It was being considered that the responsibility of an individual depends upon how voluntary his/her action is. There are certain factors that affect how voluntary is the action of an individual which could effect the individuals accountability for a certain act. These factors are the Ignorance, Concupiscence and the Fear and Violence.
Ignorance can be defined as the absence of intellectual knowledge for a certain thing. There is what we call vincible ignorance and there is what we call invincible ignorance.
A Vincible ignorance is committed by an individual who actually has knowledge about the certain mistake that was being committed.
An Invincible
ignorance is committed by an individual who actually has no knowledge or completely not knowledgeable about a certain thing that was being done.In the case of the vincible ignorance, the responsibility and voluntariness is not destroyed or removed making the individual guilty for committing the act. In the case of the invincible ignorance, the responsibility and voluntariness are being excuse since an individual has no total consent. The individual does not have the intellectual knowledge to be able to act accurately hence his/her accountability for the act is lessened.
The accountability of an individual with regards to the act being committed can also be lessened according to concupiscence. Concupiscence is a technical term for passion, passion or concupiscence can also affect the voluntariness of an action. It was being
considered that an individual that is proven to be under the influence of concupiscence is not acting normally or perfectly as long as the individual’s free will is concern. Such thing like anger could trigger an act without the consent of an individual’s accurate sense.There are considered two kinds of concupiscence namely; the antecedent concupiscence and the consequent concupiscence. The antecedent concupiscence usually occurs spontaneously without having to stimulate it, while the consequent concupiscence arises at the command or continues having the consent of the individual’s will.
In other words, the antecedent concupiscence could lessen the voluntariness and responsibility of an act done but it cannot totally remove them.
On the other hand, consequent concupiscence is considered to neither lessens nor destroy voluntariness and responsibility of an act.
The Fear and Violence are also other factors that could affect the accountability of a certain act. An individual who suffers from fear and violence might not be accountable for the act that was being committed. It is being considered since the individual is under the influence of fear and violence which eventually could greatly affect his/her will and consent.