The Morality Of An Act

[rkwright]

In reading the lying to planned parenthood thread, there is a lot of talk about the morality of the act itself.

I have often wondered how an "act" can have some sort of morality and ultimately culpability attached to it. Personally, taking from St. Anselm, I think I have to fall more into sin and culpability lie only in the will or intention of the person. If you intended it/will it - you have sinned regardless of the act. Taking from the lying thread - at what point does the "act" become sinful?

Say I want to deceive someone and tell them that the light is green when actually it is red. Take 4 different scenarios built off this...

1) I walk up and start to say "The light is..." but before I blurt green I die of heart attack - guilty of a lie? I would say so, I certainly intended to deceive and attempted to - something just "got in the way"
2) I walk up and say "The light is red" (the truth) - I guess I got the lie mixed up. I inteded to lie, but actually told the truth. A sin? Again I say yes, based on the intention.
3) I say "The light is green" (a lie) but you misunderstand and think I said the light is red (the truth). No one is deceived. Still a lie.
4) I say "The light is green" and right as a I say "green", the light turns green. Technically, the act is not a lie, I told the truth. But I would say its still a sin, since the intention was to deceive.

You can play these out with other similar acts. Murder is a good one that illustrates. The murderer and attempted murderer come out the same - morally guilty of the same sin. While the person who kills in self defense comes out differently, because of the difference in intention while the act is the same.

Where it gets a little blury is the idea of good intention, bad act. Like lying to planned parenthood. But perhaps again the sin is in the "deceiving for a good reason" - deceit is always a sinful intention.

Any thoughts on these?