Conscience

Question 1

Aquinas’ definition of the conscience

Answer 1

“The faculty of reason making moral decisions”

Conscience is rational - not intuitive.

Question 2

Ratio

Answer 2

Aquinas stated that the conscience is the natural ability to distinguish between good and bad.
Aquinas argued that everyone aims to do good and avoid evil.

Question 3

Synderesis

Answer 3

A part of the conscience linked to recta ratio. It is the inner principle directing a person towards good and away from evil.
It is also the intellectual process of understanding the importance of doing good.
It is the constant repetition of right reason.

Question 4

Conscientia

Answer 4

Making moral judgements, or the application of synderesis to ethical issues.

Question 5

Aquinas’ 2 parts of the conscience

Answer 5

Synderesis + Conscientia = conscience

Question 6

Vincible ignorance

Answer 6

Lack of knowledge, for which a person is responsible, leading them to make wrong decisions.

Question 7

Invincible ignorance

Answer 7

Lack of knowledge for which a person is not responsible. They did their best to reasonably inform themselves but they still got it wrong.

Question 8

Freud

Answer 8

The conscience is a pre-rational function of the human mind.
It comes from guilt and has 3 aspects; Id, Ego and Super ego.

Question 9

Psycho-sexual development - the Oedipus complex

Answer 9

A male child desires for sexual involvement with his mother.
This leads to rivalry with his father.
The child then has a sense of guilt.
He represses sexual instincts and identifies with the parent of the same sex.
This is the origin of moral development in a person, and from this the human psyche develops.

Question 10

Id

Answer 10

This refers to our physical needs.
The place in our mind that deals with passion and desires.
It seeks immediate fulfilment and has no moral basis.
It is repressed.

Question 11

Ego

Answer 11

The ego aims to satisfy the id in a way which appeals to social norms. It is the conscious part of the human or ‘self’.
It interacts with the social world and is the part of the psyche that evaluates and plans.

Question 12

Super ego

Answer 12

The ethical component of the human psyche. It is the controlling, restraining self.

Question 13

Freud - how the conscience works

Answer 13

The conscience is found in the super ego.
It makes you feel guilty if the ego ever gives in to the id.
The conscience is responding to an externally imposed authority by internalising the disapproval of others.

Question 14

Aquinas on guilt

Answer 14

Guilt is caused by the awareness using reason that you have acted contrary to synderesis.
Reason will lead you to feel guilt about invincible ignorance over vincible ignorance.

Question 15

Freud on guilt

Answer 15

Oedipus complex + psycho-sexual development.

Links to social norms.

Question 16

Criticsms of freud

Answer 16

Very little empirical evidence for the Oedipus complex
Ockmans razor - it uses too many steps - the simplest explanation is likely to be true
What about girls?

Question 17

Karl Popper

Answer 17

Criticises Freud.

Psychology was not scientific. You cant falsify it therefore it is not meaningful.

Question 18

Comparing Aquinas and Freud

Answer 18

They both use observations of the world to describe what conscience is.
Aquinas = reason
Freud = patience
They both explain that guilt and desire are linked however they explain them differently.

Question 19

Aquinas’ process of moral decision making

Answer 19

Ratio, synderesis, Conscientia

Question 20

Freud’s process of moral decision making

Answer 20

The super ego decides the balance between the id and ego.

Question 21

Phronesis

Answer 21

Practical reason - links to Aquinas

Question 22

Aquinas - origins of the conscience

Answer 22

Aquinas believed that our ability to reason is given to us from God.

Question 23

Freud - origins of the conscience

Answer 23

Conscience is therefore, a construct of the mind, responding to an externally imposed authority by internalising the disapproval of others.

Question 24

Aquinas - reliability of the conscience

Answer 24

He believed that people should always follow their consciences, but that didn’t mean that one’s conscience was always correct. This rationalistic approach to conscience leaves open the possibility of error, making it a more realistic view of how conscience works.

Question 25

Aquinas - authority of the conscience

Answer 25

The authority of conscience is from God, who gave us the ability to use reason and the natural inclination to do good and avoid evil. We sometimes make mistakes because we misapply our reason, following apparent goods instead of real goods.

Question 26

Freud - authority of the conscience

Answer 26

Conscience is an internalisation of the disapproval of society. While society might be considered the authority here, it is the resultant guilt when one goes against their conscience which makes us feel obliged to obey it, not society itself.

Question 27

Aquinas - disobeying the conscience

Answer 27

He did not consider that following our conscience meant that we were always right. If our reasoning was wrong, then our moral judgement would therefore also be wrong. There are parallels here to the thinking of the developmental psychologists, who consider our reasoning to develop as we grow up. Following our conscience, for Aquinas, means that we apply our moral principles to the situation as best we can using a combination of reason and phronesis: a task which probably gets easier as we get older.

Question 28

Freud - disobeying the conscience

Answer 28

The Superego is probably the clearest place to see guilt as a result of disobeying conscience. For Freud, the conscience, found in the superego, punishes the ego when it gives into the id’s demands and this punishment is the feeling of guilt. If the superego becomes too dominant, it can lead to neuroses, which can make us feel guilty. This shame and fright comes as a result of the internalisation of the externally imposed authority of society, rather than from God, although Freud considered religion to be a sufficient authority.

Question 29

Fromm’s first idea about the conscience

Answer 29

Authoritarian
He considered the conscience to be authoritarian, derived from a fear of displeasing authority, which led to guilt, causing a greater submission to authority. This fear was so strong that it leads people to blind, rigid thinking, not all of which is correct. He saw this as the Nazi’s method of manipulating conscience during their years in power.

Question 30

Similarities between Fromm and Freud

Answer 30

Fromm is clearly influenced by Freud, with strong links to the superego and conscience as a punishing force.

Question 31

Fromm’s second idea about the conscience

Answer 31

Humanitarian.
His moving to America to escape the Third Reich probably influenced this change. In the 1950s Humanistic Psychology emerged in the United States, which asserted that all human beings have free will and the capacity and drive for self-actualisation.
He asserted that we all have the ability to judge and evaluate our behaviour and ourselves as people, making us our own authority figures.