In General Ethics we learn about the three parts of a moral act. There is the action, which is what you actually do, and this is more external. Then there is the intention, what you intend, and that is more internal. Lastly there are the circumstances, which can be internal or external. A moral act is one that is good or bad, we did something good or bad. Moral acts are always done by beings with intelligence. Animals don’t have reason so they don’t have moral acts. They act according to their instincts and circumstances or the influences from outside but they do not choose good or evil.
Men choose good and evil and that balance of a good or bad act comes in the first two things I mentioned, action and intention. If that sounds like a lot let’s try to clarify with an example.
The sharp eyed hunter.
Ralph goes out hunting in the woods for deer. He gets to his stand and after waiting a while he spots a deer with a huge rack of antlers in a bush. He waits for it to get out of the bush and when he has a clear shot he takes it and kills the deer.
Now let’s take some other factors into the equation. Ralph is on some leased land of his used specifically for hunting. It is deer season and he has all the proper licenses and such. Ralph is also a very responsible hunter and always uses the venison from his hunts for himself and his family to eat.
So, the three parts of this moral act were, 1. The action (firing the gun) 2. The intention (killing a deer to feed himself and his family) 3. Circumstances (Lots of things but important ones are having a clear shot, needing food for his family, hunting in the proper place, etc.)
Was this a morally good act? Yes, it was. It is a good thing for Ralph to provide for his family.
Now, let’s change it up a bit. Let’s suppose that the deer that Ralph shot at was actually a deer rights activist who had a very lifelike deer model that she hid in the bush and then she waited for Ralph to get to his hunting spot and she tricked him into shooting at what he thought was a deer but in reality was her,hiding behind the lifelike deer. So when he shot he actually killed the deer activist. She recorded the whole thing and intended to have it shown to the public to stop people from hunting deer.
Was that a good act or a bad act? Well, it would still be a morally good act. It would not be good for the deer activist to get shot but Ralph had no way of knowing she was there. All the things that made it a morally good act before still apply.
Now, if Ralph knew that she was there and his intention was to shoot her and make it look like an accident, then that would be a morally bad act.
Why am I going back and forth through all of this? The part I especially want to emphasize is the intention, that second part of the equation. The same action can be good or evil based purely on the intention of the one who does the act. In the court system we see something similar because there are different degrees of murder. Not everyone who kills another person thought it out and planned it.
Now, the extremes of the example are probably not in our day to day life, but the same thing still applies. When you do a kind act for your wife is it motivated by self interest or is it done purely out of love? When a child does well in school to get good grades is it to improve and obey his teachers and parents or is it simply so that he can get a new video game or cell phone? One of the more difficult things is that we can have multiple intentions behind what we do.
One of the biggest traps to fall into when seeking to be virtuous and holy is that of pride. It is a subtle form of pride but one that the devil is a master at using on us. He first tries to get us to sin outright but when we are set on the path of virtue and sanctity he tries another tactic. He lets us do all those same actions (first part of the equation) but then he corrupts the intention (second part of the equation). I go to mass not to please God and love him but so that I am seen as the proper Christian father that is the image I want to cultivate.
Of course, this is the difference that separates the saints from the rest of the pack but I would venture to say that 97% of us have at least a degree of self love and pride in all the actions we do to seek virtue. And unfortunately this comes from my own experience of looking at why I do the things I do.
Sometimes we get so caught up in the act we are carrying out that we forget to examine our conscience and look at why we actually did that thing. Our true intention for everything needs to be love of Christ and others. Not only because that is the best intention but also because it is the only one that will last forever. We can fool ourselves for a while with airs and selfish reasonings, but in the end if we are not motivated by love for a person, by Christ our Brother and Lord, then as St. Paul says, “I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” (1 Cor 13:1)