FORCE AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY

Moral responsibility presupposes that a human act is voluntary. A voluntary act, whether of commission or omission, is one in which the cause or moving principle is within the agent, and one which the agent performs consciously and with awareness of the relevant moral circumstances. A person is therefore morally responsible when he knows what he is doing and is free in the sense that, at least interiorly, he is able to act or not to act.

When something is done through physical force or violence, the source or principle of the act is external to the agent. However, not every action that has its source in an external principle is necessarily to be attributed simply to force. In addition, the will, the intrinsic principle from which human and moral action proceeds, must not concur in what is done. Hence, for an action to be violent or forced, and therefore in no sense morally attributable to an agent, not only must its cause be external, but the agent's will must contribute nothing—indeed, must be opposed to—what is done. A clear instance of such an action would be the case of a man who is pushed and in falling accidentally strikes and injures another. Such an action is not voluntary and involves no moral responsibility.

Force, being physical in nature, cannot directly affect an act of the will itself, which is immaterial in nature. Acts issuing directly from the will itself are interior and are called elicited acts; other acts are under the control of the will, yet are performed by other powers, e.g., the members of the body. These are called commanded acts of the will. Acts elicited by the will are always voluntary. Even God, in moving the will, cannot force its act, for its forced act would be a contradiction, at once voluntary and involuntary.

Acts commanded by the will, however, are subject to physical force. It is with regard to these that the question of responsibility may arise when something is done under force. Clearly, if there is no reasonable way open to resist physical aggression, no responsibility is incurred in passive acquiescence in the action. If the action in question is morally evil, the will in its interior, elicited act should not concur. Whether or not external resistance is to be attempted depends upon particular circumstances and judgment of prudence as to whether resistance would serve any useful purpose.

Actions done because of physical force should be distinguished from actions done out of fear [see fear (moral aspect)] or because of compulsion in the psychological meaning of the term.

Bibliography: thomas aquinas, Summa theologiae 1a2ae, 6.4–5. b. h. merkelbach, Summa theologiae moralis, 3 v. (3d ed. Paris 1938) 1:72–75.

[j. a. oesterle]