non - religious conscience

the basic definition of conscience?

“the conscience is one’s inner sense of right and wrong”

what’s the acronym?

PIEE

what do they stand for?

• Personal

• Intuitive

• Emotive

• Educative

what’s does personal mean?

it’s an internal sensation/feeling

what does intuitive mean?

doesn’t correspond with what’s found in books, what is rational or what authorities tell us is right or wrong

what does emotive mean?

feelings of guilt or shame

educative means?

something we train or develop

who is the first conscience ethicist?

• Lawrence Kohlberg

what’s the outline of his research?

he understood the conscience to be a behaviour developed through social interaction. He studied children’s responses to moral dilemmas and drew up 3 levels of moral development.

what are his 3 levels of moral development?

• pre-conventional

• conventional

• post-conventional

explain pre-conventional?

‘punishment and obedience’ - our good behaviours are rewarded and our bad ones are punished

conventional?

we develop inter-personal relationships. We obey society’s rules to avoid a sense of guilt. The conscience emerges here.

post-conventional?

we develop the idea that society’s needs trump those of the individual. Our choices must be universal.

what’s Kohlbergs most famous dilemma?

the Heinz Dilemma

explain it?

Heinz broke into a drug dealers lab to steal illegal drugs for his wife

who’s the second ethicist of the conscience?

Sigmund Freud

what’s did he find?

founder of psychoanalysis - seeks to explain a person’s psychological development in terms of childhood experiences

what are the 3 things the mind is composed of?

• The ID

• The super ego

• the ego

what’s the ID?

totally unconscious and instinctual

the ego?

the rational self. negotiates between desires of ID and Super Ego

super ego?

the ‘inner parent’. internalisation of society’s rules (particularly from one’s parent)

what does Durkheim say about conscience?

it’s the internalisation of society’s standards and expectations. there is a ‘collective conscience’ which we more or less align with.

what is it called when you’re misaligned with the collective conscience?

guilty conscience

who’s the last ethicist?

Fromm

what does he say?

the conscience is something innate in humans, and there are 2 forms of it.

what is one?

authoritarian conscience - we fear rejection by society and are compelled to conform to its expectations

the other?

humanistic conscience - we have a sense of what contributes to flourishing humanity