50 Moral Philosophy: Ideas of Good and Evil, Right and Wrongissue, freedom can be lessened because your emotions obscure
the issue of choice. Interestingly, your emotional involvement
will increase voluntarism.
Of the three criteria of a moral act, knowledge, voluntarism,
and freedom, voluntarism is most important in that there are
consequences that follow voluntary acts. The consequences
are— simply put—responsibility. There is responsibility in the
actor, imputability in the act, and merit in both. That is, the actor
is responsible, in a positive or negative sense, for his action. The
act cannot be recalled; it produces a positive or negative result.
There is merit in both the actor and the act, but of major
significance is the concept of intent. Intent is the primary
determiner of whether the actor and the act has merit. Any good
act, performed with knowledge, voluntarism, and freedom, can
have a bad result. The result cannot be changed— but if the intent
was good, the moral worth of the actor is not diminished.
There are, however, modifiers of responsibility. Ignorance,
passion, fear, force, and habit can alter an individual’s responsi
bility for his moral acts.
There can be no voluntarism where there is complete igno
rance. Also, there are two kinds of ignorance, vincible and
invincible. Invincible ignorance is that ignorance which cannot
be overcome, either because the person involved does not know
he’s ignorant, or if he does know, cannot find the information to
correct the problem. Vincible ignorance is ignorance which can
be overcome by obtaining the requisite information. The amount
of effort in proportion to the person’s ability to overcome his
ignorance is the determining factor of responsibility.
A person who is truly ignorant, is invincibly ignorant, has no
responsibility. A person who buys a stolen piece of property
from a reputable store cannot be held morally culpable. Invin
cible ignorance destroys responsibility.
Vincible ignorance does not destroy responsibility, but it can
lessen responsibility. If, for example, a person is ignorant and
does not make sufficient efforts to educate himself, the conse
quences of his action are, in effect, his responsibility. Certainly
he is not responsible to the extent of one who has full knowledge,
but is responsible to the extent that the consequences of igno
rance could have been avoided. If a person who is not prepared
to fly an airplane takes a rider up with him before he is in full