Conscience

Question 1

Explain ratio

Answer 1

The word Aquinas uses to describe reason, something which is placed into every person as a result of their being created in the image of God

Question 2

Explain Synderesis

Answer 2

This is the key principle, for Aquinas, to follow good and avoid evil (a rule that all precepts follow)

This is the process of the conscience

Question 3

What is the Id ?

Answer 3

For Freud, this is the part of the mind that has impulses that seek satisfaction and pleasure

Question 4

What is the super-ego ?

Answer 4

Freud uses this word to describe the part of the mind that contradicts the id

Question 5

What is the ego?

Answer 5

Freud uses this word to describe the mediator between the id and the super-ego

Question 6

Explain conscientia

Answer 6

This is the conscience in action

• ratio is used to inform synderesis and this results in the conscientia

Question 7

Explain vincible ignorance

Answer 7

This is how Aquinas describes the lack of knowledge for which a person is responsible, and can be blamed

Question 8

Explain invincible ignorance

Answer 8

This is how Aquinas describes the lack of knowledge for which a person is not responsible, and cannot be blamed

Question 9

Explain Aquinas’ Ratio

Answer 9

Ratio = reason

• Aquinas did not believe that the conscience was apart of the mind that told us right from wrong
• God gave us reason (ratio)
• ratio (reason) to Aquinas is more than simple comprehension or understanding, instead it is the act of using that reason to work things out or make a judgement

Ratio helps us move from earthly truths to eternal truths

Question 10

Explain Aquinas’ synderesis

Answer 10

To do good and follow evil [links to natural law]

• he believed that this principle resided in all human and this is what distinguished them from animals
• but he was aware that both Synderesis and sensuality (temptation) was present in humans
• but was positive that humans can use their ratio to make good moral judgments

Question 11

Explain Aquinas’ conscientia

Answer 11

For Aquinas the conscientia (conscience) is what applies our knowledge, makes the judgement and moves us to act

For Aquinas the conscience is an act that follows knowledge gained via ratio

“It is clear that the conscience is an act” T. Aquinas

Question 12

Aquinas quote about conscientia

Answer 12

Conscience is ‘reason making right decisions’ [Thomas Aquinas, ‘summa theologica’ 1265-74 part 1-2]

Question 13

Explain Aquinas’ ignorance

Answer 13

For Aquinas their are two kinds of ignorance, as he understands that a person can honestly do he wrong thing

Vincible ignorance
- is a lack of knowledge where the person CAN be held responsible (as they ought to have known better)
- someone who demonstrates vincible ignorance, cannot claim that ‘conscience’ justifies their action

Invincible ignorance
- is a lack of knowledge where the person CANNOT be held responsible
- this is when a person acts best to the knowledge they have been given, but nevertheless the wrong act doesn’t make it right
- Aquinas doesn’t believe these people are condemned

Question 14

What example does Aquinas use to explain ignorance ?

Answer 14

• Aquinas says a situation where mistaken reason leads a man to sleep with another mans wife. That act is evil based on ignorance of divine law
• But if it’s clarified that the misjudgment comes from him thinking that, the women is really his own wife, then he is not blameworthy

Question 15

How does Cardinal Newman support Aquinas’ view on the conscience ?

Answer 15

Cardinal stresses obedience to ones conscience, as it is more important than anything else

‘[..] conscience first, and to the pope afterwards’

Question 16

How does Pope Benedict XVI and Hannah Arendt support the view on ‘ratio’ ?

Answer 16

Ratio emphasises using reason to work out and make moral judgments / NOT FOLLOWING THE SOCIETAL NORMS

Pope Benedict

• uses the example of Jesus on trial “they are shouting the same thing that everyone else is shouting […] justice is trampled underfoot”
• emphasises the need to use our ratio to make moral decisions

Hannah Arendt

• writes about the holocaust, and the need to avoid the norms of society as they have become profoundly immoral

Question 17

‘Conscience is …

Answer 17

reason making rights decisions’

Basically the conscience (conscientia) is the act that follows reason (ratio) being applied to the synderesis

Question 18

How does the Catholic Church follow Aquinas’ thinking on the conscience ? Quote

Answer 18

‘ A well informed conscience is upright and truthful’

Highly supports this view

Question 19

On Guilt : Aquinas and Freud

Answer 19

For Aquinas

• guilt is the knowing sense that something is not good, not in accordance with divine law
• but identifies that guilt is not a mechanism that serves as a ‘sin accountant’ for God
• instead is something used to restore the broken relationship between God and the person
• Gods grace expels guilt within a person

For Freud

• for Freud guilt is not the consequence of wrong doing but a result of future wrong doing
• it is the internal conflict between the what you desire and what you should or should to do

Question 20

On guilt : NIETZCHE supports Freud

Answer 20

“It is the instinct of cruelty”

Question 21

Freud view on psychosexual development

Answer 21

• in ‘outline of psychoanalysis’, Freud emphasises that the conscience is not rational decision making but is a product of psychological factors

Question 22

Freud’s 5 stages for psychosexual analysis

Answer 22

Oral - concerning with sucking and sawlling (i.e babies hence why they attempt to put everything)

Anal - concerning the control of withholding and expelling that they enjoy

Phallic - concerning with masturbation, Oedipus complex (all little boys are in love sexually with their mothers)

Latency - absence of sexual motivation

Genital (puberty to adulthood) concerned with sexual intercourse

Question 23

Freud view on the mind

Answer 23

Unconscious mind = the id / filled with repressed thoughts or feelings, wish fulfilment or gratification

Pre conscious = the ego /the memories not readily available but accessible [ moderation of our behaviour in this way]

Conscious =

Question 24

Freud QUOTE on guilt

Answer 24

“The more a man controls his aggressiveness, the more intense become the aggressive tendencies”

Question 25

Alternative views on Conscience : Religious

Answer 25

Augustine

• voice of God speaking to us
• considered most seriously “ see God as your witness”
• people are able to sense right and wrong because God reveals it to us personally

Joseph Butler

• essential part of the human being
• separates us from animals
  -Liek Aquinas, it is what we sue to judge an action good or bad
• automatic and authoritative
• is “our natural guide, the guide assigned to us by the author of our nature’ / follow conscience always

John Newman

• we can tell right from wrong by guilt / rather than suing reason or conditioning
• our conscience is the ‘voice of the Lawgiver’
• conscience is the messenger from God

Question 26

Alternative views on Conscious : non religious views

Answer 26

Jean Piaget

• most comprehensive theory of intellectual development psychology
• studied and proposed a universal series of stages through childhood (not like Freud)
• e.g used the marbles game to divide morality into :
  Heteronormous morality (looks beyond itself for moral authority)
  Autonomous (punishment are in proportion of the action, personal code of conduct)

Fromm

• conscience is influenced by external authority