conscience powerpoint jm 09-02-09

7/30/2019 Conscience Powerpoint JM 09-02-09

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CONSCIENCE



When your intelligence don‘t tell you

something ain‘t right, your conscience

gives you a tap you on the shoulder

and says ‗Hold on‘. If it don‘t, you‘re a

snake.— Elvis Presley, American rock 'n' roll icon (1935-

1977)

Conscience is God‘s 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)



CONSCIENCE

When considering the nature andfunction 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?



Conscience

What is conscience?

A moral faculty or feeling prompting us

to see that certain actions are morallyright or wrong.

Conscience can prompt people indifferent directions.

We consider it to be a reliable guidebut it lacks consistency and can leadpeople to perform terrible actions.



Timeline

Augustine of Hippo 334-430

Thomas Aquinas 1224 –1274

Joseph Butler 1692 –1752

John Henry Newman 1801 –1890

Sigmund Freud 1856 –1939

Jean Piaget 1896-1980

Erich Fromm 1900 –1980

Lawrence Kohlberg 1927 –1987



Religious views

Biblical teaching

Augustine

Thomas Aquinas

Joseph Butler

John Henry Newman



Secular Views

Jean Piaget

Erich Fromm

Lawrence Kohlberg

Sigmund Freud



Religious Views

These views rely on an intuitionist

approach – conscience is innate and

comes from God

The Bible – ‗the law written on the

heart‘



Biblical teaching

It is assumed by some biblical writersand early Christian teachers that our conscience is God-given. This view isput clearly in Paul‘s letter to the Romans:

‗When Gentiles, who do not possess thelaw, do instinctively what the law

requires, these, though not having thelaw, are a law to themselves. They showthat what the law requires is written ontheir hearts…‘ (Romans 2:14-15a)



Augustine

Conscience is the voice of Godspeaking to us



Aquinas

All people aim for what is good and sin

is falling short of God‘s ideals, but

sometimes even following consciencewe will get it wrong.



Aquinas

Conscience for Aquinas has 2 essentialparts:

Synderesis – the use of right reasonby which we learn basic moralprinciples and understand that wehave to do good and avoid evil.

Conscientia – the actual judgement or decision we make that leads us to act.



Aquinas

Does Aquinas‘ rationalistic approach

consider revelation that comes directlyfrom God?



Aquinas – Reason seeking

Understanding

Accept general

principles

Apply these

principles

with the help of

conscience

to particular

situations



Butler

wrote that the most crucial thing whichdistinguished women and men fromthe animal world was the possession

of the faculty of reflection or conscience.

So being human involves being moral.

Conscience is a person‘s God-givenguide to right conduct and its

demands must therefore always be



Butler

Conscience comes from God and must

be obeyed

Conscience will harmonise self love and

benevolence



Butler

the consequence of an action is not whatmakes it right or wrong as that hasalready happened

the purpose of conscience is to guide a

person into a way of life that will makethem happy conscience will harmonise self-love and

benevolence – this may take some

sorting out and so in moral dilemmas wemay be uncertain what to do conscience controls human nature



Joseph Butler – conscience comes from God

conscience

principle of

reflection

self-love and

benevolence

basic drives



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 isOne to whom we are responsible,

before whom we are ashamed, whose

claims upon us we fear.‘



Freud

The human personality consists of threeareas:

the superego – the set of moral controlsgiven to us by outside influences. It is

our moral code or conscience and isoften in conflict with the Id. the ego – the conscious self, the part

seem by the outside world.

id – the unconscious self, the part of themind containing basic drives andrepressed memories. It is amoral, has noconcerns about right and wrong and is

only concerned with itself.



Freud

Conscience is most clearly connectedwith the sense of guilt that we feel

when we go against our conscience.

Conscience then is simply a constructof 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.



Freud

The content of our consciences are

shaped by our experiences

The superego internalises the

disapproval of others and creates the

guilty conscience



Piaget

A child‘s moral sense develops and

the ability to reason morally dependson cognitive development.



Piaget

Two stages of moral development:

Heteronomous morality (between

the ages of 5 and 10 years) when theconscience is still immature, rules are

not to be broken and punishment is

expected if a rule is broken. Theconsequences of an action will show if

it is right or wrong.



Piaget

Autonomous morality (10+) when

children develop their own rules and

understand how rules operate in andhelp society. The move towards

autonomous morality occurs when the

child is less dependant on others for moral authority.



Kohlberg

Identified stages of moral

development which he believed

individuals had to follow in sequence.



Kohlberg

People move from: behaving in socially acceptable ways

because they are told to do so byauthority figures and want to gainapproval,

to keeping the law

to caring for others

and finally respect for universalprinciples and the demands of anindividual conscience.◦ Kohlberg felt that most adults never got

beyond keeping the law.

Fromm Authoritarian



Fromm – Authoritarian

Conscience

all humans are influenced by externalauthorities 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 whichmakes us more submissive to the

authority



Fromm – Humanistic Conscience

Fromm‘s views changed over time He saw the humanistic conscience as

being much healthier as it assesses andevaluates our behaviour.

We use it to judge how successful weare as people.

We use our own discoveries in life andthe teachings and example of others to

give us personal integrity and moralhonesty. This is the opposite to the slavish

obedience and conformity of the

authoritarian conscience.



Other views of conscience

Vincent MacNamara – conscience is anawareness or attitude – seeing goodnessand truth as important

Richard Gula – conscience is a way of seeing the world and responding throughthe choices we make

Daniel Maguire – conscience is

discerning the best moral choice. Thisinvolves reason, but also sharedexperiences of the past and of culture,as well as our personal experiences.



Problems

For Christians conscience is oftenregarded as the voice of God.However, this raises some seriousquestions:

If we always knew that what our conscience told us to do was God‘scommand then we would never make

mistakes However, we do make mistakes

If we can‘t hear God properly – whose

fault is it?



Problems

Christians often have disagreementsover moral issues such as abortion.

So are things not as clear cut as ‗thevoice of God‘ definition of conscience

suggests?



Problems

Many atheists claim that conscience isimportant 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.



Conscience

Conscience implies personalresponsibility:

―And perhaps a little demythologising

may be in order, for conscience is nota still small voice, not bells, nor a blind

stab in the dark; it is simply me

coming to a decision. When I say ‗myconscience tells me‘ all I am really

saying is ‗I think‘.‖ (Jack Mahoney –

Seeking the Spirit )



Conscience

Is it innate or acquired?

Or both?

conscience powerpoint jm 09-02-09

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