Catechism of the Catholic Church · Part Three › Section One › Chapter One · Article 4 (§§1749–1761)
Paragraphs · 13
The Catechism's text is under copyright, so each paragraph is quoted briefly here with a link to the full text at vatican.va.
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.vatican.va
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.vatican.va
- §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.vatican.va
- §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.vatican.va
- §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.vatican.va
- §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).vatican.va
II. Good Acts and Evil Acts
- §1755 — A morally good act requires the goodness of the object, of the end, and of the circumstances together. An evil end corrupts the action, even if the object is good in itself (such as praying and fasting "in order to be seen by men").vatican.va
- §1756 — It is therefore an error to judge the morality of human acts by considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances (environment, social pressure, duress or emergency, etc.)vatican.va
In Brief
- §1757 — The object, the intention, and the circumstances make up the three "sources" of the morality of human acts.vatican.va
- §1758 — The object chosen morally specifies the act of willing accordingly as reason recognizes and judges it good or evil.vatican.va
- §1759 — "An evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention" (cf St. Thomas Aquinas, Dec. praec. 6). the end does not justify the means.vatican.va
- §1760 — A morally good act requires the goodness of its object, of its end, and of its circumstances together.vatican.va
- §1761 — , a moral evil. One may not do evil so that good may result from it.vatican.va