CONSCIENCE

1
CONSCIENCE
2

• When your intelligence dont tell you something
  aint right, your conscience gives you a tap you
  on the shoulder and says Hold on. If it dont,
  youre a snake. Elvis Presley, American rock 'n'
  roll icon (1935-1977)
• Conscience is Gods presence in man. Emmanuel
  Swedenborg, Swedish-American spiritualist
  (1688-1772)
• Reason often makes mistakes but conscience never
  does. Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw),
  American writer and humourist (1818-1885)

3
CONSCIENCE

• When considering the nature and function of
  conscience there are four questions to keep in
  mind
• What is conscience?
• Where does conscience come from?
• Is conscience innate or acquired?
• What is its function in ethical decision making?

4
Conscience

• What is conscience?
• A moral faculty or feeling prompting us to see
  that certain actions are morally right or wrong.
• Conscience can prompt people in different
  directions.
• We consider it to be a reliable guide but it
  lacks consistency and can lead people to perform
  terrible actions.

5
Timeline

• Augustine of Hippo 334-430
• Thomas Aquinas 12241274
• Joseph Butler 16921752
• John Henry Newman 18011890
• Sigmund Freud 18561939
• Jean Piaget 1896-1980
• Erich Fromm 19001980
• Lawrence Kohlberg 19271987

6
Religious views

• Biblical teaching
• Augustine
• Thomas Aquinas
• Joseph Butler
• John Henry Newman

7
Secular Views

• Jean Piaget
• Erich Fromm
• Lawrence Kohlberg
• Sigmund Freud

8
Religious Views

• These views rely on an intuitionist approach
  conscience is innate and comes from God
• The Bible the law written on the heart

9
Biblical teaching

• It is assumed by some biblical writers and early
  Christian teachers that our conscience is
  God-given. This view is put clearly in Pauls
  letter to the Romans
• When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do
  instinctively what the law requires, these,
  though not having the law, are a law to
  themselves. They show that what the law requires
  is written on their hearts (Romans 214-15a)

10
Augustine

• Conscience is the voice of God speaking to us

11
Aquinas

• All people aim for what is good and sin is
  falling short of Gods ideals, but sometimes even
  following conscience we will get it wrong.

12
Aquinas

• Conscience for Aquinas has 2 essential parts
• Synderesis the use of right reason by which we
  learn basic moral principles and understand that
  we have to do good and avoid evil.
• Conscientia the actual judgement or decision
  we make that leads us to act.

13
Aquinas

• Does Aquinas rationalistic approach consider
  revelation that comes directly from God?

14
Aquinas Reason seeking Understanding

15
Butler

• wrote that the most crucial thing which
  distinguished women and men from the animal world
  was the possession of the faculty of reflection
  or conscience.
• So being human involves being moral.
• Conscience is a persons God-given guide to right
  conduct and its demands must therefore always be
  followed.

16
Butler

• Conscience comes from God and must be obeyed
• Conscience will harmonise self love and
  benevolence

17
Butler

• the consequence of an action is not what makes it
  right or wrong as that has already happened
• the purpose of conscience is to guide a person
  into a way of life that will make them happy
• conscience will harmonise self-love and
  benevolence this may take some sorting out and
  so in moral dilemmas we may be uncertain what to
  do
• conscience controls human nature

18
Joseph Butler conscience comes from God
19
Newman

• Conscience is the voice of God
• If, as is the case, we feel responsibility, are
  ashamed, are frightened, at transgressing the
  voice of conscience, this implies there is One to
  whom we are responsible, before whom we are
  ashamed, whose claims upon us we fear.

20
Freud

• The human personality consists of three areas
• the superego the set of moral controls given to
  us by outside influences. It is our moral code or
  conscience and is often in conflict with the Id.
• the ego the conscious self, the part seem by
  the outside world.
• id the unconscious self, the part of the mind
  containing basic drives and repressed memories.
  It is amoral, has no concerns about right and
  wrong and is only concerned with itself.

21
Freud

• Conscience is most clearly connected with the
  sense of guilt that we feel when we go against
  our conscience. Conscience then is simply a
  construct of the mind.
• In religious people this would be in response to
  perceptions of God.
• In non-religious people it would be their
  responses to externally imposed authority.

22
Freud

• The content of our consciences are shaped by our
  experiences
• The superego internalises the disapproval of
  others and creates the guilty conscience

23
Piaget

• A childs moral sense develops and the ability to
  reason morally depends on cognitive development.

24
Piaget

• Two stages of moral development
• Heteronomous morality (between the ages of 5 and
  10 years) when the conscience is still immature,
  rules are not to be broken and punishment is
  expected if a rule is broken. The consequences of
  an action will show if it is right or wrong.

25
Piaget

• Autonomous morality (10) when children develop
  their own rules and understand how rules operate
  in and help society. The move towards autonomous
  morality occurs when the child is less dependant
  on others for moral authority.

26
Kohlberg

• Identified stages of moral development which he
  believed individuals had to follow in sequence.

27
Kohlberg

• People move from
• behaving in socially acceptable ways because they
  are told to do so by authority figures and want
  to gain approval,
• to keeping the law
• to caring for others
• and finally respect for universal principles and
  the demands of an individual conscience.
• Kohlberg felt that most adults never got beyond
  keeping the law.

28
Fromm Authoritarian Conscience

• all humans are influenced by external authorities
  which apply rules and punishments for breaking
  them
• these are internalised by the individual
• a guilty conscience is a result of displeasing
  the authority
• disobedience produces guilt which makes us more
  submissive to the authority

29
Fromm Humanistic Conscience

• Fromms views changed over time
• He saw the humanistic conscience as being much
  healthier as it assesses and evaluates our
  behaviour.
• We use it to judge how successful we are as
  people.
• We use our own discoveries in life and the
  teachings and example of others to give us
  personal integrity and moral honesty.
• This is the opposite to the slavish obedience and
  conformity of the authoritarian conscience.

30
Other views of conscience

• Vincent MacNamara conscience is an awareness or
  attitude seeing goodness and truth as important
• Richard Gula conscience is a way of seeing the
  world and responding through the choices we make
• Daniel Maguire conscience is discerning the
  best moral choice. This involves reason, but also
  shared experiences of the past and of culture, as
  well as our personal experiences.

31
Problems

• For Christians conscience is often regarded as
  the voice of God. However, this raises some
  serious questions
• If we always knew that what our conscience told
  us to do was Gods command then we would never
  make mistakes
• However, we do make mistakes
• If we cant hear God properly whose fault is it?

32
Problems

• Christians often have disagreements over moral
  issues such as abortion.
• So are things not as clear cut as the voice of
  God definition of conscience suggests?

33
Problems

• Many atheists claim that conscience is important
  to them.
• Such claims do not rely upon God.
• For atheists, agnostics and humanists, conscience
  is part of being human and there is no need to
  involve God when moral decisions have to be made.
  
• Conscience appears to be a universal part of
  human moral living.

34
Conscience

• Conscience implies personal responsibility
• And perhaps a little demythologising may be in
  order, for conscience is not a still small voice,
  not bells, nor a blind stab in the dark it is
  simply me coming to a decision. When I say my
  conscience tells me all I am really saying is I
  think. (Jack Mahoney Seeking the Spirit)

35
Conscience

• Is it innate or acquired?
• Or both?