scholars & conscience

Question 1

What are the categories Freud split conscience into?

Answer 1

Id, Ego, Superego

Question 2

According to Freud what is the super-ego

Answer 2

The feelings of disapproval of society are “internalised” to form the Super-Ego. The super-ego therefore restricts the instinctive behaviour of the individual.

Question 3

According to Freud what is the ego?

Answer 3

The ego is developed by the mind as a “front” to interact with society. The socialisation of the individual involves the repression of natural, but antisocial desires.

Question 4

What are some strengths of Freud’s conscience theory?

Answer 4

It can be argued that the psychology argument works with people with or without religious faith therefore all people can be held morally accountable.
Piaget also believed as well as Freud that the conscience is manufactured from experiences and conditioning
Psychology has evidence to support Freud’s ideas about the conscience and has even developed his ideas into the two level conscience. Like Piaget, Freud’s theory of the conscience is also based on research therefore having evidence to support his ideas unlike Aquinas, Paul and Butler conscience theory

Question 5

What are some weaknesses of Freud’s conscience theory?

Answer 5

• Much of Freud’s work has been criticised especially the Oedipus complex as his research was based on small samples and some psychologists argue that it is too simplistic.
• People will consider the Oedipus complex to be strange as at the age of 3-6 yrs most young children are unaware of anything sexual and do not have sexual desires as Freud explains in the phallic stage. People also will argue that a child has physical, and emotional needs rather than sexual needs
• Even though Freud argues that the Christian conscience is bad for a person’s mental health, William James has observed and argued that religion is often the inspiration of outstanding well-balanced individuals whose lives had made a positive mark on history like Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King.

Question 6

What is Augustine’s conscience arguement?

Answer 6

Augustine:

The conscience is a part of God’s creation of humans.

The conscience is innate – meaning that it is put into the minds
(or souls!) of humans by God.

He literally sees the conscience as the “voice of God”.

Question 7

What was Fromm’s view of conscience?

Answer 7

Authoritarian Conscience:
- Society is designed to make us obey rules and conform to norms.

• People feel guilt and fear when they are disobedient to the rules of society. This is because they don’t want to be shunned by society for disobeying rules.
• Rather than people focusing on moral issues, people feel guilt when they have broken a rule.
• The conscience becomes the internalised voice of society, which disapproves of our actions.

Humanistic Conscience:
- The humanistic conscience has awareness of what makes life flourish and what destroys it.

• The humanistic conscience leads humans to civil disobedience when necessary – humans therefore resit societies norms when they are morally wrong. Examples come from those who resisted the Nazi regime and more recently have resisted that
  implementation of nuclear weapons.
• Rejecting the authoritarian conscience and embracing the humanistic conscience allows us to reach our full potential as people..