Conscience Flashcards
introduction
- Decision making has an ethical component to it
- Human nature has quality of self-reflection, can regret decisions, wish we had acted differently
- Often discuss our feelings/judgments in terms of conscience: ‘I have a bad conscience about what I did’. It has a reference to past events whilst also a connection with the future
- The word conscience simply means ‘with knowledge’ and is connected to people knowing what they are doing: do animals have conscience?
❖ Conscience: a moral faculty or feeling prompting us to see that certain actions are right or wrong.
bible general
- OT has no word for Conscience, speaks of ‘true heart’
- OT figures experience God calling them to live his will/law
- Matt 5:8, ‘God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God’ (i.e. without guilt)
bible - paul
o Uses term synderesis = human ability to know and choose the good (Aquinas)
o Taught all know what is right and wrong
o Romans 2:14: ‘Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by law’ (Suggests there is an innate sense of guidance)
o Romans 2:15: ‘They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts’ (Imago dei?)
o Conscience is the universal knowledge of God’s law
o Conscience can be corrupted (Augustine – abundance of sin), but through Christ’s redeeming love and the HS, we can ‘put on the mind of Christ’. Church teachings will help keep pure.
newman - conscience innate voice of god
- God implants a conscience in everyone, it is independent of any system of authority.
- Human possess an innate sense of what is right/wrong, have ‘the impulse of nature’
- Children have an innate sense of God and morality, nurture can destruct this (+ Calvin sensus divinitatis, - Dawkins)
- When conscience ‘speaks’ it is God’s voice
- When we feel guilty, it is because we are standing before the Divine and thus our guilt is exposed
- Conscience should be guided by RCC teaching, with greater weight on conscience. Times where conscience would go against the Pope. ‘I toast the Pope, but I toast conscience first’
criticism of Newman
o However… doesn’t tell us where to place Scripture. Could argue weight on conscience is due to context of the inadequate Pope during his lifetime. (Pope Pius IX)
o Personal engagement with self-assessing Church teaching is completely subjective, conscience can be self-centred
palmer
Newman’s argument is seriously flawed. For not only would it do equally well supporting polytheism, it also provides no means of establishing whether the voice heard (if it is heard at all), far from being divine, is in fact demonic
bishop Joseph butler - faculty of reflection
- Conscience is a God-given ‘faculty of reflection’
- it is a process of intuitive judgement against conflicting desires, instant intuition
- Separates humans from other sentient beings (H, Singer)
- Conscience is selfish rather than selfless.
BUt.. conscience can harmonise self-interest and altruism and allow for welfare of others
Appeals to Matthew 7:12 (Golden Rule) to claim that to respect others you must respect yourself first.
o Argued in his Rolls Sermons (preaching to lawyers hearing criminal cases) that criminals have no conscience as they do not love themselves.
criticisms of butler
o Self-esteem should not be the basis of conscience, conscience should convict when we are wrong rather than to make humans think they are good
o Optimism re. human nature has been undermined by moral evil throughout history
plato and conscience
- Tripartite view of soul: appetite, emotion and reason
- However, there is 4th part: synderesis (St Jerome: ‘the spark of conscience… with which we discern that we sin’)
- Innate faculty of habit of judging and willing the right in agreement with ‘original righteousness’ . Must activate it and persist in the separate powers of the soul in spite of human corruption. There is something we use to try and overcome the sin around us.
- Everyone desires good, but most people (other than true philosophers) are ignorant of what good really is.
augustine
- God has put a conscience in everyone; God’s grace directs it.
- Thought that reason, intellect and mind were all one power in humans (Aquinas separates reason as a separate thing)
- If no Fall, then we would all know right from wrong, conscience is faulty due to Fall. Must look to authority of Church and Scripture.
- Conscience is voice of God within, born with it. We will know instinctively what is right/wrong, only with God’s grace that we can act in line with our consciences.
- When God’s love and moral virtue are revealed in solitary moments, humans experience their own inadequacy. E.g. if you think you’re a good runner and then race against an Olympic athlete, you realise that although you thought you were good, you’re simply ordinary.
- Inspired Luther, ended up breaking with RCC as he felt is conscience would not allow him to follow the Pope. (Supported by Cardinal Newman)
- Voice of God cannot be questioned, cannot be contradicted. (However, how can you be sure it’s God speaking? Also, it can suggest a contradictory God, if two people claim their consciences are instructing opposing things)
aquinas summary
aquinas’ view is more rational than Augustine/newman
- We should always seek what is good and are naturally inclined to do this (synderesis)
- Reason decides what is good
- Part of the definition of good is ‘rationally chosen’
- Therefore, what our reason tells us (which can be wrong) is good is the good to be pursued
- Therefore, if we do not follow our reason, we are seeking something which our reason tells us is not good
- We must therefore always follow our reason (conscience)
aquinas and ratio
- Aquinas and reason (ratio)
- Humans have many special qualities that mark them out from other creatures (+ Dawkins Soul 2, however, Singer)
- Imago dei, have reason. Reason has a greater sense of progression, more than simply comprehending things.
- ‘Reason in man is rather like God in the world’
o ‘To disparage the dictate of reason is equivalent to condemning the command of God’
o Aquinas disagreed with Augustine’s view of synderesis (innate knowledge), claimed that conscience is a binding force that needs to be worked.
o Can figure out what is right/wrong using reason (Aristotle)
aquinas - reason to help figure out what is right or wrong
♣ Can use synderesis (practical reason) to discern what God wants for humanity
♣ Leads to 5 Primary Precepts, not laws, simply God’s purpose for humanity
♣ Derive laws from Primary Precepts using conscientia (secondary precepts)
♣ As we practice balancing our needs against the needs of others, we develop prudence (the virtue of right reasoning)
♣ ‘All acts of virtue are prescribed by the natural law: since one’s reason naturally dictates to him to act virtuously’
♣ ‘Not all virtuous acts are prescribed by natural law’ (must use reason to derive/interpret the virtuous acts from the primary precepts)
♣ E.g. homosexuality: ordered society (against nuclear unit), reproduction (cannot reproduce) and worship of God (against Scripture). Thus, homosexuality goes against Natural Law.
♣ Uses Romans 1:20, which suggests that we can move from the knowledge of this world to knowledge of the eternal law.
♣ Morality is not simply about doing that which is accepted by the many, what is culturally, socially or politically moral. (Unlike Freud)
aquinas, wrong synderesis
- Naturally we want to do good, but often mistake apparent goods for real goods through using synderesis wrongly
o All people want do moral good ‘synderesis rule’ but due to vincible ignorance, we often mistake apparent goods for real goods and thus mess up the process of conscientia
♣ ‘If a mistaken reason bids a man sleep with another man’s wife, to do this will be evil if based on ignorance of a divine law he ought to know, but if the misjudgement is occasioned by thinking that the woman is really his own wife and she wants him and he wants her, then his will is free from fault’.
o (Vincible ignorance – we don’t know something, yet we can know it and educate ourselves about it)
aquinas, conscientia
- Conscientia – deriving secondary precepts and applying them: end decision you get (coming to decision, involves prudence).
o Process of reasoning moving from PP (synderesis) to SP (conscientia).
o End result – not innate.
o ‘Application of knowledge to activity’
o Conscience is a verb of doing something, rather than a noun (Fletcher)
o However, it is a move away from the lex structure of Christianity, moving to a more ius approach.
aquinas, prudence
- Prudence – the virtue of right reasoning in moral matters, balancing others’ and our needs. Links to Aristotle’s eudaimonia which focuses on the whole of society, absolutist.
o (+/- Marx, life is about the group and not the individual. Conscience is a way of exerting social control over the inferior.)
o We should not feel guilty for every wrong action, sometimes we could not have foreseen certain consequences
o ‘Prudence entails not only consideration of the reason but also the application to action, which is the goal of practical reason’
o Prudence involves 3 intellectual skills: understanding, judgement and good deliberation (the practical business of working out how to achieve what we ought to do)
o ‘It is clear that St. Thomas saw conscience and prudence as two converging lights coming from the same source. Both are prompted by our aspiration to the truth and both share the object of the discernment between good and evil’ Servais Pinckaers
aquinas and ignorance general
o Aquinas does not agree with the concept of guilt as a ‘feeling in your heart’, it is rather a process of reasoning teamed with types of innocence.
o Aquinas said that a person’s conscience could go wrong either invincibly or vincibly.
o Either innocent (invincible) or culpable (vincible)
aquinas and vincible ignorance general
♣ Lack of knowledge for which a person is morally responsible
♣ Has implications on punishment: punishment should be harsher if make no effort to clear ignorance
♣ It is culpable ignorance because it could be cleared up if the person made enough effort to learn what should be known
♣ Guilt can be lessened if the lack of knowledge is not directly willed but is due to neglect or laziness e.g. Mary Bell – diminished responsibility
♣ Affected ignorance – when one is deliberately ignorant in order not to be inhibited in one wants to do = more guilt
♣ ‘Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know’ – Aldous Huxley
aquinas and vincible ignorance link to NL
♣ Link to NL
• Must educate in order to avoid vincible ignorance (one of PP)
• Educate our reason with Scripture and Church teachings (Divine Law and Natural Law)
• Educating our reason is more crucial because of the Fall and thus has the potential to be used wrongly. Vincible ignorance needs to be overcome with education of reason.
♣ Link to Aristotle (see evaluation section)
♣ Plato would argue against this (see evaluation section)
invincible ignorance example of dresden
♣ Bombing of Dresden
• Gov terror bombed Dresden, killed up to 60,000 innocent people
• Vincible error – they knew it was wrong
• A bomb was dropped on a weapons factory, school hidden underneath. Did not know about the school and thus it was an invincible error.
invincible ignorance example, money to man on street
♣ E.g. giving money to man on street
• Intention = good
• Action actually keeps him on the streets for longer
• I erred vincibly, would have done differently if I’d thought about it
• Would have been much better if I had given money to homeless charity that would have the experience to effectively help him. However, I did not know that workers at this charity were abusing the homeless people in their care. Supporting the charity was actually the wrong thing to do, but I couldn’t have known this – I erred invincibly.
general positives of aquinas
- Accessible – we all have reason
- Good to separate steps of reasoning
- Fletcher: conscience is a verb rather than noun, based on action.
- Separation between vincible and invincible is good, acknowledges how some things are out of your control
aquinas positives - Aristotle influence
• Misuse of synderesis because of apparent goods mirrors Aristotle’s view that we can know the good but fail to do it because we have fallen into bad habits.
o Aristotle considers 2 factors which may excuse someone from being blamed: ignorance and lack of choice. Aquinas develops this in his teaching that to commit a sin, one needs full knowledge and full consent. (Invincible ignorance)
Aristotle distinguishes between voluntary and involuntary decisions, highlighting how judging responsibility of an individual must be assessed according to the particular situation: ‘we punish a man for his ignorance, if he is considered responsible for the ignorance (…) and we punish those who are ignorant of anything in the laws that they ought to know that is not difficult to find out’
general negatives of aquinas
• Removes emotion and guilt from moral decision-making.
• Can use reason wrongly
• Some people have mental illnesses – could argue they do not fully have reason
• Same Natural and Ethical laws guide all human beings, does not take into account cultural relativity of laws, which may vary the conscience.
• People can reach totally different conclusions when using their consciences. (Aquinas would argue that this wouldn’t happen if they were using right reason)
• Could argue against Aquinas’ insistence on God-given conscience. Aquinas recognises that although conscience is God-given, it is capable of error, thus could argue that conscience is something that all minds are capable of, thus rendering his theory secular.
Plato would argue against Aquinas’
aquinas negatives - butler and newman
• Butler and Newman find it less straightforward than Aquinas to account for errors in the application of conscience. Newman deals with it by arguing we sometimes have a false conscience by listening to our desires and telling ourselves that our conscience is speaking.
o Butler assumes that if we only attended to it, our God-given conscience would give us the right answers.
