Conscience Flashcards
define conscience
- a person’s moral sense of right and wrong viewed as acting as a guide to one’s behaviour. it is personal, internal, intuitive and goes deeper than the moral principles established through ethical arguments or social conventions.
Describe Kohlberg’s non-religious idea of the conscience
- conscience is a result of social interaction. He tested this theory by using moral dilemmas to understand a person’s moral; reasoning.
- his theory of moral development was derived from interviews with young boys ranging in age where he asked them to consider moral dilemmas, famously the Heinz dilemma.
- these interviews suggested a progression in moral reasoning, meaning that as children grow up they go through a series of stages in life that help morality develop.
- his experiments suggest that there is a progression in mora reasoning
Kohlberg: describe the 6 different stages of moral development
Preconventional Level (age 3-7)
1) avoid punishment
2) Obtain rewards
- at this stage, morality is externally controlled, children accept and believe rules imposed by authority figures and focus on the external consequences of actions
Conventional level
3) belong and be accepted
4) obey rules and regulations
- morality is concerned with social conformity and there is a shift from self-interest to social systems and seeking social approval, positive relationships ands maintaining social order to seek acceptance
Post conventional (adulthood)
5) make and keep promises 6) live moral imperatives
- morality is concerned with justice. judgements may conflict with societal standards and may disobey rules that aren’t consistent with their moral values. It involves concern for the common good, as well as a utilitarian understanding that good for society is more important than the good of the individual. This leads to the development of an individual who makes consistent choices for the good of everyone. This is Kantian in nature as choices become universalizable.
- to go against the conscience leads to feelings of guilt, so it will be followed even if it leads to imprisonment.
Kohlberg: describe the potential responses to the Heinz dilemma
Should a man steal a pharmaceutical drug to save his life
- Someone on stage 1 might argue that Heinz shouldn’t seal the drug as Staling is wrong and he should go to prison
- on stage 5, Heinz might take a right to life argument that everyone has an equal right to treatment, so he should steal it
- on stage 6, where people develop their own universal ethical principles, the individual might reason on Kantian lines that theft is always wrong
Freud: describe Freud’s ideas about levels of consciousness
- conscious mind = what you are aware of at any given moment eg present perceptions, memories, thoughts, feelings.
- preconscious mind = available memory
- however, the unconscious mind is the biggest part according to freud and it includes what isn’t readily available eg instincts/trauma. he claims ti is the source of our motivations
- Freudian slip: slip of th tongue suuppsoedly revealing unconscious thoughts, occurring when the unconscious mind intrudes into the conscious due to unresolved/repressed feelings.
- freud argued that the conscience is a psychological phenomenon combing from the unconscious
Freud: describe the division of the mind
Id = unconscious, instinctive part of the personality - basic physical and emotional needs eg eros and Thanatos
ego - rational self, decisionamking part of the personality.
superego = ‘above I’. controls and restrains the id’s impulses and contains the conscience which punishes the ego with guilt. it is shaped by parental authority and is the ‘inner parent’
- the superego influences and guides the ego’s decisions and actions through a person’s moral/societal values. it represents the moral and ethical aspects of a person’s personality, shaped by societal norms/cultural values/parents, internalising these moral standards. the ego then has the challenging task of navigating between the conflicting demands of the id and the superego to make decisions and take actions that align with societal norms and individual morality.
Freud: describe the idea that conscience is an aspect of the superego
- the superego helps develop a person’s morality, acting as an ‘inner parent’ - it stores your parents’ moral commands from infancy and the commands of other authority figures. the conscience is an aspect of the operation of the superego, and attempting to escape these internalised moral command leads to guilt.
Freud: describe the idea that the conscience is the judging function of the superego with both a conscious and unconscious function
- on a conscious level, we are aware of conscience when we weigh actions in light of articulated belief -eg when a person who believes in sanctity of life joins the military their conscious may bother them for going against an articulated belief. n a preconscious or unconscious level, our conscience bothers us hen our behaviour or potential behaviour is at odds with the content of the superego - leads to anxiety and guilt.
- Douglas c. langston: freud stresses that the superego is the internalisation of the external parent authority, therefore according to Freud the superego functions in various ways, and only in its judging/threatenign actions is it identified as conscience. so, conscience appears to be a functional part of the superego - the part that judges and threatens with punishment.
the conscience cannot be a source of moral authority, as t is simply the internalisation of our parents’ wishes.
What is Freud saying about conscience as a moral authoprity
it can’t be a moral authority as it is simply an unconscious application of childhood rules, and it isn’t the voice of god either. surely this would mean we grow out of the conscience as we get older and have a more mature and rational ego asserts itself- however freud disagrees and says the superego continues to influence us unconsciously
- freud simply presents the conscience as simply conformity to parental expectation rather than being intuitive or rational. it is a pre-rational function of the unconscious mind.
Durkheim: describe Durkheim’s differentiation between the mechanical and organic conscience
Durkheim defined collective consciousness as ‘the totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society forms a deteruate system with a life of its own…. the collective or creative consciousness’
- he differentiated between 2 different types of conscience in society
1) Mechanical conscience: in societies where people share similar values, beliefs and norms, and there is a high degree of collective consciousness, if someone does something different they will be guilty and criticised.
2) organic conscience = in bigger place es, with more diversity of belief, it is ok for people to have their own beliefs and values because everyone relies on each other in different ways - even if you have different ideas, you can still work together and live peacefully., so moral decisions become more flexible and individualised
- the type of conscience in your society affects how you make moral decisions - a strong collective conscience (mechanical) leads to conformity and social pressure, whilst a more flexible one (organic_ leads to greater diversity in moral belief
Durkheim: explain how religion is a mechanism for the collective conscience:
- in many traditional societies, religion plays a significant role in shaping the collective conscience (mechanical) as it provides a shared moral framework for the community and deviating from religious norms leads to sanctions. Durkheim argued that religion serves as a fundamental mental insititution in society providing a sense of collective identity, moral values, and societal cohesion. Religion plays a crucial role in maintaining social order and integraation
- whilst Durkheim didn’t personally believe, he saw religion as a natural and essential part of human culture and society. god is a projection of society’s power, and belief in god gives individuals a moral obligation to obey society’s commands.
- god is therefore a useful idea in society as conscience is part of our loyalty to society and fear of judgement from others
Durkheim: define collective conscience
- beliefs agreed on by those in the same society - acts are bad as society disapproves. The collective consciousness is formed through social interaction and binds individuals together creating social cohesion
Durkheim: define the evolutionary conscience
- allows society to grow stronger and is a survival mechanism developed by people sharing the same moral values
Fromm: What did Fromm believe about conscience
‘We are not on the way to greater individualism, but are becoming an increasingly manipulated mass civilisation’
- guilt, shame, fear conscience and a sense of moral responsibility may arise out of a fear of being rejected by society as society is based on obedience to rules and conformity to norms.
- According to Fromm, in most social systems the supreme virtue is obedience and supreme sin is disobedience. For most people, when they feel guilty they are afraid.= because they think they have been disobedient. they aren’t really troubled by a moral issue, rather they are troubled because they’ve disobeyed a command and have an authoritarian conscience
Fromm: describe the authoritarian conscience
- Fromm’s first approach to conscience was that it derived from a fear of displeasing authority which led to guilt, causing a greater submission to authority - for Fromm, this wa sos strong that it leads people to blind, rigid thinking, not all of which is correct.
- the authoritarian conscience comprises the laws and sanctions exercised by authorities. social norms and society’s expectations become internalised and form our conscience.
- our guilty conscience arises when we fail to please authorities, leading to a fear of being deserted fir disobedience, leading to guilt which weakens our power and makes us more submissive to authority.
- if people follow their authoritarian conscience unquestioningly, they may live a happy, prosperous life, but have no inner contentment - self-alienation under capitalism
