Conscience Flashcards
What are the 3 functions of the conscience?
-Tells us what we ought to do.
-Source of moral knowledge.
-Form of motivation to act in certain ways.
Who was Peter Sutcliffe?
-One of UK’s most notorious serial killers.
-Killed 13 women and attempted to kill more.
-Targeted women.
-Claimed his conscience was the ‘voice of God’ commanding him to kill these women.
What are strengths of using conscience as a moral guide?
-It’s a dynamic process depending on God’s revelation, meaning it can be checked by Divine law.
-Keeps society safe and ordered by uniting it.
-Everyone has a conscience and an ubringing meaning it’s not completely faith-based.
-If everyone reaches the highest level, society will be a Kantian utopia.
-Most people have the ability to reason.
What are weaknesses of using conscience as a moral guide?
-Requires faith, which can be questioned.
-If you are part of an evil society, the collective conscience cannot be good, meaning God can’t be the voice of conscience.
-Conscience is subjective, some people may feel guilty when they aren’t acting immorally e.g homosexuality.
-Reason is fallible and clouded by emotions.
What does Newman believe about the conscience?
-Comes from divine authority.
-Conscience is a messenger from God and a truth detector.
-Conscience tells us what to do.
-We fear displeasing God.
What does Piaget believe about conscience?
-Our authority begins as heteronymous (adult authority figure), before developing to become autonomous (ourselves).
-Conscience develops as we get older and begin to develop our capability to rationalise.
What are Kohlberg’s ideas about conscience?
-Psychological view.
-Derived from interviews with young boys.
-6 stages split into three sections.
-He believed our conscience grows and becomes more advanced as we get older, making us better at understanding and doing what is morally right.
-Morality evolves as we learn to make better decisions based on what we believe is right and fair.
What are the 6 stages of Kohlberg’s moral development?
Pre-conventional stages:
1 - ‘Avoiding trouble’ (obey rules to avoid punishment).
2 - ‘Getting rewards’ (self-interest and personal benefit).
Conventional stages:
3 - ‘Being liked’ (desire for approval).
4 - ‘Following rules’ (sense of duty to maintain societal order).
Post-conventional stages:
5 - ‘Questioning rules’ (question societal rules + if they’re fair).
6 - ‘Universal values’ (guided by fairness + equality).
What is the Heinz Dilemma?
-Woman on her deathbed + husband can’t afford the drug to save her so he steals it from the druggist.
-Based on an individuals stage of moral development, they may have a certain view on whether the man was right or wrong in stealing the drug, and certain reasoning. Different stages differ in their reasoning as to why it is morally good or bad.
-E.g post conventional individual: it is morally good because it places the value of human life over profit BUT it is morally bad because the drug could be used to save the lives of others whose lives are just as significant.
What is Freud’s Iceberg Theory?
-3 levels of consciousness.
-3 parts of the personality.
-Conscience is formed by societal norms and our desire to avoid guilt.
-Conscience is a prerational function of the unconscious mind. It punishes the ego with feelings of guilt when it gives in to the id’s demands.
-It responds to an externally imposed authority by internalising the disapproval of others.
What are Freud’s levels of consciousness?
Conscious - represents everything we are aware of.
Preconscious - represents ordinary memory meaning what we aren’t consciously aware of but can retrieve and pull into consciousness when needed.
Unconscious - a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges and memories that are outside our conscious awareness.
What are Freud’s 3 parts of the personality?
Superego
Ego
Id
Freud
What is the superego?
-Driven by the moral principle, it controls the id’s impulses and persuades the ego to pursue moralistic goals.
-It consists of conscience which punishes the ego with guilt.
-It is derived from our internalized moral standards and ideals that we acquire from parents/society.
Freud
What is the ego?
Driven by the reality principle, it is the decision making part of the personality that mediates between the unrealistic id and external world.
Freud
What is the Id?
Driven by the pleasure principle, it is the basic primitive and instinctive part of personality that includes the death and sex instinct.
What does Freud believe is the role of conscience?
-Shapes an individuals behaviour and the social fabric of communities.
-It enforces moral standards, guiding individuals towards acceptance behaviour while punishing them through guilt when they transgress these norms.
-Guilt is its central aspect.
What are strengths of Freud’s conscience?
-Gives us an insight into the origins of guilt.
-Explains how people have different ‘consciences’ and ideas of right/wrong.
-Takes into account the social influence on our conscience.
-Doesn’t depend on God.
What are weaknesses of Freud’s conscience?
-Reduces the conscience to the wishes of your parents/authority. Logically, we should grow out of conscience as we mature and gain understanding but Freud doesn’t account for this.
-Reduces the conscience to the need for conformity, limiting its value.
-Contradicts the idea that the conscience is from God.
-Means that conscience isn’t a reliable guide to ethical decision making as it is derived from upbringing.
-Can’t explain people who go against parental and societal influences e.g Corrie Ten Boom in Nazi Germany.
What does Durkheim believe about the conscience?
Quote
-Society is the root of moral values.
-Conscience and morality are the product of social conditioning; they informs of identity and a sense of belonging.
-The collective conscience plays a crucial role in maintaining social cohesion as it drives individuals to be loyal.
“We do not condemn certain behaviours because they are criminal, but they are criminal because we condemn them”.
What is Durkheim’s mechanical conscience?
-Found in smaller, traditional societies that share beliefs.
-Strong collective identity means people who act differently may feel guilty or face criticism.
-People’s moral decisions are strongly influenced by societal expectations as there is pressure to conform.
What is Durkheim’s organic conscience?
-Common in larger, more complex and diverse societies.
-People rely on each other for skills/services and are therefore more tolerant of individual differences.
-Individuals have more room to make personal moral choices without feeling as much social pressure/guilt.
What are criticisms of Durkheim?
-Not everyone falls into the order of society, so it is a weak baseline for morality.
-There must be a part of the conscience that is above and beyond the social norms because people like Jesus had to go against them.
-Society isn’t always morally correct and not everyone agrees with society e.g abortion laws.
-Society’s views are inconsistent e.g the political spectrum.
What does Fromm believe about conscience?
-Humanistic conscience’s authority comes from within us and our own evaluation of our behaviour.
-The authoritarian conscience is derived from a fear of displeasing authority, which led to guilt, causing a greater submission to authority.
Fromm
What is the humanistic conscience?
-Based on biophilia (love for all life).
-An intuitive knowledge of what enables us to flourish and what is destructive.
-If we listen to it, it will reflect who we truly are.
-Because it is repressed, we feel guilty when we fail to meet our alleged standards and potential.
