HUMAN ACTS

• Actions constitute a person, an

individual in control of himself and
accountable to himself.

• What a person is and what becomes

of him depend largely on the type of
actions he performs during his life-
time.
• Distinction is made between human
acts and acts of man.

• The human acts are those actions

which man performs knowingly,
freely and voluntarily.
• These actions are the result of
conscious knowledge and are subject
to the control of the will. We refer to
these actions as
DELIBERATE,INTENTIONAL OR
VOLUNTARY.
• The acts of man are those actions
which happen in man. They are
instinctive and are not within the
control of the will. Such actions are
the biological and physiological
movements in man such as,
metabolism, respiration, fear, anger,
love and jealousy.
 ESSENTIAL ATTRIBUTES

• For an act to be considered a human

act, it must possess the following
characteristics:
• It must be performed by a conscious
agent who is aware of what he is
doing and of its consequences.
Children below the age of reason, the
insane and the senile – are
considered incapable of acting
knowingly.
• It must be performed by an agent
who is acting freely, that is by his
own volition and powers. An action
done under duress and against one’s
will is not entirely a free action.
• It must be performed by an agent
who decides wilfully to perform the
act. This willfullness is the resolve to
perform an act here and now, or in
some future time.
• Human acts must, therefore, be
knowing, free and willfull. The lack
of any of these attributes
 KINDS OF HUMAN ACTS

• Human acts are either elicited acts or

commanded acts. Elicited acts are
those performed by the will and are
not bodily externalized:
• Wish is the tendency of will towards
something whether this be realizable
or not. The object of wishing may
include the impossible, or that which
is remotely possible, such as winning
the sweepstakes.