Indifferent act
An indifferent act is any action that is neither good nor evil. When acts are considered in general, with respect only to their object, there are acts that can be said to be neither good nor bad, but indifferent. It is a topic of much dispute whether a specific act, performed by a specific person in particular circumstances, and for a certain end, can be indifferent, provided that it is not something done out of habit rather than deliberation. Catholic theologians on indifferent acts Can the character of indifference be predicated of the act, considered not as an abstraction of the mind, but in the concrete, as it is exercised by the individual in particular circumstances, and for a certain end? To this question St. Bonaventure, answers in the affirmative, and with him Duns Scotus, and all the Scotist school. So also Patritius Sporer; Benjamin Elbel; Vasquez; Arriaga; and later Archbishop Walsh. Thomas Aquinas, and his commentators hold the opposite opinion. So too do Francisco Suárez; Charles René Billuart; Alphonsus Liguori; Thomas Bouquillon; Augustine Lehmkuhl; and Noldin. The Thomists, no less than the Scotists, recognize as morally indifferent acts done without deliberation, such, for instance, as the stroking of one's