intro to conscience

Question 1

what is conscience?

Answer 1

• conscience is an inner conviction that something is right/wrong
• not a result of logical argument
• more like an emotion
• linked with guilt/shame
• often takes a form of ‘bad conscience’ about something you’ve done imply you know you didn’t do the right thing even if at time you thought you did

Question 2

when would you tell someone to follow their conscience?

Answer 2

• when there’s no clear moral guide on what to do
• you shouldn’t tell them to think of all moral arguments for/against or use scripture but it should be intuitive and follow own sense of right/wrong
• means conscience is intuitive, personal
• doesn’t explain how it develops

Question 3

what do we know about conscience?

Answer 3

• brain is remarkably plastic & that it adapts to habitual ways of thinking/acting
• some have an ‘over-developed’ conscience if feel bad about slightest thing they may have done wrong

Question 4

what’s meant by old-fashioned conscience?

Answer 4

• through what our parents have taught us but feel embarrassed as don’t match with views of friends
• shows that moral issues present problems as if there was always one and only one morally correct answer to every situation there’d be no moral dilemmas

Question 5

what did conscience encompass before 17th century

Answer 5

• broader ideas of what we now think of as consciousness & self-consciousness
• means there’s a fundamental awareness we have of ourselves as thinking/feeling individuals
• from 17th onwards there was increased emphasis on individual morals

Question 6

what did rise of Protestantism do?

Answer 6

• encourage personal reflection on moral issues rather than simply making confession to a priest & accepting forgiveness
• resulted in added significance to conscience

Question 7

what four things are considered when examining ethical significance of conscience?

Answer 7

• secular understanding of the nature of conscience including its natural development
• some distinctly religious understanding of conscience
• then look at way in which conscience can be used in making moral decisions
• assess place of conscience as a moral guide