Conscience Flashcards
What does Aquinas Believe conscience is?
An act of making moral judgements.
What is Syndresis linked with conscience?
-inclination to do good and avoid evil
-desire to fulfill it
-use reasoning to develop synderesis
What is Conscienia?
-forming moral judgements
-applying to unique situations
What is ratio?
-gained as we are created in God’s image
-ability to make moral judgements
-helps connect with divine law by giving access to natural law
How does conscience indirectly come from God?
God gave a tool (reason) to make moral judgements
Why does Conscience carry authority?
All we have in the moment of making a decision so is a moral obligation
Why is it that we have responsibility according to Aquinas’s theory?
Because we are responsible to develop our conscience.
As we either do a real good or apparent good.
What is Phronesis?
-to avoid apparent Good we have to develop our Phronesis
-the more we practise through moral dillemma and applying reason to our natural inclination of doing good
-more likely to then apply right reason
-recta ratio
How does phronesis link with the fundamental goods?
Educate
What is included in Aquinas’s Conscience that isn’t included in Fletcher’s?
It requires reflection on the moral judgement and if there in line with God’s will
What must we do to avoid selfish desires?
Make synderesis a Habit by developing our reason
Why may people come to different conclusions using conscience?
Misapplied reason
What are the two types of Ignorance?
vincible and invincible ignorance
What is Vincible ignorance?
They are morally Blameworthy
as they lack knowledge which is what there responsibility is.
What is the example of vincible ignorance?
commuting adulatory the individual misapplied reason leading to the apparent good and also they lacked the knowledge of divine law where it states ‘do not commit adulatory’.
What is invincible ignorance?
Act with the best of there knowledge with all they have been informed with and there not responsible.
Why would someone have invincible ignorance?
-younge,mentally ill to know right and wrong
-those who are able to access Jesus’s message
What is the example of invincible ignorance?
Man slept with woman believing it was his wife and the woman is willing he is not held morally responsible
According to Aquinas what makes an individual blameworthy?
1) Full knowledge
2)Full consent
What are 3 strengths of Aquinas’s view of Conscience?
-He explains how our conscience can be mistaken
-explains moral disagreements
-His distinction of both ignorance seems just
What are 3 weaknesses of Aquinas?
-overly optimistic about human nature
-contradictory, argues we should follow our conscience but our conscience can also make mistakes
-Research carried out by Paiget would argue that we develop moral judgements over time suggesting syndresis is not innate
According to Freud what is the terms conscience synonymous with?
Guilt which goes against the superego
Where does our Guilt come from?
Superego- internalized ideas of our parents and authority figures
Oedipus complex- where boys unconsciously want to sleep with there mothers and kill there fathers but overcome this fixation by relating to them
What is Psychoanalysis?
-analysis of the unconscious mind
-where patient talks freely about there dreams and early childhood
