Conscience

Question 1

Augustine’s views on conscience

Answer 1

The moral voice of god within the individual

Question 2

What does “Love god and do what you want” ~ Augustine, mean?

Answer 2

Get closer to god and you will know what to do morally

Question 3

Who viewed Conscience as an intellectually driven concept

Answer 3

Aquinas

Question 4

What is Synderisis

Answer 4

The natural desire to do good

Question 5

What is conscientia

Answer 5

The rational working out of what constitutes as a good moral action

Question 6

Who believed that the conscience becomes obscured by weakness of will (sinning from choice)

Answer 6

Aquinas

Question 7

What is invincible ignorance

Answer 7

Doing something wrong that isnt your choice / your not aware of

Question 8

Where is aquinas initial view of the conscience found

Answer 8

Summa theologica
—> views conscience as an act / application of knowledge

Question 9

How does “God made man in his Image” relate to conscience

Answer 9

God made man in his MORAL image

Question 10

What is vincible ignorance

Answer 10

Ignorance that is correctable and avoidable

Question 11

How does aquinas summarise what the conscience is

Answer 11

1. Synderesis
2. Reason decides what is good
3. What reason tells us is good, is the good that we should persue

Question 12

What is the ‘Id’

Answer 12

The basic drives within us
E.g hunger, sex, anger

Question 13

What is the ‘ego’

Answer 13

The rational self (that controls the Id)

Question 14

What is the super-ego

Answer 14

Our internalised sense of what is right and wrong - tries to make the ‘ego’ behave ‘morally’

Question 15

Describe the new born child in Freuds mind

Answer 15

Entirely comprised of Id

Question 16

What is a fundamental part if the Id

Answer 16

Libido

Question 17

What is freuds analogy for the ego and the Id

Answer 17

The rider (ego) controls the horse (the Id)

Question 18

How does the super-ego develop

Answer 18

As a result of socialisation and growth

Question 19

What is the oedipus complex

Answer 19

Boy’s subconsciously want to have sex with their mothers and hate their fathers

Question 20

What is the point of conscience

Answer 20

Each scholar is attempting to capture something unique about human life

Question 21

How do aquinas, Fromm and freud view conscience

Answer 21

Freud: why we feel guilt and shame

Aquinas: how we rationally and morally choose our actions

Fromm: how we should relate to political and social structures

Question 22

What are common criticism of Frued

Answer 22

1. He constructed his theories without sufficient empirical evidence
2. His patients were middle class, neurotic women
3. Real science is always falsifiable (said popper)

Question 23

What were Freuds religious views

Answer 23

He was athiest

Question 24

What was Freuds account on religion

Answer 24

Man lived in a state of fear in pre-historic times (e.g storms etc) - therefore he created god to explain them

—> origins of prayer + ceremonies was to appease the gods

Question 25

What is the “post hoc, propter hoc fallacy”

Answer 25

Logically error that because one event follows the other, that the first event CAUSED the other

Question 26

Freud on the idea of masculine god

Answer 26

We project the buried memories of our fathers onto the universe
—> hence seeing god as “the father”

Question 27

Feuerbach on religion

Answer 27

God is a projection of the human mind- We project our own values with cosmic significance

Question 28

How do Freuds beliefs relate to justice?

Answer 28

If our actions are the result of the subconscious, could we ever be responsible for our wrong doings

Question 29

Comparisons between Freud and Aquinas

Answer 29

For Freud, conscience is a non rational feeling
For Aquinas, they aren’t Phenomena, just facts about how we are

Question 30

How does Freud view conscience in relation to guilt

Answer 30

They interchangeable, and is a psychological issue that can be overcome