Having seen all these, the decision to be moral or immoral is resolved starting from early childhood even before awareness has properly developed. So, unless unselfishness is removed during infancy by enforcing a code of discipline, the subsequent adults must become selfish, and thus immoral.

Also, fathers exercise better control than mothers, they invoke fear and enforce discipline in the child and are more difficult to be manipulated through emotional appeal.

1.4    kinds of Morality

1.4.1 Rational Morality:

This is the idea of morality as innate or self-evident, based on reason. Thus, morality is necessarily one of self-interest and looks at man’s nature and the reason; he needs values known as a moral code that must be practiced to reach those values. Rational morality asserts that all other “views” of morality are subjective and require some sort of sacrifice, either to the supernatural (i.e. God) or collective motive, where as proper morality is self-evident and in the interest of the individual’s happiness and self-evident.

However, this has been criticized; Churian objectivists are one group that opposes the idea of rational morality. They believed in the fact that without objective standard morality, rationality is simply personal opinion. The human choice to do “right” is guided by values, but the determination of value, an objectivist would argue that it cannot come from reason alone.

1.4.2 Morality in Judicial Systems

The government of South Africa is attempting to create a moral Regeneration movement. Part of this is a proposed Bill of morals that will bring biblical based ‘moral code’ into the realm of law. Though this move by nominally secular democracy has attracted relatively little criticism. In judicial systems, the word morality concretely means a requirement for the assessment of certain charges or careers, or for the obtaining of certain licenses or concessions, and generally consists of the absence of previous records, for instance, crimes, political or commercial irregularities.

1.4.3       Morality and Darwinism

Some evolutionary psychologists have argued that human morality originated from evolutionary processes. As this could be experienced in their innate tendency to develop a sense of right and wrong in a species with complex social interactions, and doctrines. Selected behaviours, seen in abstraction as moral codes are seen to be common to all human cultures, and it reflects in their development and similarities to natural selection. These aspects of morality can be seen as the basis of some religious doctrine. From this, some also argue that there may be a simple Darwinian explanation for the existence of religion. Such that regardless of the validity of religious beliefs, religion tends to encourage behaviour beneficial to the species, as a code of morality tends to encourage communality, and communality tends to assist survival.

1.4.4       Nietzsche’s Morality:

He derived the notion that there is a universal and absolute system of morality that everybody must obey. To say this is to disregard the uniqueness of individuals. There are, says Nietzsche a “Twofold early history of good and evil”3, which shows the development of two primary types of morality, namely master morality and slave morality. Nietzsche totally rejects the negative values or virtues of the “slave morality”, as virtues that turn men into weaklings. In other ways, they are evil or morally bad for Nietzsche rather pride, violence, ruthless struggle, ambition, display of power, strength, vitality, egoism, and so on, are the virtues and what is morally good for “master morality”.

Nietzsche rejects such Christian virtues, which he calls slave morality like humility, meekness, self-denial, prudence, patience, and so on. and this is the point of similarity between him and Machiavellians. He was influenced by Darwin’s evolution theory according to which all living beings have to struggle for existence.

Finally, morality can be defined in two fold manner; descriptive and Normative. In the descriptive sense; it refers to that code of conduct that is put forward by a society. Though for anthropologists, it does not simply mean that always. In a normative sense, “It is a science that gives rules for acting, especially if these norms have to do with a person’s inner goodness and perfection rather than with making of external objects”4. The only feature that the descriptive and normative senses of “morality” have in common is that they guide our behaviours.

1.5     Conditions Affecting Morality:

Here, we are only responsible before God only for truly human act that is those where knowledge and free will play part. In a situation where freedom and free will are not involved, we do not have a human act but only an act of man or woman. It is easy enough to agree that the act of murder is bad, but just how guilty the murderer is before God is difficult to answer. The objective goodness or badness of an act is one thing; the subjective accountability of the actor is another.

There are seven particular conditions which may lessen or remove moral responsibility entirely: ignorance, fear, concupiscence, violence, habit, temperament, and nervous mental disorders. Let us examine some of them:

Ignorance: This is lack of knowledge in a person capable of knowing. We are responsible in some cases for knowledge; in other cases, we are not. There are different types of ignorance;

Vincible Ignorance: is that which can and should be dispelled. It implies culpable negligence, meaning that the person could know and ought to know. There are three main types of vincible ignorance: simple vincible ignorance, affected or studied vincible ignorance and crass vincible ignorance.

Simple Vincible Ignorance: is present when one makes some effort, but not a sufficient effort, to dispel the ignorance. A nurse who is unsure of what dosage of medicine to give to a patient refers to the doctor’s order sheet, but is unable to read his writing. Though the doctor is in the office, she does not bother to call him. In guessing at the dosage to give to the patient, the nurse is guilty of simple vincible ignorance.

Affected Vincible Ignorance: is that which is deliberately fostered in order to avoid any obligation that knowledge might bring to light. For example, a person suspects that it is seriously wrong to absent from Mass deliberately on Sunday, but he makes no effort to find out the truth.

Crass Vincible Ignorance: is that which results from total lack of effort to acquire the lacking knowledge due to laziness. A clerk in a convenience store does not know the price of an article brought to the checkout counter. The owner is in the back of the store, but the clerk does not want to bother the owner to find out the price of the product. So he makes up a price and charges the customer that amount.

Invincible Ignorance: is that which cannot be dispelled either because the individual is unable to secure adequate information, even after a reasonable effort, or because he simply does not know that there is any problem. In other word, he is ignorant of this ignorance. The person cannot be expected to take steps to enlighten himself because he is unaware that he is in need of enlightenment. For example, an employee customarily tells lies by way of making excuses for minor faults and feels that, since they harm no one, they are in no way sinful. He is not aware that he needs enlightenment on this matter. Another individual may be confused in mind about a project, but after having made a reasonable effort to dispel his ignorance, and having failed to do so, he may proceed to act since once a reasonable effort to dispel his ignorance, and having failed to do so, he may proceed to act since once a reasonable effort has been made, the ignorance is invincible.

We may sum up the moral principles concerning ignorance by stating that invincible ignorance eliminates responsibility while vincible ignorance lessens responsibility without actually eliminating it.

Concupiscence: is a tendency of human nature towards evil. Is equally the rebellion of the passions against reason. There are times when we feel strongly drawn to do something that we know would cause nothing but sorrow and regret to all concerned, even to ourselves, and yet we are strongly tempted to do it. Just like St. Paul said, “I cannot understand even my own actions. I do not do what I want to do but what I hate” (Romans 7:15).under here, we may have love, fear, hatred, joy, grief, desire, aversion, hop, despair, and anger.

Habit: The voluntary nature of human actions is also affected by habit, which is an inclination to perform some particular action. It is usually acquired by repetition and characterized by a decreased power of resistance and an increased facility of performance. A habit is sometimes called “second nature”, meaning it is deeply ingrained in an individual as a result of constant repetition.

1.6     Principles for Judging Morality

In judging the morality of a specific action, some fundamental principles must be applied. They include;

1.     An act is morally good if the act itself, the purpose of the act, and the circumstances of the act are substantially good. We say “substantially” good because an act may have minor shortcomings or defects and still be a truly good act. A person who declined to steal from an employer out of fear of being caught than because stealing is wrong performs a good act, but not for the best of motives.

2.     If an act is intrinsically evil, the act is not morally allowable regardless of purpose or circumstances. Murder, abortion, rape, adultery, racism are always evil. They are never allowed as a solution to a problem, no matter how serious the problem.

3.     If an act is itself morally good or at least indifferent, its’ morality will be judged by the purpose or the circumstances. For instance, going to the bank is in itself indifferent. If a person is going to the bank to withdraw his money through legal means, he is doing something good. But, if he is going to the bank to steal money, then he is doing something morally evil.

4.     The circumstances may create, mitigate or aggravate sin like studying your book in preparation for examination is good thing, but becoming so engrossed in the book that one neglects to take care of a sick person is morally wrong.

5.     There are three moral elements (the act itself, the purpose, and the circumstances) that make an act morally good. If any one element is evil, the act is evil. A child who never does anything wrong except disobeying the teacher, is not a good person.

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