Key figures:
o Augustine.
o Aquinas.
o Butler.
o Newman.
o Freud.
o Fromm.
o Piaget.
Different views of Conscience:
o God-given.
o Innate.
o Voice of reason.
o Instilled by society / parents / authority figures.
What is Conscience?
“I have noticed my conscience for many years, and I know it is more trouble and bother to
me than anything else I started with” – Mark Twain.
“I think we all have a little voice inside that will guide us. It may be God, I don’t know. But I
think that if we shut out all the noise and clutter from our lives and listen to that voice, it will
tell us the right thing to do” – Christopher Reeve.
Conscience is something that is intrinsic to our everyday lives. Regardless of what we believe
its nature is, it is used for making decisions. Individual consciences can choose very different
actions.
People have different interpretations of what is morally right, and in many cases, justify their
actions and motivations.
Conscience – “a moral sense of right and wrong, especially as felt by a person and affecting
behaviour or an inner feeling as to the goodness or otherwise of one’s behaviour” – Oxford
English Dictionary.
Religious Views:
God-given:
o Actual voice of God – Butler, Newman, St Augustine.
Butler – 1. Self-love 2. Benevolence 3. Intuition (A. Conscience is the voice of
reason B. “Man is law to himself” C. Conscience is self-authenticating).
o Ability to reason from God – Aquinas, St Paul.
Innate within us:
o Genetically placed there due to human evolutionary design or development.
o Aquinas suggested it was innate but requires instruction and training.
Synderesis – the ability of the mind to understand the first principles of moral reasoning.
o Key figures – Aristotle, St Jerome, St Paul, St Bonaventure.
o Aquinas believed that it was the means to distinguish between right and wrong and
argues that it is never mistaken. Moreover, he thought that conscience was binding,
but it could be mistaken (i.e., a factual mistake, or ignorance of a rule).
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