Conscience

Question 1

Conscience:

Answer 1

• Moral faculty, sense of feeling
• We should only do things we are happy about.
• We should act in a way that fits our principles and beliefs.
• We should act with integrity, or conscientiously.
• I should not be forced or required to do things that I genuinely believe to be wrong.
• Different for different people e.g. going to war vs not going to war.
• I may hold the view that all killing is wrong and is so I should not be required to fight a war for a country, even if that country is threatened, because my own conscience would be undermined.
• The erosion of conscience, by social pressure or direct state coercion, makes people less human because it limits our free moral decision making.

Question 2

Conscience acts; it performs a function. This function can be described in many ways:
SCHOLARS DEFINITION

Answer 2

Conscience acts; it performs a function. This function can be described in many ways:
• The Concise Oxford English Dictionary describes it as ‘a person’s moral sense of right and wrong.’
• Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) referred to it as ‘the voice of our true selves’
• John Macquarrie (1919-2007): ‘The inbuilt monitor of moral action of choice values’
• St Paul saw it as bearing witness to truth: ‘Since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness.’ (Romans 2:15)
• The Anglican priest and theologian Joseph Butler (1692-1752) saw conscience as a principle: ‘There is a principle of reflection in men by which they distinguish approval and disapproval of their own actions… this principle in man… is conscience.”
• Fromm, 1947: ‘Conscience is thus… the voice of our true selves, which summons us… to live productively, to develop fully and harmoniously. It is the guardian of our integrity.’

Question 3

St Thomas Aquinas:

Biblical teachings

Answer 3

• Thought of conscience in different ways.
• Some argue it is the voice of God, the way in which profound truths are conveyed to us. Others see it more as a faculty, a system by which we make moral decisions – like Aquinas.
• Saw conscience = natural ability to understand difference between right and wrong.
• He saw conscience as a device or faculty for distinguishing right from wrong rather than an inner knowledge. He thought that people basically tended towards the good and away from the evil (the ‘syneresis rule’).
• Conscience = using reasoning to understand what God sees as good.
• Working out what the good things and evil things were was the main problem. He thought that the reason people sometimes did evil deeds was because they had made a mistake. They had pursued an apparent good and not real good- their conscience was mistaken.
• e.g. “If a mistaken reason bids a man to sleep with another mans wife, this would be evil based on ignorance of divine law he ought to know; but if the misjudgment is occasioned by thinking the woman really is his own wife, then his will is free from fault.’
• Rather than a voice that commands one thing or another, conscience is ‘reason making right decisions.’
• Synerisis = right reason, the awareness of the moral principle to do good & evil.
• Conscientia = distinguished between right & wrong and makes the moral decision. Ethical judgement which leads to course of action.

Question 4

Joseph Butler

18th Century Anglican Priest… belief that conscience is voice of God.

Answer 4

• God given guide to right conduct, must always be followed.
• ‘Wicket’ to ignore conscience, self-deception is worse than evil act.
• Believed that humans were influenced by two basic principles: self-love and benevolence (wanting well-being of self + others).
• Conscience directs a human being towards loving others and away from selfish acts. In this way conscience can never be wrong.
• “Had it strengths as it had right; had it power as it has manifest authority, it would absolutely govern the world.”
• Con: a guide that God has given us in our human nature. You should always obey your conscience.
• Authoritative + automatic
• Butler gives intuitive moral judgments of consciences absolute authority & this is questionable. Surely it’s possible that consciences could mislead. A conscience that obeys all, could be used to justify all sorts of act.
• Thus, Catholic Christianity tended towards Aquinas’ position, which gives weight to conscience but allows for the possibility of error where conscience directs a person to go against the law of God through ignorance.

Question 5

Conscience + Religon

Answer 5

• Protestant view. Conscience = voice of God.
• St Pauls saw it as bearing witness to truth: ‘Since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness.’ (Romans 2:15)

Question 6

Sigmund Freud

Argue that conscience actually limits our freedom.

Answer 6

• Conscience = Mechanistic
• Believed that human psyche was inspired by powerful desires that begin at birth and need to be satisfied.
• Conscience linked to sense of guilt when conscience not followed.
• He said the human personalty consisted of three areas:
  1) The super-ego: Set of moral controls given to us by outside influences. Moral code/conscience.
  2) The ego: The conscious self
  3) The ID: The unconscious self, contains basic drivers & repressed memories. Amorl, purely self concerned.
• No absolute moral law, all our moral codes are shaped by our experiences therefore culturally dependant.

Question 7

Piaget

Modified Freud’s theory

Answer 7

• Conscience has both mature and immature dimensions.
  1) Heteronomous morality: 5-10 yrs old, immature conscience, consequence determine whether an action is right or wrong.
  2) Autonomous morality: 10+, children develop their own rules and understand how rules operate free decisions. Older children link rightness with motive and intention.

Question 8

Fromm

Answer 8

• Like Freud and Piaget, partly perceived conscience in terms of the internalisation of external factors. He called this authoritarian conscience.
• Used this idea to explain how individuals such as Eichmann can plead that he was only ‘following orders; at his trial for mass murder in 1961.
• His concept of an internalised voice of an external authority can be linked to Freud’s super ego.
• Authoritarian conscience can come from an experience of parental rules or expectations, an adopted belief system with an authority figure, or a sense of admiration for an authority figure.
• It is obeyed because it is an authority, not because it is food
• E.G. Milgram experiment: where they tested whether people would commit atrocities if instructed by an authority figure. 65% went up to 450 volts - to electrocute a person. It was predicted only 3% would. Enough to seriously harm them.
  Shows that the conscience can be controlled and/or directed and cannot be seen to play a sufficient role in Libertarianism.

Question 9

Problems with conscience:

Answer 9

• If conscience was the voice of God, we would never make mistakes, decisions are often not ‘clear cut’.
• Many atheists would argue conscience is very important to them. Its part of being human and is natural.
• Edna McDonagh: ‘Conscience enables us to judge good + evil, gives us peace when we have done well.”