Consciense Flashcards
(25 cards)
Aquinas key words
Ratio – reason
Prudence – the ability to make judgements based on the circumstances
Synderesis – inner principle directing a person to ‘do good and avoid evil’
Conscientia – individual acts of conscience/ a person’s reason making moral judgements
Ratio
Aquinas believed that our ability to reason is given to us by God as a result of being created in God’s image
We have a responsibility to use our God-given reason correctly
We do this by developing the intellectual virtue of prudence
Aquinas believed the conscience is the ‘mind of man making moral judgements’
Conscience based on the idea of practio ratio – reason in practise
He did not believe conscience was innate sense of right and wrong, but ‘reason making right decisions’ thus helping us to uncover God’s will
Ratio is progressive – moves thought allowing judgerment
Synderesis
Synderesis is our natural inclination to ‘go good and avoid evil’- it is a habit of reasoning that we develop with practice
Unlike conscience synderesis is never mistaken, only applied wrongly by a breakdown of reason
Synderesis = safe of ‘knowledge’ we possess
Developing prudence = acquiring the key
It is a habit of learning not a power – The habit of the mind to know eternal/divine laws
Element of sensuality – eg) Adam and eve tempted against synderesis
Conscienta
Conscientia is the practical process of making actual moral judgements and applying them to the situations we face
- The practical working out of synderesis to make moral judgements
Is ‘reason making right decisions’
Begins with synderesis understanding of natural principles – ends with the act of making moral judgement
-example is secondary precepts, laws we discern via reason
Aquinas and Guilt
Emotional consuqnece of going against gods will
There is a link between guilt and human desires for sensual pleasure
For Aquinas it embraced all sensual desires.
Aquinas believed that Adam and Eve gave in to their sensual pleasures when they were tempted to eat the fruit. As a result, they experienced guilt when they realised they were naked and had done wrong.
Ignorance
When we get confused about what good is, we seek apparent goods rather than real goods.
Aquinas distinguished between vincible ignorance (morally blameworthy) and invincible ignorance (not morally blameworthy), can lead to apparent goods
Vincible ignorance – a lack of knowledge for which a person is responsible à if a man sleeps with someone other than his wife because he is unaware of the moral rule about adultery, he is responsible for the error. He ought to know, or should seek to know, the moral rule.
Invincible ignorance – a lack of knowledge for which a person is not responsible à if a man sleeps with someone other than his wife believing it is his wife, there is no wrongdoing as this is a genuine mistake.
Ardent
To act from ratio must reject societal norms that appear immoral
Disagrees with Fromms idea conscience formed based on fear of authority
Wrties on reflection of nazi germany – we do have an objective conscience, through ratio we can act against societal ideals
Eg) the holocaust
- concept of how ordinary people can be persuaded through pressure from authorities or group pressure to harm innocent people
Ratio can evade this
Ratio ‘happens to be completely at odd with the unainmoiuss opinion of all those around them’
St Paul
He uses the term ‘conscience’ to describe the human ability to know and choose the good. He taught that all people, whether or not they are Christians, know what is right and wrong. He said it is written on our hearts.
For him, conscience is the universal knowledge of God’s law, an inner guiding of our external behaviour. Our conscience can be corrupted, but through Christ’s redeeming love, and the action of the Holy Spirit, we can ‘put on the mind of Christ’. He believed that the “conscience” bears witness sometimes accusing the person, sometimes defending them.
Augustine
Conscience is the outflow of God’s divine love
conscience is literally the voice of God, informing us what is right and wrong, and we receive this message intuitively. He believed the conscience emerges from the outflow of God’s divine love - the conscience is God’s love poured forth to human beings; it is when God speaks to the individual. He argued that we can never fully achieve the perfection of what God wants but the conscience acts as a constant reminder for what we should strive to be like. He believed the conscience should not be questioned.
God knows our action and the choices behind them, hiding ones actions and not confessing leads to a distant relationship with god
Innate capacity of right/wrong directed by god’s love
-Both outpouring of god’s love and our innate ability to know the difference of good and bad
-Must always follow conscience seriously, ‘men see moral rules written in the book of light which is called the truth’
Barth
false natural theology which placed a dangerous overreliance on human reason.
Barth argued that if humans were able to know God or God’s morality through their own efforts, then revelation would be pointless
“the finite has no capacity for the infinite”; our finite minds cannot grasp God’s infinite being. Whatever humans discover through reason is therefore not divine so to think it is must then amount to idolatry.
Barth argued idolatry can lead to worship of nations and then even to movements like the Nazis
Tillich
Even a weak or misled conscience is still a conscience, namely, the silent voice of man’s own essential nature, judging his actual being” – Tillich.
To deny that our conscience can discover the natural law is to claim that there is a gap between what we currently are and what we could be
Yet, to have an awareness of that gap is to have a conscience that is aware of its fallen state. So it is contradictory to deny the natural law.
– Even if weakend conscience it still tells of direction fallen and direction to righteousness
Fletcher
conscience is a faculty of the mind. Fletcher, however, believes conscience is a verb, “doing something conscientiously”.
Is not a part of the mind/soul/god’s law/reason
It is the experience of applying agape to a situation
Conscience is just you performing an act in a particular way (whilst bearing in mind love
Rejects basis
its an ‘innate, built in faculty - a form of intuition
2. guidance by the Holy Spirit (he disagreed with many Protestants, who believed that the conscience is the channel for divine guidance)
3. internalised values of a culture or society
4. reason making moral judgements or value choices
there is no conscience; conscience is merely a word for our attempts to make decisions creatively, constructively, fittingly’
Butler
Gift of god given principle of relfection
Believed conscience is a God-given principle of reflection which enable us to achieve the right judgements in particular circumstances.
‘Is a principle of reflection in which men can distinguish’
-are led by two principles self-love and love of others
-Conscience directs us to interests of loving others before ourselves
-Operates in situations without and introspection, and is the ultimate authority
-Leads us away from benevolence and towards self love
He states that conscience is the final moral decision maker and comes from God so should always be followed.
Conscience is automatic and unconscious - it is powerful and happens without our permission. He said that following your conscience is following the Divine Law.
Have complete authority to follow it without considering alternatives
Conscience is the perfect balance between benevolence and self-love.
‘Our natural guide, the guide assigned by author of nature’
Newham
Intuitive voice of god
Adopts more intuitionist approach then Aquinas
conscience is ‘the original vicar of Christ’.
-Voiced ‘I toast to the pope but I toast to the conscience first’
-Obliged to do what we sincerely believe to be right even if we are mistaken
-Cardinal Ratzinger agrees: ‘over the pope is the binding claim of ecclesial authority, there still stands one’s own conscience’
When we feel ashamed, we are hearing the voice of God speaking to us.
He described conscience as a ‘law of the mind’, but he did not see it as giving us commandments to follow.
The conscience is not a set of rules, a feeling of guilt or something that we obey to gain a reward from God.
It is a clear indication of what is right. He believed the conscience should have ultimate authority.
Supports catholic church ‘conscience is a law written by god’ (Pastoral constitution)
ID/ego/superego
Human personality is made up of:
the id (basic desires, irrational) – instinctive impulses that seek satisfaction in pleasure
the ego (rational, controls the id) – our conscious self that mediates between the id and the demands of social interaction
the superego (develops through socialisation, figures of authority) – the internalised ideals of parents and society that try to make the ego behave morally
It is not socially acceptable to seek immediate gratification for all desires, children learn to keep them in check à through teachings of parents, teachers etc
The ego aims to satisfy the id in a way which appeals to the social norms as dictated by the super ego.
This develops into ways to satisfy desires that are more socially acceptable. E.g. a horse (id) and a rider (ego)
For Freud, conscience is superego which is formed by society, particularly parents. It is a reaction to all the demands placed upon a person that they cannot live up to. We internalise the voice of our parents and other authority figures.
A gap emerges between the ego (who we actually are) and the demands of the superego (our idea of an ideal person)
Freud did not believe in any absolute moral law and believed that all our moral codes, the contents of our consciences, are shaped by our experiences - it is culturally dependent and this explains the difference in moral code between societies.#
Oedipus complex
Freud’s discussion of the Oedipus Complex explains how we have innate sexual desires that are repressed and cause shame – can lead to neurosis
Men have feelings of competition with their father, leading to a sexual attraction to their mother
Causes rivalry, but also a need for affection and approval
Grow to resent and fantasise murder of father
Thus pay homage to god – the ultimate father figure
– Projects laws onto ‘god’ to stop murderous intent, easing anxietys
– This projection of the mind (Feuerbach) is the Christian idea of conscience
Freud Guilt
When we go against our superego, this leads to guilt
Conscience is therefore, a construct of the mind.
, guilt is a result of internal conflict in the mind and the inner turmoil of guilt can cause a person to do bad things
Paul Strohm suggests Freud draws on Nietzsche. “Conscience … is not … ‘the voice of God’ … it is the instinct of cruelty, which turns inward once it is unable to discharge itself outwardly.” Nietzsche
Freud said, “The more a man controls his aggressiveness, the more intense become the aggressive tendencies of the super-ego against the ego.”
Psychosexual development
Oral stage: Between birth and 1.5 years old. Babies breastfeed, and explore the world by putting things in their mouth. Failure to develop properly during this stage can lead to smoking or overeating.
Anal stage: 1.5 – 3 years old. The ego develops at this time and pleasure is gained through exercising self-control over going to the toilet. Those who overly-control become a control freak, those who do not learn to control enough become messy.
Phallic stage: 3-6 years old. Children become aware of their genitals and their gender. Oedipus and Electra complex develops – jealousy of the parent of the same sex for the time and attention they take from the parent of opposite same sex. Problems moving through this stage cause intimacy issues later in life.
Latency stage: 6-puberty. Sexual desire develops and is repressed. Gender roles are learned.
Mature genital stage: lasts until death. Controlled sexual desires result in a desire for love and marriage. A person now has a fully developed conscience where the ego controls the Id with reference to the superego.
Piaget
Mental development - Psychologist, modifies Freuds theory
He believed that there are two types of conscience:
1. Immature conscience (ages 5-10) - Compromise of guilty feelings aquired in early years, from parental and school discpiline, little rationality but aims to seek approval of others. . It is consequentialist and he refers to it as heteronomous morality
- Mature conscience (ages 11+)- Mature is healthy, identified with the egos search for integrity, acts dynamically and responsively. Looks outward to the future to develop new insights into situations. It challenges and questions things and we form our own rules. This is a more autonomous morality.
Development stages
-at age of 10 children begin to judge right, wrong and consequences.
-Then begin to link right and wrong with motive and intention.
-Move through this cycle as they encounter unfamiliar situations
-Adults employ both approaches, moving from heteronomous to autonomous levels situationally.
Undermines religious understanding as
It is environmentally induced, not innate
It is deterministic, humans driven by Supergo in subconscious mind
-Shows religious theories would need reworking to better acknowledge environment, however doesn’t fully dismiss God as a provenance
- This is where it differs to Fromm as he believed that we stay as following the conscience from an authority whereas Piaget has shown that once a certain age we should develop our own sense of reason and our own rules. We should no longer be simply avoiding breaking rules set out by others, to avoid punishment.
Fromm
Authoritarian conscience - Studied how conscience can be subverted in civilised society of nazi Germany which he escaped.
Had two ideas concerning conscience.
Authoritarian conscience
Develops understanding of Freuds superego
This refers to consciences ruled by external authorities which, if you disobey, will punish you and result in a guilty conscience.
He said that God may be the example of an authoritarian figure - if we disobey Him, we feel guilty.
He gives the example of Nazi Germany, whereby consciences were manipulated, bypassing moral sense, to make many Germans feel guilty if they helped the Jews.
‘The laws and sanctions of the externalised authority’
humanistic conscience -Intuitive approach whereby the conscience assesses our success and leads us to realise our full potential.
He said that experience gives us moral honesty.
Is our own voice ‘independent to external sanctions’
true self that looks to deepest needs, desires, and goals
Allows human creativity to full potential, bringing happiness in who we are
Gain this by learning, reflection, setting goals
‘Based on the fact humans have an intuitive knowledge of what is human and inhuman’
Criticism’s Freud
Karl Popper
(Critic of Freud) Argued that Freud’s ideas about the mind/human personality cannot be verified or falsified (as they are based on the unconscious mind), which led him to deem them as a mere “pseudo science”.
George Klein
(Critic of Freud) Argues that Freud’s theory was reductionist (reductionism is the belief that human behaviour can be explained by breaking it down into smaller component parts). He argued that Freud reduces the human mind to an object of enquiry by positing unprovable theories of how conscious and unconscious processes interact.
John Kihlstrom
Believed Freud was in some parts correct as today more and more research demonstrates that a large part of everyday behaviour is driven by processes that are outside our conscious awareness.
However, there is also little scientific support for most of Freud’s psychology. For example, studies have failed to yield evidence for the existence of repression. He believed that people who are exposed to traumatic experiences in war have been found to remember their traumas only too well. He commented that “while Freud has an enormous impact on 20th century culture, he has been a dead weight on 20th century psychology … At best, Freud is a figure of only historical interest for psychologists.”
Feurbach
(Critic of Aquinas) Argued that God is a ‘projection of the human mind’ and therefore the idea that the conscience comes from God is inaccurate and delusional
O Connell
Sees conscience as based on more than human reason; it is also based on the shared experience of the past.
He believed that in discerning what is the correct moral choice, we also need to consider the place of creative imagination, humour and the tragic experiences of life, especially great loss as these open us up to new perceptions of value. He says that the conscience works on three levels:
1. our sense of responsibility for who we are and what we become
- our obligation to do what is good
- the concrete judgement we make to ensure good is achieved
States that morals are found through experience, not any internal or external law(s).
Dawkins
Atheistic conscience - Argues that we have an evolved intuitive sense of right and wrong, what he calls a “lust to be nice”. “
The lust to be nice has been hard-wired into us from the time we lived in close kinship groups.
Morality an innate tendency coming out of millions of years of evolution. (This hard-wiring Dawkins speaks of is very close to Aquinas’ view that we have an innate tendency because of our rational natures – a disposition to be nice.)
This can explain reciprocal altruism quite easily in biological terms as a survival strategy to make sure my close family help me in time of difficulty so that our genes survive but he also explains non-reciprocal altruism.
He calls the desire to sacrifice self for strangers, as “a misfiring of our selfish genes”. They misfire because they arise from self-interest, the reciprocal altruism of the kinship group, but then get applied to everyone around us.
- Dawkins argues for an innate tendency coming out of millions of years of evolution.
