Conscience Flashcards
What is conscience basically:
The thing that tells us right and wrong, but it’s never that simple is it?
Socrates:
Appreciated laws of the land, but considered his duty as a philosopher to come higher, which is where his conscience applied - wouldn’t stop teaching, but would accept his state-assigned death
Bible:
Not mentioned, except in Paul’s writings - given as a gift by god, shows divine law
Clement of Alexandria:
First to say human reason applies in conscience - cause conscience existed before Christianity - started the Debate within religion of reason vs given by god, opens up universal salvation and reduces importance of revelation
St. Jerome, Pelagius and St. Augustine:
Saw it as innate knowledge, like divine command, Pelagius thought it was entirely innate, Augustine thought God’s grace was necessary, church liked Augustine’s approach more, need right motivation as well
Aquinas:
2 parts - synderesis (do good avoid evil) and conscienta (reason actually deciding), always right to follow conscience, vincible and invincible - if principles wrong, conscience can’t function correctly
Butler:
Wrong to blind your conscience intentionally, looks at interests of others, spontaneous
Newman:
Voice of god, detects but doesn’t invent the truth
Freud:
Guilt, formed from superego fearing judgement from fulfilling desires of id, given by authority figures originally, mature conscience will use ego for a balanced approach
Piaget and Kohlberg:
Like Freud, but it develops as people grow from just fearing punishment to doing it with an understanding of the rules - Kohlberg had 6 stages, and thought most people stopped at just keeping the law not cause they care for others
Fromm:
Authoritarian conscience - linked to Freud, all comes from fear of authorities
Changed to humanistic - we use it to judge how successful we are at being a person
