three parts of an action, its purpose is separately mentioned as the third part. This approach of Sheeran in defining ‘object’ is that of scholasticism which following Aristotle defined objects, beings and things in terms of their essence. He defines an action as its essence or object. Readers may be unfamiliar with this terminology, but the ideas it conveys are fairly simple.
Every action has an object which defines it and sets it off from other actions. The object can be good, bad and indifferent i.e. neither good nor bad. Telling truth is good; uttering falsehood is wrong. Truth by its very nature is good; and lying by its very nature is bad.
The three principles which apply to any action are listed below:
1. An action whose object is by nature is bad will always remain so. Neither circumstance nor intention nor purpose can in any way alter the inherent or intrinsic badness of an action whose object is bad. As object here means essence, an act whose essential nature is bad will always retain its bad quality. From this angle, no circumstances or purposes can change the nature of a lie.
2. An action which is good can become bad because of circumstances or intention. Sex in wedlock for procreation is good. But having ‘relationships’ or flings or affairs is bad. For in the latter, the circumstances change and make a good thing bad.
3. An action that is indifferent (neither good nor bad) can become good or bad depending on circumstances or purpose. Running by itself is neither good nor bad. But a run to an ATM to rob it is bad. If the run is into a house on fire to rescue trapped children, it is good.
By circumstances, we mean those features which lend abstract actions their individual, concrete content. They refer to the time and place of an action, to the agent carrying out the action and to the manner of doing the act. The rightness or wrongness of actions depends not on physical but moral circumstances. Opening a bank safe for withdrawing cash for normal transactions is a normal function; but opening a bank safe for theft is immoral (and a crime).
Some circumstances aggravate or increase the badness of an action. Misappropriating Rs 20, 000 from a widow’s account is much worse than misappropriating the same amount from a rich stockbroker’s account. Badness of an action gets aggravated in the former instance. There can also be extenuating circumstances which reduce the evil character of actions. If a robber acts like Robin Hood by stealing from the rich to help the poor, his robberies become less immoral. But in both examples, the actions retain their immoral character.
Circumstances are specifying when they make indifferent actions good or bad or impart a new type of goodness or badness to an action. Thus, when someone throws stones at random without aiming at any one, his actions are indifferent. But if he throws stones with a view to hit a dog or a cat, his action is immoral.
The end is the purpose that moral agents have in mind while performing an act or their intention in doing it. An action may have a single or multiple ends.
The manner in which purpose impacts the ethics of an action is outlined below.
1. An indifferent act becomes good or bad depending on its purpose. One may acquire computer skills to play games and while away time. This action is morally neutral. One may learn computer skills to help an old age home in its work. This is a good thing to do. One may learn computer skills with a view to hacking bank accounts. This is immoral.
2. An action that has a good object can become more or less good because of its purposes. If one gives a subscription to a deserving cause, it is a good action. But if one does it merely to get rid of the person seeking subscription, the action is not as good as before. If one gives the subscription with a view to later inciting the person seeking subscription into undesirable activities, the action is immoral.
3. An action which is inherently wrong may become a greater or lesser wrong depending on the purpose of the moral agent. Telling a lie is wrong. But telling lies to falsely implicate someone in a crime is a far greater wrong. But if someone lies to help an innocent man in trouble, the action is still wrong, but its gravity gets lessened. As before, an inherently wrong act can never become good. Further, bad means cannot be used to secure good ends. Both
ends and means have to be good. To put matters in homely terms: A rotten apple stays more or less rotten. A good apple may become rotten. A nondescript apple may turn out to be good or bad.
