What comparisons can be made between Aquinas and Freud on the presence or absence of God within the workings of the conscience and super-ego Flashcards
(15 cards)
INTRODUCTION
- Introduction to both Freud and Aquinas
- Structure
Both Aquinas and Freud present influential but contrasting theories on the nature of the conscience, particularly in relation to the divine. Aquinas situates God at the heart of conscience, believing it to be the rational faculty gifted by God to guide humans toward their divinely ordained telos.
In contrast, Freud strips the conscience of any spiritual element, explaining it as a psychological construct rooted in childhood development and social conditioning. This essay will compare these views by focusing on two core areas: (1) the presence or absence of God in the function and origin of conscience, and (2) the implications of these views in light of science, moral diversity, and explanatory power.
Ultimately, this essay will argue that Freud’s naturalistic theory offers a more coherent, empirically grounded account of conscience, making Aquinas’ supernatural explanation unnecessary.
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MAIN PARAGRAPH 1: Presence of God in Aquinas’ Conscience vs Absence of God in Freud’s Superego
Point: Aquinas explicitly anchors conscience in the divine, presenting it as the human capacity to reason toward God’s natural law. Freud, by contrast, eliminates God entirely from the explanation, offering a psychological and developmental model rooted in observable phenomena.
MAIN PARAGRAPH 1: Presence of God in Aquinas’ Conscience vs Absence of God in Freud’s Superego
Aquinas’ theory
• Conscience for Aquinas is part of natural law ethics, grounded in the claim that God created human nature with a telos — to follow His moral law.
• The human capacity for reason (ratio) is divinely given, enabling us to grasp the primary precepts through synderesis (a natural inclination to do good and avoid evil).
• Conscientia is the application of these principles to specific situations — the practical outworking of moral reasoning.
• Guilt results from rational awareness of having acted against divine moral law; conscience ‘binds, witnesses, and torments’ the individual.
• Vincible and invincible ignorance clarify when guilt is appropriate: only if one could have known better is guilt justified.
• Thus, God is not just involved, but foundational to Aquinas’ understanding of conscience as the rational path to fulfilment of our God-given telos.
MAIN PARAGRAPH 1: Presence of God in Aquinas’ Conscience vs Absence of God in Freud’s Superego
Freud theory
• Freud replaces the divine with a tripartite model of the psyche: the Id (instincts), Ego (rational self), and Superego (internalised societal rules).
• Conscience is just the tension between the ego and the superego, as the latter enforces childhood conditioning and social expectations.
• This arises through psychosexual development: the child internalises parental rules as they pass through stages (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital).
• The superego, not God, judges and induces guilt; the conscience is nothing more than a psychological phenomenon based on human development and social learning.
MAIN PARAGRAPH 1: Presence of God in Aquinas’ Conscience vs Absence of God in Freud’s Superego
Evaluation
• The comparison reveals that Aquinas assumes a metaphysical reality (God, telos), whereas Freud explains conscience entirely naturalistically.
• The scientific challenge to Aquinas comes from thinkers like Francis Bacon and Sean Carroll, who reject the concept of telos as unscientific and unnecessary.
• Evolution explains moral tendencies (e.g., empathy) as advantageous instincts for a social species — not God-given.
• Thus, Freud’s theory has stronger empirical grounding. While not perfect, it does not require unverifiable metaphysical assumptions.
• Using Ockham’s Razor, Freud’s model is more justified because it offers a simpler and sufficient explanation of guilt without appealing to God.
MAIN PARAGRAPH 1: Presence of God in Aquinas’ Conscience vs Absence of God in Freud’s Superego
Mini-counter
• Aquinas might argue that even with moral diversity, shared core values (e.g., prohibitions on murder) reflect the universality of divine law.
• However, this is better explained by practical social survival, not a divine telos. As Richard Dawkins notes, evolutionary psychology explains our shared moral instincts.
MAIN PARAGRAPH 1: Presence of God in Aquinas’ Conscience vs Absence of God in Freud’s Superego
Mini conclusion
The first major difference between Aquinas and Freud lies in the divine foundation of Aquinas’ account versus the secular, psychological basis of Freud’s. The scientific and empirical strength of Freud’s approach makes it a more compelling model in a modern context.
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MAIN PARAGRAPH 2: Conscience as Rational Moral Law vs Conscience as Social Conditioning – Scientific Evaluation
Point: Aquinas sees conscience as a rational faculty aligned with divine law, while Freud argues that it is a by-product of cultural and parental influence. This contrast extends to how each theory is evaluated in terms of scientific credibility, explanatory power, and moral diversity.
MAIN PARAGRAPH 2: Conscience as Rational Moral Law vs Conscience as Social Conditioning – Scientific Evaluation
Aquinas’ Rationalism:
• Aquinas argues that all humans have access to the primary precepts because of shared God-given reason.
• Conscience is objective: rooted in an eternal, unchanging natural law given by God.
• Thus, despite cultural variation, Aquinas would claim that people are generally able to recognise good and evil — unless distorted by sinful or corrupt cultures.
MAIN PARAGRAPH 2: Conscience as Rational Moral Law vs Conscience as Social Conditioning – Scientific Evaluation
Freud’s Empirical Psychology:
• Freud sees conscience as a product of social conditioning — determined by authority figures during childhood, then internalised as the superego.
• His explanation accounts for cross-cultural variation: differing moral norms exist because people are conditioned differently depending on their culture.
• This is supported by other psychological theorists like Piaget, who, though critical of some Freudian specifics, endorsed the basic idea that conscience emerges through childhood development and socialisation.
• This theory is also supported by contemporary psychology, which acknowledges that we are often unaware of the unconscious origins of our guilt and desires.
MAIN PARAGRAPH 2: Conscience as Rational Moral Law vs Conscience as Social Conditioning – Scientific Evaluation
Scientific critique
• Freud has been criticised by Karl Popper for being unscientific: his theories are unfalsifiable, meaning they can’t be empirically tested or disproven.
• However, Piaget’s empirical research and modern studies lend support to Freud’s core thesis — even if Freud lacked rigorous methodology, his ideas laid the groundwork for a scientifically robust account of moral psychology.
• In contrast, Aquinas’ theory is built on pre-scientific metaphysics. As scientific understanding of human development and behaviour has grown, the need for a divine explanation of conscience has diminished.
MAIN PARAGRAPH 2: Conscience as Rational Moral Law vs Conscience as Social Conditioning – Scientific Evaluation
Cross-cultural evaluation
• Joseph Fletcher critiques Aquinas: if natural law is truly universal, why is there such deep moral disagreement?
• Aquinas replies that there are core agreements, but these can still be explained by evolutionary and social necessity — societies that permitted arbitrary killing or theft wouldn’t survive.
• Freud and Skinner’s scientific models explain this more plausibly: moral rules are socially enforced norms that ensure cooperation and survival.
MAIN PARAGRAPH 2: Conscience as Rational Moral Law vs Conscience as Social Conditioning – Scientific Evaluation
Evaluation Conclusion:
Freud offers a flexible, scientifically informed model that accounts for cultural variation, unconscious moral emotion, and moral development.
Aquinas’ account, while rationally coherent, is unconvincing when held against the weight of scientific explanations and empirical evidence.
CONCLUSION
Aquinas and Freud present fundamentally opposing views on the origin and function of conscience, with Aquinas locating its authority in divine reason and Freud attributing it to social and psychological development.
While Aquinas provides a theologically rich vision, it is largely speculative and incompatible with modern science. Freud’s model, despite some methodological flaws, aligns better with contemporary psychology and explains conscience without invoking metaphysical entities.
The presence of God, which is essential for Aquinas, becomes unnecessary under Freud’s model, making his approach more consistent with both cross-cultural data and scientific explanation.
LINE OF ARGUMENT
Although Aquinas and Freud both attempt to explain the experience of conscience and guilt, only Freud does so without invoking unverifiable metaphysics.
Freud’s theory offers a more parsimonious and scientifically grounded understanding of the conscience that renders the presence of God — central to Aquinas — an unnecessary hypothesis.
Therefore, in comparing their views, Freud’s absence of God in moral psychology is a strength rather than a weakness.
