Religious Views of the Conscience Flashcards
Aquinas view of the Conscience
Natural law is Aquinas’ theory on how God is the grounding and source of morality. Conscience is about the human psychology involved in understanding and applying natural moral law. Conscience is ratio (reason) used to understand and apply God’s natural law.
Conscience is not a feeling, but a process of practical reasoning
Conscience 3 features
Witness – by knowing whether we have done or not done something.
Bind & incite – “through the conscience we judge that something should be done or not done”
Accuse, torment & rebuke – Condemnation of others
“by conscience we judge that something done is well done or ill done”
Conscience and guilt
through the features of conscience- witness (knowing whether we have done something or not) blind and incite (evaluating the what SHOULD be done) and Accuse, torment and rebuke (knowing if something is done well or not)
1- Knowing if we have done
2- knowing what SHOULD be done
3- evaluating if what was done was good
This is how the conscience causes guilt. Conscience is our ability to know whether we have done something, whether we should have done it, and whether it was done well. If we have done something wrong, our conscience will accuse, torment and rebuke us – causing feelings of guilt.
Conscientia
The application of primary precepts to moral situations
Because human reason is fallible, the conscience thereby becomes fallible. We could be mistaken for example when we don’t know how a general rule applies to a certain situation (mistake in conscientia).
These mistakes can come from original sin, corrupt culture and unvirtuous habits
Real Vs apparent Goods
actions that (wrongly) only appear good to someone engaged in faulty reasoning.
Real vs apparent goods. We might reason that something is in accord with our nature’s goal and is thus good, when really is not. Such actions are called apparent goods because they only appear good to someone engaged in faulty reasoning. They are not real goods.
Vincible vs Invincible ignorance
Vincible ignorance-
circumstances where a person could have known better and thus is responsible for their action . Typically involved some kind of negligence or ignorance towards the moral framework- for aquinas the primary precepts
Invincible ignorance
Invincible ignorance is where a person could not have known better in the situation, so are not to blame- to aquinas, that action would not be considered a sin
Descriptive moral relativism- issues
aquinas was not aware of different cultures as we are now, there are vastly different moral beliefs and practices across cultures; this is descriptive moral relativism
Fletcher argued that this could be taken as evidence that there is no god given ability of reason to discover the natural law, otherwise, we would come to some moral universal agreement
Freud also argued morality was conditioned by the societies we live in
Defence from descriptive moral relativism and whether it is sucessful
It could be argued that there is some common core between the different cultures. For example; do not kill, do not steal, educate the young and reproduce. Humanity seems to innately follow primary precepts which suggests there is SYNDERESIS
BUT, this common core can be explained scientifically:
- These cross-cultural similarities in moral codes might have resulted from a biologically evolved morality rather than one designed by a God.
- cross-cultural morality might result merely from the basic requirement of a society to function.
E.g do not kill is a rule which comes from our evolutionary desire for self preservation and also the desire for a non- anarchic society
Weakness- Synderesis
Aquinas’ claim that humans have an inclination to do good runs entirely discrepant with the reality of human nature. Aquinas is too optimistic. If we take into account the horrible things humanity has done, e.g slavery and nazism, then it is clear human nature is not swayed by any inclination towards the good
Defence of Synderesis
However, this criticism is based on a misunderstanding of Aquinas’ doctrine. Aquinas simply claims humans have an orientation towards the good- he did not claim a commitment for humans to actually do more good than evil. Rather, Aquinas considers that humans commit moral errors, but he attributed it to a misuse and distortion of the good or the conscience, that god has created.
Regardless, aquinas does not seem to explain human nature
Aquinas’ claim that evil is merely the privation of good does not exoplain human nature. The fact that humanity can sink as low as to produce the holocaust is strong evidence against the human nature having an orientation towards the good.
Weakness- Aquinas’ reliance on natural theology
Karl Barth argued against aquinas’ overreliance on human reason. Barth argued against natural law claiming that if humans could understand gods morality through their own natural faculaties, then revelation would be negated, clearly, god thought revelation was necessary and so he sent Jesus. Barth goes on to claim that the “finite has no capacity for the infinite” meaning we mundane humans could never grasp the transcendental and infinite nature of god.
Whatever we discover through our own reason must then amount to idolatry
Defence of Aquinas’ over reliance of natural theology
However, aquinas clearly claims that human reason could never know the goodness and nature of god (eternal law) but rather human reason could merely discover the natural law of God. Tillich goes on to claim that Barth is too negative about human reason in claiming that we cannot discover ANYTHING whatsoever about the natural law.
But this over reliance of reason is not consistent with the ideas of postlapsarian humanity- this is the same arrogance that led adam and eve to disobey god
FINAL DEFENCE OF CONSCIENCE
Claiming that our conscience cannot discover the natural law implies that there is a disconnect between our current state and our potential. However, being aware of this disconnect means having a conscience that recognizes its fallen state. Therefore, denying the natural law is contradictory. Even if our conscience is weakened, it still provides insight into our deviation from righteousness and points us in the direction of moral correctness.
However, whatever a weak and misled conscience discovers is surely not God’s morality. Humanity believing it has the ability to know anything of God is the same arrogance that caused Adam and Eve to disobey God.
three parts of the conscience
synderesis: inherent disposition to seek good, can never be extinguished, we are seeking our flourishing
ratio: reasoning, ability to work out our flourishing
conscientia: an act– it is how we apply the first principles of morality in our daily lives
