religious conscience

who is the first ethicist for religious conscience?

St. Augustine

what does he say?

he sees the conscience as the innate voice of God - ‘the voice of God from within’ -Schleiermacher.

what are the 3 pathways of reason to the conscience?

synderesis - instinct to do good and avoid evil

ratio - our reason is god given - present through our faculty of reason

conscientia - applies primary precepts to concrete situations and conscience is activated through the application of secondary precepts

how can the conscience make wrong decisions according to Aquinas?

• if it’s ignorant of the moral law

• if it’s ignorant of the facts of the case (e.g. you take a newspaper believing they are free but they are not)

who believes the conscience is guided by two governing principles, what are they?

• Joseph Butler

• prudence and benevolence

what is a quote he states to back this up?

The conscience is ‘by which he approves or disapproves his heart, temper, and actions.’

It tend to ‘restrain men from doing mischief to eachother, and leads them to do good’

what’s prudence, what’s benevolence?

• p - the love for oneself

• b - the love for others

what’s are 2 problems with Butler’s view

• Anscombe - what if someone’s conscience is evil

• Nietzche - criticises the idea of the god-given ‘faculty’ of reason. He suggests scholars are not discovering these faculties as much as making them up

what does Fletcher say?

the conscience is agape-love making decisions situationally

whats a quote from fletcher about there being no conscience?

‘There is no conscience, “conscience” is merely a word for our attempts to make decisions creatively, constructively, fittingly’

what is his main viewpoint?

that the idea of the conscience is not retrospective. It is prospective and looks forward to things we must do.

what is the role of the conscience in making moral decisions for each group then?

Thomists - Conscience as reason

Frommians - Conscience as socialisation

Freudians - Conscience as inner parent

Butlerians - Conscience as God- given reflective faculty

Fletcharians - Conscience as application of agape

Durkheimians - Conscience as social conditioning

Kohlbergians - Conscience as social interaction