Conscience

Question 1

Plato and Aristotle on conscience

Answer 1

‘Ratio Practica’ right/practicle reason -> phronesis

-if we excercise our reason we can achieve phronesis

Question 2

St Augustine on conscience

Answer 2

conscience is innate knowledge of right conduct
“men see the moral rules written in the book of light which is called truth from which laws are copied”
-God gives everyone a conscience but we really need the will to do right.
-gods grace helps us will good

Question 3

Abelard on conscience

Answer 3

actions themselves are neither good nor bad and neither desires or inclinations

• a sin is an action willfully committed against conscience
• “it is not a sin to desire a married woman, but it is a sin to act on it”
• example of a monk laying between two naked women- his body will act instinctively but unless he acted it would not be sinful

Question 4

Thomas Aquinas on conscience

Answer 4

• conscience is reason making right decisions.
• Synderisis is an ineffable and natural grasp of moral principles
• conscience is the application of these principles, this can be wrong.
• people can pursue an apparent good rather than a real good
• innate basic principles but conscience is distinct from this and needs reason

Question 5

View on God on conscience

Answer 5

Protestant view- God speaks to them when they pray or read the bible
- internal voice is ultimately authorative.

Question 6

Joseph Butler on conscience

Answer 6

conscience is the arbitrator between reason and passion.

• sometimes people control what they want to do in favor of doing what is right.
• conscience can control and overide desire
• “conscience is a universal moral faculty” in all people and comes from God

Question 7

John Henry Newman on conscience

Answer 7

faculty of conscience is god given but each persons conscience is different because it is informed differently because of life experiences.
God is the starting point
“the divine law is the rule of ethical truth… soverign, absolute authority. this law is called conscience”

Question 8

J S Mill on conscience

Answer 8

on liberty

“it is not because mens desires are strong that they do ill, it is because there conscience is weak”

Question 9

Clarence Darrow case

Answer 9

1925
defended two black men who shot into a mob crowd (killing 1) after a house warming party at a black doctors house.
-faced an all white jury, used conscience as a defence and won by asking “what would you have done”

Question 10

Freud on conscience

Answer 10

believed the human psyche was inspired by powerful desires that begin at birth and need to be satisfied.

• the ego creates an awareness of self and others and is crucial to our interaction in the world.
• the conscience produces feelings of guilt and fear of punishment. it is programmed into human beings by the negative feelings and judgments of others.
• the superego restricts humans agressive powerful desires.

Question 11

Fromm on conscience

Answer 11

partly percieved conscience in terms of the internalisation of external factors. the authoritarian conscience.
- the authoritarian conscience can come from an experience of paretnal rules and experience, an adopted belief sytem with an authority figure. it is obeyed because it is an authority, not because it is good or bad.
THIS LINKS TO ZIMBARDO AND MILGRAM

Question 12

psychology on conscience

Answer 12

• Freud
• Fromm
• Milgram
• Zimbardo

Question 13

St Paul on conscience

Answer 13

conscience is the awareness of good and bad, valueing it a measure of the pureness of out motives.
‘our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world with pure and good motives and godly sincerity, without earthly wisdom but with gods grace’