Conscience

Question 1

Augustine

Answer 1

The conscience is the whispering voice of God.

Question 2

Newman

Answer 2

The conscience is the direct voice of God.

Question 3

Butler

Answer 3

It’s wrong to disobey the conscience as it comes from God. To disobey the conscience is worse than the sin used to go against the conscience because when you go against your conscience you are directly going against God.

Question 4

Fromm’s authoritarian conscience

Answer 4

He originally believed we internalise our feelings of fear so that our inner voice becomes that of authority and we fear authorities rules so we obey them.

Question 5

WW2 example of negative guilt

Answer 5

It would have been seen as the right thing to do for a Nazi to disobey their orders and not kill Jews but overwhelming feelings of guilt would have been but into them by their authority figure meaning that they are unable to do the right thing.

Question 6

Darwin

Answer 6

Aquinas’ view on the conscience can be disproved by evolution.

Question 7

Piaget

Answer 7

Came up with better scientific testing methods than Freud but still came to the same conclusion.

Question 8

Karl Popper

Answer 8

Freud is not empirical enough. He needs to do proper scientific testing.

Question 9

Watson and Skinner

Answer 9

People are easily influenced by their surroundings.

Question 10

Synderesis criticism

Answer 10

Aquinas is too optimistic about human nature. Things such as slavery and Nazism can prove this.
However, Aquinas says this is because of the Fall.

Question 11

Piaget and Kohlberg

Answer 11

Moral reasoning develops in childhood. Up until the age of 11 children only associate actions with being bad because of the influence of their authority figures, most likely parents.

Question 12

Vincible ignorance

Answer 12

Lack of knowledge for which a person is responsible.
For example, if you went to Austria you can’t murder someone and say it’s because you grew up in Britain.

Question 13

Invincible ignorance

Answer 13

Lack of knowledge for which a person isn’t responsible.
For example, if you gift someone a holiday and the plane crashes you are not at fault.

Question 14

Karl Barth

Answer 14

Aquinas places an over reliance on human reason.

Question 15

Reivich

Answer 15

Freud is overly pessimistic about our ability to change ourselves radically.

Question 16

Why guilt is good for Christians

Answer 16

We need to feel guilt so we can restore our relationship with God after we have sinned.
However, this is only a significant if God exists which may not be the case.

Question 17

Freud guilt quote

Answer 17

‘the tension between the demands of the conscience and the actual demands of the ego is experienced as a send of guilt.’

Question 18

Conscientia

Answer 18

The name that Aquinas gives to the intellectual process of forming our moral judgements in individual circumstances.

Question 19

Synderseis

Answer 19

It is God given and is our natural inclination to do good and avoid evil.

Question 20

Ratio

Answer 20

Reason. Because we are made in God’s image we are rational creatures subject to the natural law.

Question 21

id

Answer 21

Is present from birth and is the instinctive impulse that seeks satisfaction in pleasure.

Question 22

Superego

Answer 22

Develops at 5 years old and is the result of socialisation and growth during the psychosexual stages of development. It is the conscience.

Question 23

Ego

Answer 23

Balances the superego and id. We should follow this, not our conscience or the superego.