All actions of man belong to two broad categories-his rational nature and his irrational acts. In rational nature, all actions of man done with some measure of knowledge and free consent are taken into account, whereas, the irrational acts lack this fundamental quality of rationality. The act of staying from all bad qualities is in fact a rational decision which man takes, due to his knowledge of repercussions and his own free will. If he commits the mistake of taking in the bad qualities he is mot acting in a rational manner.
Rationality can further be divided into a `biological action’ that involves any bodily function and `human act’ that is done with full knowledge and freedom.
A moral act
A moral action is a human action that involves a clear determination between the goodness and badness of any ethical issue involved. An action that is in conformity with the moral law is a morally sound action. On the other hand an act going contrary to the moral law is a morally evil act.
The act of always speaking the truth is a morally sound act while the act of lies belongs to the letter category. All acts of human beings develop the individual in some way or other. The moral act makes him morally sound while an immoral act takes him to the opposite direction.
Since the presence of knowledge and freedom is essential for an act to be a rational act, the degree of merit or guilt in performing the act will also depend on the extent of true knowledge and freedom that the individual possessed while doing the act.
What is morality?
Morality is a quality that is present in any true human act, determining its goodness or badness. Taking care of one’s aged parents is a good act. Reading novels when one is supposed to be working is a bad act.
The person for making such judgments is the conviction that want we do or omit doing affects our relationship with God. Since only those acts, are more moral of which we are aware of and which we freely perform, morality is obviously a condition or quality that our acts have. The have the quality of goodness or badness because of the human exercise of a choice.
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