Conscience

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Conscience (Specification Notes)

Aquinas's Theological Approach

Aquinas and Ratio (reason place in every person as a result of being created in the image of God)

Aquinas makes use of the concept of 'ratio' which translates to 'reason'. This is important, because of Aquinas' idea of 'practica ratio, that is the use of reason in practice, which inevitably is always situational in the application.

'Practica ratio' entails not merely being able to know what should be done, but also the practical way of thinking through how that which should be done can be done by the agent with whats available.

Similarily to Aristotle, Aquinas distingusihes between the theoretical or speculative parts of reason, such as those we use in drawing up scientific hypotheses and the practical.

The moral life is a practical life as we have to work out carefully what the right thing to do is. Like Aristotle, Aquinas sees a distinction between the skills of an artist 'right reason of things to be made' and those of prudence. Both operate in the world of variables.

Both Aquinas and Aristotle argue that an artist, such as an architect, has to reason through how to use the materials he has at hand to acheive some particular artefact- this is practical reasoning. There is not one absolute right building to be built: question needs to be asked about what the building is for, and then accommodate that need according to the means, such as space, money and material, which are avaliable. Circumstances cannot be ignored and the artitect has to work within those constraints.

The same is true for the individual in life. It is not enough to think of what should be done but the skills in practical reasoning to get good results. Decisions about what to do with our lives have to bein from the reality of our here and now.

Aquinas is always insistent on the practical and immediate aspect of moral descision- making, which necessarily entails close connection between conscience and practical reason (practica ratio).

Synderesis (inner principle directing a person towards good and away from evil)

Aquinas's view of conscience is quite subtle, with many different strands within it, but it forms a coherent whole, not just in itself, but also in relation to his entire understanding of morality.

His account always pays attention to the intellectual and rational nature of human choices as well as to how we should judge our actions.

Aquinas, we find how he gives a close analysis of the terms we use when we speak about ideas such as conscience or prudence

The term synderesis has an interesting history, as Aquinas acknowledges the term which is not an original Greek word, is first found in a passage in St Jerome (347-420), when he comments on the vision of Ezekiel, in which he sees a human, a lion, and ox and an eagle (traditionally seen to represent reason and the ability to reflect on our own actions).

As Aquinas rightly notes, for Jerome, 'synderesis' and 'conscienece' are interchangeable terms.

Synderesis= the natural inclination to do good and avoid evil, a desire which is universal, infalliable and aprt of God's will for creatures he created. There are question in Aquinas and other writers about whether synderesis is a habit, a power, or a disposition, but there arguments can, for present purposes, be laid to one side.

Ther infaliability of synderesis is, for Aquinas, self-evident: it could never be wrong to wish to do good and avoid evil.

Conscientia (a person's reason making moral judgements)

Conscientia s the moral judgements in individual circumstances, which of course includes the skill of prudence. Here, errors can be made, either because we are mistaken about the facts of the case or from some other reason, perhaps because we are blinded by desires, feel pressure from outside or are simply too hasty in our judgements.

It is when ratio is used to inform synderesis and the result is acing upon your conscience.

Aquinas (Summa Theologica) "It is clear that a conscience is an act"

Vincible Ignorance (lack of knowledge for which a person is responsible)

If someone is vincibly ignorant then he is potentially blameworthy. This is ignorance, which is avoidable and correctable. There are things which I should be expected to know. If I visit another country and murder someone, it is no excuse for me to say I was brought up in Britian and could not be expectected to know killing people was illegal in Austria. My own common sense should tell me that it is wron to murder anywhere and if I was unaware then there is always an opportunity to ask.

Invincible Ignorance (lack of knowledge for which a person is not responsible

Invincible ignornace has many forms. We do not hold people responsible for their actions when they are insane. Insane people, ebcuase of their illness, accept things as true that others recognise as erroneous.

However it is not always possible to determine precsiely when people are insane, and courts sometimes have difficulty in individual cases, but Aquinas' principle seems a just one.

Other forms of invincible ignornace could be the result of being too young to now right from wrong. Even for adults, sometimes we are unable to get the necessary facts, and our actions are forgiven

Sometimes we are able to look back on an event and say honestly that we meant well- our intention were the best- but we would have acted differently if only we are able to look back on at event and say honesly that we meant well- our intentions were the best- but we would have acted differently if only we had known something we could not have known at the time.

Freud's Psychological Approach

Psychosexual development (early childhood awareness of libido)

According to Freud, the child, sexually driven, goes through the oral stage, based on his love of being nursed at the breast. Next comes the anal stage, when he delights in his own ability to control his bowels followed by a phallic sage, in which he becomes facsicinated by his sexual nature only for everything to re-emerge at puberty.

But, when this re-emergence happens, there is also a subconscious recollection of parental and other authoritative warnings to the infant to ignore his sexual feelings.

These early childhood stages is where the child develops awareness of his libido are also known as stages of his libido are also known as stages of psychosexual development.

id (instinctive impulses that seek satisfaction in pleasure)

For Freud, the new-born child is all id with basic drives such as those for food, aggression and sex. This part of the mind is amoral, egocentric, pleasure-seeking.

A fundamental part of the idis the libido, commonly descibed as the sex-drive. Freud defined libido as the energy of hose insitincts which have to do with all that may be meant by the word 'love'.

ego (mediates between the id and the demands of social interaction)

Unlike the id, the ego is ration and is capable of controlling the id. Freud gives the analogy of the horse and the rider. The rider (ego) controls the wythe horse (id) goes. Sometimes, the control fails and the horse goes the way it wishes to go, over rocky terrain.

But the ego has to battle with the external world and the super-ego as well as with the id.

When this happens, the ego tends to be more loyal to the id, avoiding conflict, excusing problems.

The super-ego, however, watches the ego's actions like a hawk, punishing it with feelings of inferiority, anxiety and general guilt. The ego does have defence mechanisms, such as fantasy, rationalism, repression and others, but is in a continual battle with the id (and libido).

Super-ego (contradicts the id and working on internalised ideals from parents and society tries to make the ego behave morally)

The super-ego develop as a result of socialisation and growth, largely throught the effect of parents and authority figues on us. It is the clash between super-ego, id and ego that leads to the phenomena of conscience and guilt. The voice of the super-ego is what makes us feel guilty about having the basic sexual drives that are fundamental to our being

The super-ego symbollically internalises the sense of a father figure and the regulations found in society. It tends to oppose the id, giving us a sense of the moral and sets up taboos against cetain types of feeling and actions espically sexually.

Comparison between Aquinas and Freud

On the concept of Guilt

On the presence or absence of God within the workings of the conscience and super-ego)

On the process of moral decision making

Whether conscience is linked to or separate from, reason and the unconscious mind

Whether conscience exists at all or is instead an umbrella term covering various factors involved in moral decision making such as culture, environment, genetic predisposition and education