Lecture notes
Conscience
Religious Studies AQA A Level. Complete Year 2 Ethics notes.
[Show more]
Connected book
Book Title:
Author(s):
- Edition:
- ISBN:
- Edition:
1 review
By: choprahashleen • 4 months ago
Content preview
ConscienceConscience as behaviour developed through social interaction (Lawrence Kohlberg)
- Defined six stages od moral development from birth, in three levels: pre-conventional, conventional
and post-conventional.
- The final stage is am individualised conscience where moral decisions must be consistent and
universalizable.
- To go against the conscience leads to feelings of guilt.
- Kohlberg stressed the development through encountering dilemmas.
Conscience as an aspect of the super-ego (Sigmund Freud)
o The super-ego is the controlling/restraining self: it controls impulses that are potentially damaging to
society, by judging and threatening punishment.
o The feeling of threat is the conscience.
o To go against the super-ego beings about feelings of shame, guilt and anxiety.
o If Freud is right, then the conscience cannot be seen as a source of moral authority, since is it just the
internalisation of others wishes.
o It has nothing to do with God, except where God is invented as another source of authority.
o Therefore, conscience has little to do with our desire to do what is morally right.
Conscience as sanctions or social conditioning (Émile Durkheim)
Conscience is the sanctions/social conditioning that the group brings to bear on the individual,
reinforced by the figure of God as the ultimate projection of moral authority.
Argued that societies work through a collective conscience, an act is wrong if society disapproves of
it.
Receives support from evolutionary accounts of conscience as a survival mechanism.
Conscience as the authoritarian and the humanistic conscience (Erich Fromm)
Conscience is associated with guilt, shame and fear, it is the sense of moral responsibility rising from
the fear of being rejected by society.
Society is based on rules and conformity to norms.
Argues that we have a humanistic conscience that arises from our instinctive knowledge of what
destroys life and what makes it flourish.
This can make us disobey society to bring about flourishing.
Groups improve their survivability by individuals having a conscience that compels them to maintain
group loyalty.
The authority of parents and society is a powerful tool to compel social obedience.
Conscience as the innate voice of God (Augustine and Schleiermacher)
- Conscience is innate, put into human minds by God, and so amounts to innate knowledge of God’s
moral laws.
- Augustine literally sees conscience as the voice of God.
- Problems with Augustine’s view:
o The amount of evil in the world, suggests God speaks to people selectively.
o Makes ethical discussion redundant.
o Means we cannot be morally free.
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller AB145. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for £3.49. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
79202 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy revision notes and other study material for 14 years now