What is culpability?

[OneSheep]

Inadvertence causes always innocence.

Good Morning KD,

So, can you give an example of a person sinning, and inadvertence is not a factor?

Thanks

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Perhaps this discussion would be theologically clearer if it was accepted that imputability is a better word than culpability when discussing this issue from a traditional Catholic moral theology perspective OS.

Then we can move away from the external blame thing and see sin as freely chosen objectively disordered act against creation itself, whether anyone is there to blame us or not.

 

[OneSheep]

Perhaps this discussion would be theologically clearer if it was accepted that imputability is a better word than culpability when discussing this issue from a traditional Catholic moral theology perspective OS.

Then we can move away from the external blame thing and see sin as freely chosen objectively disordered act against creation itself, whether anyone is there to blame us or not.

Excellent, Blue Horizon!

Great word, says it much better than “culpability”.

Thanks!

 

[Vico]

Perhaps this discussion would be theologically clearer if it was accepted that imputability is a better word than culpability when discussing this issue from a traditional Catholic moral theology perspective OS.

Then we can move away from the external blame thing and see sin as freely chosen objectively disordered act against creation itself, whether anyone is there to blame us or not.

Except that it would be off topic for “What is culpability?”

 

[OneSheep]

Except that it would be off topic for “What is culpability?”

Actually, Vico, it is definitely on-topic!

If we keep “culpability” as simple “blame”, as the label we use when we are blaming someone, then we can limit the definition to a single item.

Then,when we want to describe the case where someone did an act, but there is no emotional blaming going on, the word “imputable” applies. That way, we have a word, "imputable to cover for number 1 here:

Culpable:

1. A non-emotional identification of a culprit. The identification of person or persons who committed an act contrary to law, commandment, or mores. Imputable.
2. An emotionally-charged label put upon someone by individual who has witnessed an act that has elicited anger or resentment in that individual. Closely associated with hatred, the label “culpable”, when coupled with emotional responses, is a perception of lack of value in another person due to their behaviors. For application to the self, see: guilt
3. An emotionally negative identification which, when sustained over time, is a hindrance to fulfillment and runs contrary to metanoia. The finding of the culpable is a condition resolved through understanding and forgiveness.

 

[fhansen]

Hi Folks,

Here is the Catholic definition:

CULPABLE
Definition

Morally responsible for an evil action. Culpability assumes sufficient awareness and (internal) consent to the evil done. It is identified with formal guilt or sin. (Etym. Latin culpabilis, blameworthy; from culpare, to blame.)

The etymology is “blameworthy”, worthy of blame. A paradox begins to come into play, because we are called to understand and forgive. In the process of understanding, we can come to see that people do not know what they are doing when they sin; they are blind or ignorant. However, the definition of culpable assumes “sufficient awareness”, and if we want to find a person culpable, we resist understanding such blindness or ignorance.

Therefore, does the definition itself discourage understanding? If so, does the definition contradict the call to forgive? Does a designation of “blameworthiness” give us permission to blame? After all, are there not many discussions about when a person is/is not “culpable”?

Why can’t a blameworthy person also be forgiven? There’s really nothing to forgive anyway if the person isn’t culpable. But are you saying that humans *never *have a choice? That every atrocity committed *had *to happen? The perpetrator(s) could not have chosen to do otherwise?

And Jesus doesn’t say that *all *are ignorant, and therefore non-culpable:
"Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains” John 9:41

 

[Vico]

Actually, Vico, it is definitely on-topic!

If we keep “culpability” as simple “blame”, as the label we use when we are blaming someone, then we can limit the definition to a single item.

Then,when we want to describe the case where someone did an act, but there is no emotional blaming going on, the word “imputable” applies. That way, we have a word, "imputable to cover for number 1 here:

Culpable:

1. A non-emotional identification of a culprit. The identification of person or persons who committed an act contrary to law, commandment, or mores. Imputable.
2. An emotionally-charged label put upon someone by individual who has witnessed an act that has elicited anger or resentment in that individual. Closely associated with hatred, the label “culpable”, when coupled with emotional responses, is a perception of lack of value in another person due to their behaviors. For application to the self, see: guilt
3. An emotionally negative identification which, when sustained over time, is a hindrance to fulfillment and runs contrary to metanoia. The finding of the culpable is a condition resolved through understanding and forgiveness.

• Culpability: The state of being culpable.
  Culpable: Deserving censure; worthy of blame; faulty; immoral; criminal.
• Imputability: The quality of being imputable; imputableness.
  Imputable: That may be imputed; capable of being imputed; chargeable; ascribable; attributable; referable…

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary,

 

[OneSheep]

Good Morning, fhansen

Why can’t a blameworthy person also be forgiven? There’s really nothing to forgive anyway if the person isn’t culpable.

Correct.

But are you saying that humans *never *have a choice? That every atrocity committed *had *to happen? The perpetrator(s) could not have chosen to do otherwise?

You might check my OP as far as what I am saying. If a person wants to stay with the label “culpable” concerning someone whom the hold something against, they may see fit to stay with the mindset that the labelled person had “sufficient awareness”. Since understanding is a process by which such “sufficient awareness” is found absent, the person is stuck with the label unless they are willing to let go of the finding of “sufficient awareness”.

The issue is prominent because one of the most common condemnations of others is “he should have known better”.

Humans always have the ability to choice within the limits of their own awareness. What we do not know in a real way, we cannot choose. “Knowing” is much more than “hearing”.

And Jesus doesn’t say that *all *are ignorant, and therefore non-culpable:
"Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains” John 9:41

This verse is very complicated, fhansen. For example, they claimed that they could see, but could they see? No. Yet Jesus says “If you were blind”, implying that they are not. The Pharisees claimed that what they were doing was righteous. Were they seeing the truth? On the other hand, if they realized that they were blind, yet behaved the same way, they would have been irrational, or still quite blind, blind to the disvalue of their blindness. Did the Pharisees see God and humanity the way that Jesus did? Absolutely not.

Do we ever sin against that which we see value? No, except for when we see more value in the sin. This is blindness.

Thanks for your response!

 

[OneSheep]

• Culpability: The state of being culpable.
  Culpable: Deserving censure; worthy of blame; faulty; immoral; criminal.
• Imputability: The quality of being imputable; imputableness.
  Imputable: That may be imputed; capable of being imputed; chargeable; ascribable; attributable; referable…

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary,

Hi Vico,

It’s been awhile, so I’ll repeat the issue with this. “Blame” is an emotional reaction, the root of the word has to do with “speak evil of someone”. If the a person is “blameworthy”, and this is not presented as an illusion, a label used by the blamer in a temporary state of non-forgiveness, then “blameworthiness” itself is presented as a reality, a label to uphold.

If, on the other hand, a person finds that the imputable person did not have “sufficient awareness”, this would involve understanding. And you might remember that all sin involves people who do not have sufficient awareness, at least at the time the bad choice is made.

Do you remember the case you presented? He wanted to behave one way but was choosing to do another. He was irrational; this is hardly a matter of “sufficient awareness”. Concupiscence ordinarily alters a person’s mind such that they believe the behavior they are doing is the best in the moment. The person you described did not see that his behavior was the best at the moment, but did it anyway (which more closely describes a person who is mentally ill).

And look at the main media-covered event of this week. We can say that the mass-murderer knew what he was doing, that he was culpable. On the other hand, he was probably in the mental state such that he was destroying what he saw as evil, which ironically was a part of himself that he condemned (his “shadow”). This is not “sufficient awareness” to have made an objectively better choice, so by the Catholic definition he was not culpable (IMO, of course, given the probability I presented).

The person who remains angry at the killer (which is very understandable) will see him as worthy of blame, and will understandably see fit to “speak evil” of the man. The person who has forgiven will see the killer as imputable, but has let go of emotional blame.

Does that example help describe the problem at hand?

 

[fhansen]

Good Morning, fhansen

Correct.

You might check my OP as far as what I am saying. If a person wants to stay with the label “culpable” concerning someone whom the hold something against, they may see fit to stay with the mindset that the labelled person had “sufficient awareness”. Since understanding is a process by which such “sufficient awareness” is found absent, the person is stuck with the label unless they are willing to let go of the finding of “sufficient awareness”.

The issue is prominent because one of the most common condemnations of others is “he should have known better”.

Humans always have the ability to choice within the limits of their own awareness. What we do not know in a real way, we cannot choose. “Knowing” is much more than “hearing”.

This verse is very complicated, fhansen. For example, they claimed that they could see, but could they see? No. Yet Jesus says “If you were blind”, implying that they are not. The Pharisees claimed that what they were doing was righteous. Were they seeing the truth? On the other hand, if they realized that they were blind, yet behaved the same way, they would have been irrational, or still quite blind, blind to the disvalue of their blindness. Did the Pharisees see God and humanity the way that Jesus did? Absolutely not.

Do we ever sin against that which we see value? No, except for when we see more value in the sin. This is blindness.

Thanks for your response!

And yet man very often has more control over his choices and actions then you seem to admit.The Church even teaches that we can be responsible for our ignorance, that we can *prefer *untruth to truth, carrying on that family tradition first instituted by our first parents. And I believe that this is what the Pharisees were guilty of, and why Jesus railed against them the way He did. You simply cannot remove moral responsibility from humans without doing them the disservice of denying them correction, of denying them conviction of sin. When free from the onus for the need to grow in perfection and righteousness we probably, simply, won’t.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

The difficulty I see with the discussion to date is that it is shackled somewhat by understanding sin through a human-relationship analogy and therefore somewhat anthropromorphic understandings of God.

Yet the Church/Tradition has always maintained re sin that there are two sides to this coin.

Sin is not simply disobeying a subjective verbal word/law (which some would maintain could be a completely immoral and arbitrary command from “God” addressed to us in a private revelation).

Aquinas puts it well when he says that sinful deeds are always against reason.
This is the objective side. That is, disobeying a “law” that is written into creation itself - including our own human nature. This is not a personal, verbal command but a “command” of nature itself as created by God. It is freely choosing known disordered acts. In traditional moral theology this is the three fonts analysis well explained in the CCC.
Seriously disordered acts are known as “grave matter” and these are defined in two ways: by revelation (the Commandments); and also by God-given natural power of reason applied to creation (eg the civil Code of Hammurabi is an example even prior to Moses).
The other two fonts apply to the imputability of the action to the heart of the agent. If freely chosen with full knowledge of the disorder then we have full imputability (culpability). If not, then we have a temporal transgression with temporal effects - but no eternal offence before God and no eternal effects.

That is how sincere unbelievers, who know no God, can still be rightly condemned for their actions against reason and against created nature.

All wrong is against Law.
But there are at least two types of law: one verbal (revelation) and one natural (the intrinsic “laws” of created nature). One we see as subjective and personal, the other is objective and mechanical karma (you jump off a cliff you die). In God they are consistent and in fact the same.

For mere mortals, we see them as different things. Sometimes we think they are so different as to be in contradiction. This cannot be so, at least not according to Catholic Tradition. We hold them to be but different sides of the one coin.

 

[Vico]

Hi Vico,

It’s been awhile, so I’ll repeat the issue with this. “Blame” is an emotional reaction, the root of the word has to do with “speak evil of someone”. If the a person is “blameworthy”, and this is not presented as an illusion, a label used by the blamer in a temporary state of non-forgiveness, then “blameworthiness” itself is presented as a reality, a label to uphold.

If, on the other hand, a person finds that the imputable person did not have “sufficient awareness”, this would involve understanding. And you might remember that all sin involves people who do not have sufficient awareness, at least at the time the bad choice is made.

Do you remember the case you presented? He wanted to behave one way but was choosing to do another. He was irrational; this is hardly a matter of “sufficient awareness”. Concupiscence ordinarily alters a person’s mind such that they believe the behavior they are doing is the best in the moment. The person you described did not see that his behavior was the best at the moment, but did it anyway (which more closely describes a person who is mentally ill).

And look at the main media-covered event of this week. We can say that the mass-murderer knew what he was doing, that he was culpable. On the other hand, he was probably in the mental state such that he was destroying what he saw as evil, which ironically was a part of himself that he condemned (his “shadow”). This is not “sufficient awareness” to have made an objectively better choice, so by the Catholic definition he was not culpable (IMO, of course, given the probability I presented).

The person who remains angry at the killer (which is very understandable) will see him as worthy of blame, and will understandably see fit to “speak evil” of the man. The person who has forgiven will see the killer as imputable, but has let go of emotional blame.

Does that example help describe the problem at hand?

No, that is not an accurate account of the person in the thread.

Blame has more than one definition, as posted before, so it does not have to be as you describe.

Collins Dictionary:

Blame (noun)

1. responsibility for something that is wrong or deserving censure; culpability
2. an expression of condemnation; reproof
3. See be to blame

be to blame: to be at fault or culpable

 

[guanophore]

Perhaps this discussion would be theologically clearer if it was accepted that imputability is a better word than culpability when discussing this issue from a traditional Catholic moral theology perspective OS.

Then we can move away from the external blame thing and see sin as freely chosen objectively disordered act against creation itself, whether anyone is there to blame us or not.

You make a good point, but no one ever “freely chooses sin”. People always do what they think is best/right because the inclination in mankind to do what is good is stronger than our inclination to do evil. When sin happens, it is always because the person is blind and ignorant.

Why can’t a blameworthy person also be forgiven? There’s really nothing to forgive anyway if the person isn’t culpable.

People still get hurt even though the action may not have been intentional. People may be perceived as culpable when they are not. Forgiveness heals the victim, even when the offender is not culpable.

But are you saying that humans *never *have a choice? That every atrocity committed *had *to happen? The perpetrator(s) could not have chosen to do otherwise?

Not at all, just that human beings do not knowingly and willingly choose to do anything against God (and by proxy, others). Atrocities happen because the people committing them are unaware of the infinite value of the soul of the other.

And Jesus doesn't say that *all *are ignorant, and therefore non-culpable:

"Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains” John 9:41

They just claimed they could see, but they were still blind. Anyway, this passage is most likely just a psychological projection of John, who was still angry and unforgiving of the Jews for crucifying Jesus. He was holding a resentment.

People who sin do so because they lack sufficient awareness. If a person had this, of course they would choose not to sin.

 

[guanophore]

And yet man very often has more control over his choices and actions then you seem to admit.The Church even teaches that we can be responsible for our ignorance, that we can *prefer *untruth to truth, carrying on that family tradition first instituted by our first parents.’

The story of Adam and Eve does not have to be interpreted literally. The Church also teaches that there is invincible ignorance.

And I believe that this is what the Pharisees were guilty of, and why Jesus railed against them the way He did.

Seeing the Pharisees as “guilty” or blameworthy is an emotional response to our concience reacting to what we see as a injustice. In fact, the reason that the congregation takes the part of the “crowd” during the Passion reading is because we can all be Pharisees, all yell for the crucifiixion. So we are then just as blameworthy as they. In any case, this passage is more a reflection of the writer, or the community of the writer not having forgiven the insult done to Jesus.

You simply cannot remove moral responsibility from humans without doing them the disservice of denying them correction, of denying them conviction of sin. When free from the onus for the need to grow in perfection and righteousness we probably, simply, won’t.

Blame is not very conducive to growth, and of course human beings are naturally on a path that is inclined toward God. We have a stronger inclination to do what we think is best than to do evil.

The difficulty I see with the discussion to date is that it is shackled somewhat by understanding sin through a human-relationship analogy and therefore somewhat anthropromorphic understandings of God.

You are right, of course, but we all understand God through our own perception, so there is no way to avoid perceiving God apart from our human relationship to Him.

Yet the Church/Tradition has always maintained re sin that there are two sides to this coin.

Sin is not simply disobeying a subjective verbal word/law (which some would maintain could be a completely immoral and arbitrary command from “God” addressed to us in a private revelation).

The human conscience functions to enact our perception of God, sin, and choices. Some consciences are formed better than others. Some people who have a very malformed conscience project a distorted image of God, and believe that God is the way they judge within themseves.

Aquinas puts it well when he says that sinful deeds are always against reason.

This is the objective side. That is, disobeying a “law” that is written into creation itself - including our own human nature. This is not a personal, verbal command but a “command” of nature itself as created by God. It is freely choosing known disordered acts. In traditional moral theology this is the three fonts analysis well explained in the CCC.
Seriously disordered acts are known as “grave matter” and these are defined in two ways: by revelation (the Commandments); and also by God-given natural power of reason applied to creation (eg the civil Code of Hammurabi is an example even prior to Moses).
The other two fonts apply to the imputability of the action to the heart of the agent. If freely chosen with full knowledge of the disorder then we have full imputability (culpability). If not, then we have a temporal transgression with temporal effects - but no eternal offence before God and no eternal effects.

That is how sincere unbelievers, who know no God, can still be rightly condemned for their actions against reason and against created nature.

All wrong is against Law.
But there are at least two types of law: one verbal (revelation) and one natural (the intrinsic “laws” of created nature). One we see as subjective and personal, the other is objective and mechanical karma (you jump off a cliff you die). In God they are consistent and in fact the same.

All sin occurs because human being lack sufficient awareness. They result from ignorance and blindness. For that very reason, a person is not culpable.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

You make a good point, but no one ever “freely chooses sin”. … When sin happens, it is always because the person is blind and ignorant.

Thats an old chestnut - its the ancient eastern Socratic view of bad behaviour - that its purely due to personal ignorance. Catholic tradition explicitly disagrees with this view.
Buddhism seems to hold strongly to this thinking too.

Aquinas obviously concedes the faculty of human will always seeks what it believes to be a good even if it is objectively a false good. I suppose the issue is how we come to believe a particular good is, in the given circumstances, a true good. If Catholic tradition is correct then it would seem that the will must have some ability to culpably blind the intellect.

Of course few human choices are totally free - I suppose its always an admixture on a continuum between pure free choice and “automated” weakness due to passion or cultural conditioning

…because the inclination in mankind to do what is good is stronger than our inclination to do evil.

.
I don’t know how this opinion could be empirically verified.

Inclinations in scholasticCatholic moral theology are probably understood differently from what I think you are saying here. Ethical good and evil choices are not primarily decided by “inclinations” but by the soul’s highest faculties, the will and intellect, when presented with knowledge by the intellect. Aquinas states that the will is the “appetite” of the intellective faculty.
“Inclinations”, in this traditional Catholic philosophy of man, are lower faculties which influence intellect and will indirectly - thus making degrees of imputability possible.

So without these lower powers (that arise from materiality) we would be like the angels - where imputability does not operate. They make fully irrevocable digital ethical choices (totally bad or totally good) from the first instance of their creation.

 

[fhansen]

The story of Adam and Eve does not have to be interpreted literally. The Church also teaches that there is invincible ignorance.

Well, certain aspects of the story are to be taken literally while others are not, as per Church teaching. And the Church definitely does not teach that all sin is caused by invincible ignorance. Man is simply not a morally irresponsible beast. In fact, the Church teaches that, in the case of mortal sin, full knowledge and deliberate consent are present.

Seeing the Pharisees as “guilty” or blameworthy is an emotional response to our concience reacting to what we see as a injustice.

Sure, moral outrage or righteous indignation at some injustice or atrocity are just silly old-fashioned emotions. Jesus had no right to rail at the vendors and money-changers in His Father’s house either. Better to be tolerant of evil in the end.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

… so by the Catholic definition he was not culpable (IMO, of course, given the probability I presented).

…

No, this doesn’t make him “not culpable”.

In any case you are still mixing up:

• anyone’s culpability towards God
• anyone’s culpability towards another
• anyone’s culpability towards you
• anyone’s culpability towards me
• your culpability towards another
• my culpability towards another (if applicable)

etc, etc.

 

[guanophore]

 Thats an old chestnut - its the ancient eastern Socratic view of bad behaviour - that its purely due to personal ignorance. Catholic tradition explicitly disagrees with this view.

Not entirely, or Jesus would not have said from the cross “forgive them, for they know not what they do”. There are no examples of people who have ever willingly and knowingly rejected God. In every case, it can be shown that the person was blind or ignorant.

Aquinas obviously concedes the faculty of human will always seeks what it believes to be a good even if it is objectively a false good. I suppose the issue is how we come to believe a particular good is, in the given circumstances, a true good. If Catholic tradition is correct then it would seem that the will must have some ability to culpably blind the intellect.

This is exactly the point, though. Since humans always seek what one believes to be good, they cannot be culpable if they are mistaken.

Of course few human choices are totally free - I suppose its always an admixture on a continuum between pure free choice and “automated” weakness due to passion or cultural conditioning

Exactly! As St. Paul writes, we are “slaves” to sin, so when we do wrong or miss the mark, it is because our desire to do the good has been thwarted somehow, usually by circumstances beyond our control.

Inclinations in scholasticCatholic moral theology are probably understood differently from what I think you are saying here. Ethical good and evil choices are not primarily decided by “inclinations” but by the soul’s highest faculties, the will and intellect, when presented with knowledge by the intellect".

Surely you are not suggesting that the will and the intellect are separated from base desires?

The problem is that the “knowledge” is not always there, and the conscience is not properly formed so although the person desires the good, mistakes are still made. This does not mean that people are “to blame”, however, since they acted with whatever knowlege and conscience they had at the time.

Aquinas states that the will is the “appetite” of the intellective faculty.
“Inclinations”, in this traditional Catholic philosophy of man, are lower faculties which influence intellect and will indirectly - thus making degrees of imputability possible.

If we are “slaves to sin” is it really possible to have any imputability?

So without these lower powers (that arise from materiality) we would be like the angels - where imputability does not operate. They make fully irrevocable digital ethical choices (totally bad or totally good) from the first instance of their creation.

Are you saying that Satan cannot be imputed for refusing to serve God?

Well, certain aspects of the story are to be taken literally while others are not, as per Church teaching. And the Church definitely does not teach that all sin is caused by invincible ignorance.

No, but to be culpable, a person must have “sufficient awareness”, and in all cases where sin occurs, it can be shown that the person is lacking sufficient awareness. A person who sins always fails to see the value in the person he is offending.

Man is simply not a morally irresponsible beast. In fact, the Church teaches that, in the case of mortal sin, full knowledge and deliberate consent are present.

This is somewhat of an old fashioned way of looking at mortal sin, that does not take into account all that we know about human psychology.

Sure, moral outrage or righteous indignation at some injustice or atrocity are just silly old-fashioned emotions. Jesus had no right to rail at the vendors and money-changers in His Father's house either. Better to be tolerant of evil in the end.

He did forgive all of them from the cross, in the end.

 

[kdbueno]

Full consent whilst having the deliberate consent, is a mortal sin.

Full consent while deliberating what is impossible, is excommunicable by reason of actual proof of its consent.

 

[guanophore]

Full consent whilst having the deliberate consent, is a mortal sin.

Full consent while deliberating what is impossible, is excommunicable by reason of actual proof of its consent.

:whacky::whacky::whacky: