Aconscience is acognitive process that elicitsemotion and rational associations based on an individual'smoral philosophy or value system. Conscience is not an elicited emotion or thought produced by associations based on immediate sensory perceptions and reflexive responses, as in sympatheticcentral nervous system responses. In common terms, conscience is often described as leading to feelings ofremorse when a person commits an act that conflicts with theirmoral values. The extent to which conscience informs moral judgment before an action and whether suchmoral judgments are or should be based onreason has occasioned debate through much of modern history between theories of basics in ethic of human life in juxtaposition to the theories ofromanticism and otherreactionary movements after the end of theMiddle Ages.
Religious views of conscience usually see it as linked to a morality inherent in all humans, to a beneficent universe and/or todivinity. The diverse ritualistic, mythical, doctrinal, legal, institutional and material features of religion may not necessarily cohere with experiential, emotive,spiritual orcontemplative considerations about the origin and operation of conscience.[1] Commonsecular orscientific views regard the capacity for conscience as probablygenetically determined, with its subject probably learned orimprinted as part of aculture.[2]
Commonly used metaphors for conscience include the "voice within", the "inner light",[3] or even Socrates' reliance on what the Greeks called his "daimōnic sign", an averting (ἀποτρεπτικόςapotreptikos) inner voice heard only when he was about to make a mistake. Conscience, as is detailed in sections below, is a concept in national and international law,[4] is increasingly conceived of as applying to the world as a whole,[5] has motivated numerous notable acts for the public good[6] and been the subject of many prominent examples of literature, music and film.[7]
SeatedBuddha,Gandhara, 2nd century CE. The Buddha linked conscience with compassion for those who must endure cravings and suffering in the world until right conduct culminates in right mindfulness and right contemplation.
In the literary traditions of theUpanishads,Brahma Sutras and theBhagavad Gita, conscience is the label given to attributes composing knowledge about good and evil, that asoul acquires from the completion of acts and consequent accretion ofkarma over many lifetimes.[8] According toAdi Shankara in hisVivekachudamani morally right action (characterised as humbly and compassionately performing the primary duty of good to others without expectation of material or spiritual reward), helps "purify the heart" and provide mental tranquility but it alone does not give us "direct perception of the Reality".[9] This knowledge requires discrimination between the eternal and non-eternal and eventually a realization incontemplation that the true self merges in a universe of pure consciousness.[10]
In theZoroastrian faith, after death a soul must face judgment at theBridge of the Separator; there,evil people are tormented by prior denial of their own higher nature, or conscience, and "to all time will they be guests for theHouse of the Lie."[11] TheChinese concept ofRen, indicates that conscience, along with social etiquette and correct relationships, assist humans to followThe Way (Tao) a mode of life reflecting the implicit human capacity for goodness and harmony.[12]
Marcus Aurelius bronze fragment, Louvre, Paris: "To move from one unselfish action to another with God in mind. Only there, delight and stillness."
Conscience also features prominently inBuddhism.[13] In thePali scriptures, for example,Buddha links the positive aspect ofconscience to a pure heart and a calm, well-directed mind. It is regarded as a spiritual power, and one of the "Guardians of the World". The Buddha also associated conscience with compassion for those who must endure cravings and suffering in the world until right conduct culminates in right mindfulness and rightcontemplation.[14]Santideva (685–763 CE) wrote in theBodhicaryavatara (which he composed and delivered in the great northern Indian Buddhist university ofNalanda) of the spiritual importance of perfecting virtues such asgenerosity,forbearance and training the awareness to be like a "block of wood" when attracted by vices such aspride orlust; so one can continue advancing towards right understanding in meditative absorption.[15]Conscience thus manifests in Buddhism as unselfish love for all living beings which gradually intensifies and awakens to a purer awareness[16] where the mind withdraws from sensory interests and becomes aware of itself as a single whole.[17]
TheRoman EmperorMarcus Aurelius wrote in hisMeditations that conscience was the human capacity to live by rational principles that were congruent with the true, tranquil and harmonious nature of our mind and thereby that of the Universe: "To move from one unselfish action to another with God in mind. Only there, delight and stillness ... the only rewards of our existence here are an unstained character and unselfish acts."[18]
Last page ofGhazali's autobiography in MS Istanbul, Shehid Ali Pasha 1712, datedA.H. 509 = 1115–1116. Ghazali's crisis of epistemological skepticism was resolved by "a light which God Most High cast into my breast ... the key to most knowledge."
TheIslamic concept ofTaqwa is closely related to conscience. In theQur’ān verses 2:197 & 22:37 Taqwa refers to "right conduct" or "piety", "guarding of oneself" or "guarding against evil".[19]Qur’ān verse 47:17 says that God is the ultimate source of the believer's taqwā which is not simply the product of individual will but requires inspiration from God.[20] InQur’ān verses 91:7–8, God the Almighty talks about how He has perfected the soul, the conscience and has taught it the wrong (fujūr) and right (taqwā). Hence, the awareness ofvice andvirtue is inherent in the soul, allowing it to be tested fairly in the life of this world and tried, held accountable on the day of judgment for responsibilities to God and all humans.[21]
Qur’ān Sura 49. Surah al-Hujurat, 49:13 declares: "come to know each other, the noblest of you, in the sight of God, are the ones possessing taqwá".
Qur’ān verse 49:13 states: "O humankind! We have created you out of male and female and constituted you into different groups and societies, so that you may come to know each other-the noblest of you, in the sight of God, are the ones possessing taqwā." InIslam, according to eminent theologians such asAl-Ghazali, although events are ordained (and written by God inal-Lawh al-Mahfūz, thePreserved Tablet), humans possessfree will to choose between wrong and right and are thus responsible for their actions; the conscience being a dynamic personal connection to God enhanced by knowledge and practise of theFive Pillars of Islam, deeds ofpiety,repentance,self-discipline, andprayer; and disintegrated and metaphorically covered in blackness throughsinful acts.[22]Marshall Hodgson wrote the three-volume work:The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization.[23]
In theProtestant Christian tradition,Martin Luther insisted at theDiet of Worms that his conscience was captive to theWord of God, and it was neither safe nor right to go against conscience. To Luther, conscience falls within the ethical, rather than the religious, sphere.[24]John Calvin saw conscience as a battleground: "the enemies who rise up in our conscience against his Kingdom and hinder his decrees prove that God's throne is not firmly established therein".[25] ManyChristians regard following one's conscience as important as, or even more important than, obeying humanauthority.[26] According to the Bible, as enunciated in Romans 2:15, conscience is the one bearing witness, accusing or excusing one another, so we would know when we break the law written in our hearts; the guilt we feel when we do something wrong tells us that we need to repent."[27] This can sometimes (as with the conflict betweenWilliam Tyndale andThomas More over the translation of the Bible into English) lead to moral quandaries: "Do I unreservedly obey my Church/priest/military/political leader or do I follow my own inner feeling of right and wrong as instructed by prayer and a personal reading of scripture?"[28] Some contemporary Christian churches and religious groups hold the moral teachings of theTen Commandments or ofJesus as the highest authority in any situation, regardless of the extent to which it involves responsibilities in law.[29] In theGospel of John (7:53–8:11,King James Version), Jesus challenges those accusing a woman ofadultery: "'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.' And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one" (seeJesus and the woman taken in adultery). Of note, however, the word 'conscience' is not in the originalNew TestamentGreek and is not in the vast majority of Bible versions. In theGospel of Luke (10:25–37), Jesus tells the story of how a despised and hereticalSamaritan (seeParable of the Good Samaritan) who (out ofcompassion orpity; the word 'conscience' is not used) helps an injured stranger beside a road, qualifies better for eternal life by loving his neighbor than a priest who passes by on the other side.[30]
Nikiforos Lytras,Antigone in front of the dead Polynices (1865), oil on canvas, National Gallery of Greece-Alexandros Soutzos Museum
This dilemma of obedience in conscience to divine or state law, was demonstrated dramatically inAntigone's defiance ofKing Creon's order against burying her brother an allegedtraitor, appealing to the "unwritten law" and to a "longer allegiance to the dead than to the living".[31]
Catholictheology sees conscience as the last practical "judgment of reason which at the appropriate moment enjoins [a person] to do good and to avoid evil".[32] TheSecond Vatican Council (1962–65) describes: "Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, tells him inwardly at the right movement: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. His dignity lies in observing this law, and by it he will be judged. His conscience is man’s most secret core, and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths."[33] Thus, conscience is not like the will, nor a habit like prudence, but "the interior space in which we can listen to and hear the truth, the good, the voice of God. It is the inner place of our relationship with Him, who speaks to our heart and helps us to discern, to understand the path we ought to take, and once the decision is made, to move forward, to remain faithful".[34] In terms of logic, conscience can be viewed as the practical conclusion of a moral syllogism whose major premise is an objective norm and whose minor premise is a particular case or situation to which the norm is applied. Thus, Catholics are taught to carefully educate themselves as to revealed norms and norms derived therefrom, so as to form a correct conscience. Catholics are also to examine their conscience daily and with special care beforeconfession. Catholic teaching holds that, "Man has the right to act according to his conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters".[35] This right of Conscience allows one to form their Morality from sincere and traditional sources and form their opinions from therein. Thus, the Church teaches that one must form their morality and then follow it to the best of their ability. Nevertheless it is taught in more than one area, that the conscience can, and sometimes should, stand against the teaching of the Church. Thus the Church teaches that the Conscience is a supreme authority, even above that of the Popes, Bishops, and Priests. Thus while the Conscience does grant man a great degree of freedom, if one is going to disagree with conventional morality or with the teachings of the Church, it is absolutely necessary to make sure that one's conscience is well formed and certain of what it is claiming or not claiming.[36][37][38][39][40][41] A sincere conscience presumes one is diligently seeking moral truth from authentic sources, whether that be from the Church, or from Scripture, or from the numerousChurch Fathers. Nevertheless, despite one's best effort, "[i]t can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed ... This ignorance can, but not always, be imputed to personal responsibility, This is the case when a man "takes little trouble to find out what is true and good", or in other words, puts forth very little effort and does not take the forming of the Conscience seriously. In such cases, the person is culpable for thewrong he commits." Not necessarily because of the error itself, but because of the bad faith or miniscule effort put forth by the one whos Conscience is in question.[42][citation needed] TheCatholic Church has warned that "rejection of the Church's authority and her teaching ... can sometimes be at the source of errors in judgment inmoral conduct".[43] An example of someone following his conscience to the point of accepting the consequence of being condemned to death is SirThomas More (1478-1535).[44] A theologian who wrote on the distinction between the 'sense of duty' and the 'moral sense', as two aspects of conscience, and who saw the former as some feeling that can only be explained by a divine Lawgiver, wasJohn Henry Cardinal Newman.[45] A well known saying of him is that he would first toast on his conscience and only then on the pope, since his conscience brought him to acknowledge the authority of the pope.[46][a] The formation of a good conscience is also noted in Catholic writings as one of the main objectives of education:Pope Leo XIV refers in a survey of significant Catholic educators to those who "taught literacy, evangelized, took care of practical matters of daily life, elevated their [pupils'] spirits through the cultivation of the arts, and, above all, formed consciences".[50]
Judaism arguably does not require uncompromising obedience to religious authority; the case has been made that throughoutJewish history,rabbis have circumvented laws they found unconscionable, such as capital punishment.[51] Similarly, although an occupation with national destiny has been central to the Jewish faith (seeZionism) many scholars (includingMoses Mendelssohn) stated that conscience as a personal revelation of scriptural truth was an important adjunct to theTalmudic tradition.[52][53] The concept ofinner light in theReligious Society of Friends orQuakers is associated with conscience.[3]Freemasonry describes itself as providing an adjunct to religion and key symbols found in aFreemason Lodge are thesquare andcompasses explained as providing lessons that Masons should "square their actions by the square of conscience", learn to "circumscribe their desires and keep their passions within due bounds toward all mankind."[54] The historianManning Clark viewedconscience as one of the comforters that religion placed between man and death but also a crucial part of the quest for grace encouraged by theBook of Job and theBook of Ecclesiastes, leading us to be paradoxically closest to the truth when we suspect that what matters most in life ("being there when everyone suddenly understands what it has all been for") can never happen.[55]Leo Tolstoy, after a decade studying the issue (1877–1887), held that the only power capable of resisting the evil associated with materialism and the drive for social power of religious institutions, was the capacity of humans to reach an individual spiritual truth through reason and conscience.[56] Many prominentreligious works about conscience also have a significant philosophical component: examples are the works ofAl-Ghazali,[57]Avicenna,[58]Aquinas,[59]Joseph Butler[60] andDietrich Bonhoeffer[61] (all discussed in the philosophical views section).
Illustration ofFrançois Chifflart (1825–1901) forLa Conscience (byVictor Hugo)Charles Darwin thought that any animal endowed with well-marked social instincts would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as its intellectual powers approximated man's.
The secular approach to conscience includespsychological,physiological,sociological,humanitarian, andauthoritarian views.[62]Lawrence Kohlberg consideredcritical conscience to be an important psychological stage in the proper moral development of humans, associated with the capacity to rationally weigh principles of responsibility, being best encouraged in the very young by linkage with humorous personifications (such asJiminy Cricket) and later in adolescents by debates about individually pertinent moral dilemmas.[63]Erik Erikson placed the development ofconscience in the 'pre-schooler' phase of his eight stages of normal human personality development.[64] The psychologistMartha Stout termsconscience "an intervening sense of obligation based in our emotional attachments."[65] Thus a good conscience is associated with feelings of integrity, psychological wholeness and peacefulness and is often described using adjectives such as "quiet", "clear" and "easy".[66]
Sigmund Freud regardedconscience as originating psychologically from the growth ofcivilisation, which periodically frustrated the external expression ofaggression: this destructive impulse being forced to seek an alternative, healthy outlet, directed its energy as asuperego against the person's own "ego" or selfishness (often taking its cue in this regard from parents during childhood).[67] According to Freud, the consequence of not obeying our conscience isguilt, which can be a factor in the development ofneurosis; Freud claimed that both the cultural and individual super-ego set up strict ideal demands with regard to the moral aspects of certain decisions, disobedience to which provokes a 'fear of conscience'.[68]
Antonio Damasio considers conscience an aspect ofextended consciousness beyond survival-related dispositions and incorporating the search for truth and desire to build norms and ideals for behavior.[69]
Jeremy Bentham: "Fanaticism never sleeps ... it is never stopped byconscience; for it has pressedconscience into its service."
Michel Glautier argues that conscience is one of theinstincts and drives which enable people to form societies: groups of humans without these drives or in whom they are insufficient cannot form societies and do not reproduce their kind as successfully as those that do.[70]
War criminalAdolf Eichmann in passport used to enter Argentina: his conscience spoke with the "respectable voice" of the indoctrinated wartime German society that surrounded him.
Charles Darwin considered thatconscience evolved in humans to resolve conflicts between competing natural impulses-some about self-preservation but others about safety of a family or community; the claim of conscience tomoral authority emerged from the "greater duration of impression of social instincts" in the struggle for survival.[71] In such a view, behavior destructive to a person'ssociety (either to its structures or to the persons it comprises) is bad or "evil".[72] Thus, conscience can be viewed as an outcome of those biological drives that prompt humans to avoid provokingfear orcontempt in others; being experienced asguilt andshame in differing ways from society to society and person to person.[73] A requirement of conscience in this view is the capacity to see ourselves from the point of view of another person.[74] Persons unable to do this (psychopaths,sociopaths,narcissists) therefore often act in ways which are "evil".[75]
Fundamental in this view of conscience is that humans consider some "other" as beingin a social relationship. Thus,nationalism is invoked in conscience to quelltribal conflict and the notion of a Brotherhood of Man is invoked to quellnational conflicts. Yet such crowd drives may not only overwhelm but redefine individualconscience.Friedrich Nietzsche stated: "communal solidarity is annihilated by the highest and strongest drives that, when they break out passionately, whip the individual far past the average low level of the 'herd-conscience.'"[76]Jeremy Bentham noted that: "fanaticism never sleeps ... it is never stopped byconscience; for it has pressedconscience into its service."[77]Hannah Arendt in her study of the trial ofAdolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, notes that the accused, as with almost all his fellow Germans, had lost track of hisconscience to the point where they hardly remembered it; this wasn't caused by familiarity with atrocities or by psychologically redirecting any resultant natural pity to themselves for having to bear such an unpleasant duty, so much as by the fact that anyone whoseconscience did develop doubts could see no one who shared them: "Eichmann did not need to close his ears to the voice of conscience ... not because he had none, but because his conscience spoke with a "respectable voice", with the voice of the respectable society around him".[78]
Sir Arthur Keith in 1948 developed theAmity-enmity complex. We evolved as tribal groups surrounded by enemies; thus conscience evolved a dual role; the duty to save and protect members of thein-group, and the duty to show hatred and aggression towards anyout-group.
An interesting area of research in this context concerns the similarities between our relationships and those ofanimals, whether animals in human society (pets,working animals, even animals grown for food) or in the wild.[79] One idea is that as people or animals perceive a social relationship as important to preserve, theirconscience begins to respect that former "other", and urge actions that protect it.[80][81] Similarly, in complex territorial and cooperative breedingbird communities (such as theAustralian magpie) that have a high degree of etiquettes, rules, hierarchies, play, songs and negotiations, rule-breaking seems tolerated on occasions not obviously related to survival of the individual or group; behaviour often appearing to exhibit a touching gentleness and tenderness.[82]
Contemporary scientists inevolutionary biology seek to explain conscience as a function of thebrain that evolved to facilitatealtruism within societies.[83] In his bookThe God Delusion,Richard Dawkins states that he agrees withRobert Hinde'sWhy Good is Good,Michael Shermer'sThe Science of Good and Evil,Robert Buckman'sCan We Be Good Without God? andMarc Hauser'sMoral Minds, that our sense of right and wrong can be derived from ourDarwinian past. He subsequently reinforced this idea through the lens of thegene-centered view of evolution, since the unit of natural selection is neither an individual organism nor a group, but ratherthe "selfish" gene, and these genes could ensure their own "selfish" survival by,inter alia, pushing individuals to act altruistically towards its kin.[84]
Numerous case studies ofbrain damage have shown that damage to areas of thebrain (such as the anteriorprefrontal cortex) results in the reduction or elimination ofinhibitions, with a corresponding radical change in behaviour.[85] When the damage occurs to adults, they may still be able to perform moral reasoning; but when it occurs to children, they may never develop that ability.[86][87]
Attempts have been made by neuroscientists to locate thefree will necessary for what is termed the 'veto' of conscience over unconscious mental processes (seeNeuroscience of free will andBenjamin Libet) in a scientifically measurable awareness of an intention to carry out an act occurring 350–400 microseconds after the electrical discharge known as the 'readiness potential.'[88][89][90]
Jacques Pitrat claims that some kind of artificial conscience is beneficial inartificial intelligence systems to improve their long-term performance and direct theirintrospective processing.[91]
The word "conscience" derives etymologically from the Latinconscientia, meaning "privity of knowledge"[92]or "with-knowledge". TheEnglish word implies internal awareness of a moral standard in the mind concerning the quality of one's motives, as well as a consciousness of our own actions.[93] Thusconscience considered philosophically may be first, and perhaps most commonly, a largely unexamined "gut feeling" or "vague sense of guilt" about what ought to be or should have been done.[94] Conscience in this sense is not necessarily the product of a process of rational consideration of the moral features of a situation (or the applicablenormative principles, rules or laws) and can arise from parental, peer group, religious, state or corporateindoctrination, which may or may not be presently consciously acceptable to the person ("traditional conscience").[95]Conscience may be defined as thepractical reason employed when applying moral convictions to a situation ("critical conscience").[96] In purportedly morally mature mystical people who have developed this capacity through dailycontemplation ormeditation combined with selfless service to others,critical conscience can be aided by a "spark" of intuitive insight or revelation (calledmarifa inIslamicSufi philosophy andsynderesis in medieval Christianscholasticmoral philosophy).[97][98]Conscience is accompanied in each case by an internal awareness of 'inner light' andapprobation or 'inner darkness' and condemnation as well as a resulting conviction of right or duty either followed or declined.[99]
Nafs Ammarah (12:53) which "exhorts one to freely indulge in gratifying passions and instigates to do evil"
Nafs Lawammah (75:2) which is "the conscience that directs man towards right or wrong"
Nafs Mutmainnah (89:27) which is "a self that reaches the ultimate peace"
The medieval Persian philosopher and physicianMuhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi believed in a close relationship betweenconscience or spiritual integrity and physical health; rather than being self-indulgent, man should pursue knowledge, use his intellect and apply justice in his life.[100] The medieval Islamic philosopherAvicenna, whilst imprisoned in the castle of Fardajan nearHamadhan, wrote his famous isolated-but-awake "Floating Man"sensory deprivationthought experiment to explore the ideas of humanself-awareness and the substantiality of thesoul; his hypothesis being that it is throughintelligence, particularly theactive intellect, that God communicatestruth to the humanmind or conscience.[58] According to the IslamicSufis conscience allowsAllah to guide people to themarifa, the peace or "light upon light" experienced where a Muslim's prayers lead to a melting away of the self in the inner knowledge of God; this foreshadowing the eternal Paradise depicted in theQur’ān.[101]
The Flemish mysticJan van Ruysbroeck viewed a pure conscience as facilitating "an outflowing losing of oneself in the abyss of that eternal object which is the highest and chief blessedness".
Some medieval Christianscholastics such asBonaventure made a distinction between conscience as a rational faculty of the mind (practical reason) and inner awareness, an intuitive "spark" to do good, calledsynderesis arising from a remnant appreciation of absolute good and when consciously denied (for example to perform an evil act), becoming a source of inner torment.[98] Early modern theologians such asWilliam Perkins andWilliam Ames developed a syllogistic understanding of the conscience, where God's law made the first term, the act to be judged the second and the action of the conscience (as a rational faculty) produced the judgement. By debating test cases applying such understanding conscience was trained and refined (i.e.casuistry).[102]
The medieval Persian philosopherIbn Sina (Avicenna) developed a sensory deprivation thought experiment to explore the relationship between conscience and God.
In the 13th century,St. Thomas Aquinas regardedconscience as the application of moral knowledge to a particular case (S.T. I, q. 79, a. 13). Thus, conscience was considered an act or judgment of practical reason that began withsynderesis, the structured development of our innate remnant awareness of absolute good (which he categorised as involving the five primary precepts proposed in his theory ofNatural Law) into an acquired habit of applying moral principles.[59] According to Singer, Aquinas held that conscience, orconscientia was an imperfect process of judgment applied to activity because knowledge of thenatural law (and all acts of natural virtue implicit therein) was obscured in most people by education and custom that promoted selfishness rather than fellow-feeling (Summa Theologiae, I–II, I).[103] Aquinas also discussed conscience in relation to the virtue ofprudence to explain why some people appear to be less "morally enlightened" than others, their weak will being incapable of adequately balancing their own needs with those of others.[104]
Aquinas reasoned that acting contrary to conscience is anevil action but an errant conscience is only blameworthy if it is the result of culpable orvincible ignorance of factors that one has a duty to have knowledge of.[103] Aquinas also argued that conscience should be educated to act towards real goods (fromGod) which encouragedhuman flourishing, rather than the apparent goods of sensory pleasures.[103] In hisCommentary onAristotle'sNicomachean Ethics Aquinas claimed it was weak will that allowed a non-virtuous man to choose a principle allowing pleasure ahead of one requiring moral constraint.[105]
Thomas A Kempis in the medievalcontemplative classicThe Imitation of Christ (ca 1418) stated that the glory of a good man is the witness of a good conscience. "Preserve a quiet conscience and you will always have joy. A quiet conscience can endure much, and remains joyful in all trouble, but an evil conscience is always fearful and uneasy."[106] The anonymous medieval author of the Christianmystical workThe Cloud of Unknowing similarly expressed the view that in profound and prolongedcontemplation a soul dries up the "root and ground" of thesin that is always there, even after one'sconfession and however busy one is inholy things: "therefore, whoever would work at becoming acontemplative must first cleanse his [or her] conscience."[107] The medieval Flemish mysticJohn of Ruysbroeck likewise held that true conscience has four aspects that are necessary to render a man just in the active and contemplative life: "a free spirit, attracting itself through love"; "an intellect enlightened by grace", "a delight yielding propension or inclination" and "an outflowing losing of oneself in the abyss of ... that eternal object which is the highest and chief blessedness ... those lofty amongst men, are absorbed in it, and immersed in a certain boundless thing."[108]
Schopenhauer considered that the good conscience we experience after an unselfish act verifies that our true self exists outside our physical person.
Benedict de Spinoza: moral problems and our emotional responses to them should be reasoned from the perspective of eternity.Immanuel Kant: the moral law within us has true infinity.
Benedict de Spinoza in hisEthics, published after his death in 1677, argued that most people, even those that consider themselves to exercisefree will, make moral decisions on the basis of imperfect sensory information, inadequate understanding of their mind and will, as well as emotions which are both outcomes of their contingent physical existence and forms of thought defective from being chiefly impelled by self-preservation.[109] The solution, according to Spinoza, was to gradually increase the capacity of our reason to change the forms of thought produced by emotions and to fall in love with viewing problems requiring moral decision from the perspective of eternity.[110] Thus, living a life of peaceful conscience means to Spinoza that reason is used to generate adequate ideas where the mind increasingly sees the world and its conflicts, our desires and passionssub specie aeternitatis, that is without reference to time.[111]Hegel's obscure andmysticalPhilosophy of Mind held that the absolute right offreedom of conscience facilitates human understanding of an all-embracing unity, an absolute which was rational, real and true.[112] Nevertheless, Hegel thought that a functioning State would always be tempted not to recognize conscience in its form of subjective knowledge, just as similar non-objective opinions are generally rejected in science.[113] A similar idealist notion was expressed in the writings ofJoseph Butler who argued that conscience isGod-given, should always be obeyed, is intuitive, and should be considered the "constitutional monarch" and the "universal moral faculty": "conscience does not only offer itself to show us the way we should walk in, but it likewise carries its own authority with it."[114] Butler advanced ethical speculation by referring to a duality of regulative principles in human nature: first, "self-love" (seeking individual happiness) and second, "benevolence" (compassion and seeking good for another) inconscience (also linked to theagape ofsituational ethics).[60] Conscience tended to be more authoritative in questions of moral judgment, thought Butler, because it was more likely to be clear and certain (whereas calculations of self-interest tended to probable and changing conclusions).[115]John Selden in hisTable Talk expressed the view that an awake but excessively scrupulous or ill-trainedconscience could hinder resolve and practical action; it being "like a horse that is not well wayed, he starts at every bird that flies out of the hedge".[116]
As the sacred texts of ancientHindu andBuddhist philosophy became available in German translations in the 18th and 19th centuries, they influenced philosophers such asSchopenhauer to hold that in a healthy mind only deeds oppress ourconscience, not wishes and thoughts; "for it is only our deeds that hold us up to the mirror of our will"; thegood conscience, thought Schopenhauer, we experience after every disinterested deed arises from direct recognition of our own inner being in the phenomenon of another, it affords us the verification "that our true self exists not only in our own person, this particular manifestation, but in everything that lives. By this the heart feels itself enlarged, as by egotism it is contracted."[117]
Immanuel Kant, a central figure of theAge of Enlightenment, likewise claimed that two things filled his mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily they were reflected on: "the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me ... the latter begins from my invisible self, my personality, and exhibits me in a world which has true infinity but which I recognise myself as existing in a universal and necessary (and not only, as in the first case, contingent) connection."[118] The 'universal connection' referred to here is Kant'scategorical imperative: "act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."[119] Kant consideredcritical conscience to be an internal court in which our thoughts accuse or excuse one another; he acknowledged that morally mature people do often describe contentment or peace in thesoul after following conscience to perform a duty, but argued that for such acts to produce virtue their primary motivation should simply be duty, not expectation of any such bliss.[120] Rousseau expressed a similar view that conscience somehow connected man to a greatermetaphysical unity.John Plamenatz in his critical examination ofRousseau's work considered thatconscience was there defined as the feeling that urges us, in spite of contrary passions, towards two harmonies: the one within our minds and between our passions, and the other within society and between its members; "the weakest can appeal to it in the strongest, and the appeal, though often unsuccessful, is always disturbing. However, corrupted by power or wealth we may be, either as possessors of them or as victims, there is something in us serving to remind us that this corruption is against nature."[121]
John Locke viewed the widespread social fact of conscience as a justification for natural rights.Adam Smith: conscience shows what relates to ourselves in its proper shape and dimensionsSamuel Johnson (1775) stated that "No man's conscience can tell him the right of another man."
Other philosophers expressed a more sceptical and pragmatic view of the operation of "conscience" in society.[122]John Locke in hisEssays on the Law of Nature argued that the widespread fact of human conscience allowed a philosopher to infer the necessary existence of objective moral laws that occasionally might contradict those of the state.[123] Locke highlighted themetaethics problem of whether accepting a statement like "follow yourconscience" supportssubjectivist orobjectivist conceptions of conscience as a guide in concrete morality, or as a spontaneous revelation of eternal and immutable principles to the individual: "if conscience be a proof of innate principles, contraries may be innate principles; since some men with the same bent of conscience prosecute what others avoid."[124]Thomas Hobbes likewise pragmatically noted that opinions formed on the basis ofconscience with full and honest conviction, nevertheless should always be accepted with humility as potentially erroneous and not necessarily indicating absolute knowledge or truth.[125]William Godwin expressed the view thatconscience was a memorable consequence of the "perception by men of every creed when the descend into the scene of busy life" that they possessfree will.[126]Adam Smith considered that it was only by developing acritical conscience that we can ever see what relates to ourselves in its proper shape and dimensions; or that we can ever make any proper comparison between our own interests and those of other people.[127]John Stuart Mill believed that idealism about the role ofconscience in government should be tempered with a practical realisation that few men in society are capable of directing their minds or purposes towards distant or unobvious interests, of disinterested regard for others, and especially for what comes after them, for the idea of posterity, of their country, or of humanity, whether grounded on sympathy or on a conscientious feeling.[128] Mill held that certain amount ofconscience, and of disinterested public spirit, may fairly be calculated on in the citizens of any community ripe forrepresentative government, but that "it would be ridiculous to expect such a degree of it, combined with such intellectual discernment, as would be proof against any plausible fallacy tending to make that which was for their class interest appear the dictate of justice and of the general good."[128]
Josiah Royce (1855–1916) built on thetranscendental idealism view of conscience, viewing it as the ideal of life which constitutes our moral personality, our plan of being ourself, of making common sense ethical decisions. But, he thought, this was only true insofar as ourconscience also required loyalty to "a mysterious higher or deeper self".[129]In the modern Christian tradition this approach achieved expression withDietrich Bonhoeffer who stated during his imprisonment by theNazis inWorld War II thatconscience for him was more than practical reason, indeed it came from a "depth which lies beyond a man's own will and his own reason and it makes itself heard as the call of human existence to unity with itself."[130] For Bonhoeffer aguilty conscience arose as an indictment of the loss of this unity and as a warning against the loss of one's self; primarily, he thought, it is directed not towards a particular kind of doing but towards a particular mode of being. It protests against a doing which imperils the unity of this being with itself.[61]Conscience for Bonhoeffer did not, like shame, embrace or pass judgment on the morality of the whole of its owner's life; it reacted only to certain definite actions: "it recalls what is long past and represents this disunion as something which is already accomplished and irreparable".[131] The man with aconscience, he believed, fights a lonely battle against the "overwhelming forces of inescapable situations" which demand moral decisions despite the likelihood of adverse consequences.[131]Simon Soloveychik has similarly claimed that thetruth distributed in the world, as the statement about humandignity, as the affirmation of the line betweengood and evil, lives in people as conscience.[132]
AsHannah Arendt pointed out, however, (following the utilitarianJohn Stuart Mill on this point): a bad conscience does not necessarily signify a bad character; in fact only those who affirm a commitment to applying moral standards will be troubled with remorse, guilt or shame by a badconscience and their need to regain integrity and wholeness of the self.[133][134] Representing our soul or true self by analogy as our house, Arendt wrote that "conscience is the anticipation of the fellow who awaits you if and when you come home."[135] Arendt believed that people who are unfamiliar with the process of silent critical reflection about what they say and do will not mind contradicting themselves by an immoral act or crime, since they can "count on its being forgotten the next moment;" bad people are not full of regrets.[135] Arendt also wrote eloquently on the problem of languages distinguishing the wordconsciousness fromconscience. One reason, she held, was thatconscience, as we understand it in moral or legal matters, is supposedly always present within us, just likeconsciousness: "and this conscience is also supposed to tell us what to do and what to repent; before it became thelumen naturale orKant's practical reason, it was the voice of God."[136]
Albert Einstein associated conscience with suprapersonal thoughts, feelings and aspirations.
Albert Einstein, as a self-professed adherent ofhumanism andrationalism, likewise viewed an enlightened religious person as one whoseconscience reflects that he "has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings and aspirations to which he clings because of their super-personal value."[137]Einstein often referred to the "inner voice" as a source of both moral and physical knowledge: "Quantum mechanics is very impressive. But an inner voice tells me that it is not the real thing. The theory produces a good deal but hardly brings one closer to the secrets of the Old One. I am at all events convinced that He does not play dice."[138]
Simone Weil who fought for the French resistance (theMaquis) argued in her final bookThe Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind that for society to become more just and protective of liberty, obligations should take precedence over rights in moral and political philosophy and a spiritual awakening should occur in theconscience of most citizens, so that social obligations are viewed as fundamentally having a transcendent origin and a beneficent impact on human character when fulfilled.[139][140]Simone Weil also in that work provided a psychological explanation for the mental peace associated with agood conscience: "the liberty of men of goodwill, though limited in the sphere of action, is complete in that of conscience. For, having incorporated the rules into their own being, the prohibited possibilities no longer present themselves to the mind, and have not to be rejected."[141]
Alternatives to suchmetaphysical andidealist opinions about conscience arose fromrealist andmaterialist perspectives such as those ofCharles Darwin. Darwin suggested that "anyanimal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or as nearly as well developed, as in man."[142]Émile Durkheim held that thesoul and conscience were particular forms of an impersonal principle diffused in the relevant group and communicated bytotemic ceremonies.[143]A. J. Ayer was a more recent realist who held that the existence ofconscience was an empirical question to be answered by sociological research into the moral habits of a given person or group of people, and what causes them to have precisely those habits and feelings. Such an inquiry, he believed, fell wholly within the scope of the existingsocial sciences.[144]George Edward Moore bridged the idealistic and sociological views of 'critical' and 'traditional' conscience in stating that the idea of abstract 'rightness' and the various degrees of the specific emotion excited by it are what constitute, for many persons, the specifically 'moral sentiment' orconscience. For others, however, an action seems to be properly termed 'internally right', merely because they have previously regarded it as right, the idea of 'rightness' being present in some way to his or her mind, but not necessarily among his or her deliberately constructed motives.[145]
The French philosopherSimone de Beauvoir inA Very Easy Death (Une mort très douce, 1964) reflects within her ownconscience about her mother's attempts to develop such a moral sympathy and understanding of others.[146]
"The sight of her tears grieved me; but I soon realised that she was weeping over her failure, without caring about what was happening inside me ... We might still have come to an understanding if, instead of asking everybody to pray for my soul, she had given me a little confidence and sympathy. I know now what prevented her from doing so: she had too much to pay back, too many wounds to salve, to put herself in another's place. In actual doing she made every sacrifice, but her feelings did not take her out of herself. Besides, how could she have tried to understand me since she avoided looking into her own heart? As for discovering an attitude that would not have set us apart, nothing in her life had ever prepared her for such a thing: the unexpected sent her into a panic, because she had been taught never to think, act or feel except in a ready-made framework."
— Simone de Beauvoir.A Very Easy Death. Penguin Books. London. 1982. p. 60.
Michael Walzer claimed that the growth of religious toleration in Western nations arose amongst other things, from the general recognition that private conscience signified some inner divine presence regardless of the religious faith professed and from the general respectability, piety, self-limitation, and sectarian discipline which marked most of the men who claimed the rights of conscience.[147] Walzer also argued that attempts by courts to define conscience as a merely personal moral code or as sincere belief, risked encouraging an anarchy of moral egotisms, unless such a code and motive was necessarily tempered with shared moral knowledge: derived either from the connection of the individual to a universal spiritual order, or from the common principles and mutual engagements of unselfish people.[148]Ronald Dworkin maintains that constitutional protection offreedom of conscience is central to democracy but creates personal duties to live up to it: "Freedom of conscience presupposes a personal responsibility of reflection, and it loses much of its meaning when that responsibility is ignored. A good life need not be an especially reflective one; most of the best lives are just lived rather than studied. But there are moments that cry out for self-assertion, when a passive bowing to fate or a mechanical decision out of deference or convenience is treachery, because it forfeits dignity for ease."[149]Edward Conze stated it is important for individual and collective moral growth that we recognise the illusion of our conscience being wholly located in our body; indeed both our conscience and wisdom expand when we act in an unselfish way and conversely "repressed compassion results in an unconscious sense of guilt."[150]
Peter Singer: distinguished between immature "traditional" and highly reasoned "critical" conscience
The philosopherPeter Singer considers that usually when we describe an action as conscientious in the critical sense we do so in order to deny either that the relevant agent was motivated by selfish desires, like greed or ambition, or that he acted on whim or impulse.[151]
Moral anti-realists debate whether the moral facts necessary to activate consciencesupervene on natural facts witha posteriori necessity; or arisea priori because moral facts have a primary intension and naturally identical worlds may be presumed morally identical.[152] It has also been argued that there is a measure ofmoral luck in how circumstances create the obstacles whichconscience must overcome to apply moral principles or human rights and that with the benefit of enforceable property rights and therule of law, access touniversal health care plus the absence of high adult andinfant mortality from conditions such asmalaria,tuberculosis,HIV/AIDS andfamine, people in relatively prosperous developed countries have been spared pangs ofconscience associated with the physical necessity to steal scraps of food, bribe tax inspectors or police officers, and commit murder inguerrilla wars against corrupt government forces or rebel armies.[153]Roger Scruton has claimed that true understanding ofconscience and its relationship withmorality has been hampered by an "impetuous" belief that philosophical questions are solved through the analysis of language in an area where clarity threatens vested interests.[154]Susan Sontag similarly argued that it was a symptom ofpsychological immaturity not to recognise that many morally immature people willingly experience a form of delight, in some an erotic breaking oftaboo, when witnessing violence, suffering and pain being inflicted on others.[155]Jonathan Glover wrote that most of us "do not spend our lives on endless landscape gardening of our self" and ourconscience is likely shaped not so much by heroic struggles, as by choice of partner, friends and job, as well as where we choose to live.[156]Garrett Hardin, in a famous article called "The Tragedy of the Commons", argues that any instance in which society appeals to an individual exploiting a commons to restrain himself or herself for the general good—by means of his or herconscience—merely sets up a system which, by selectively diverting societal power and physical resources to those lacking inconscience, while fostering guilt (including anxiety about his or her individual contribution to over-population) in people acting upon it, actually works toward the elimination of conscience from the race.[157][158]
John Ralston Saul: consumers risk turning over their conscience to technical experts and to the ideology of free markets
John Ralston Saul expressed the view inThe Unconscious Civilization that in contemporary developed nations many people have acquiesced in turning over their sense of right and wrong, theircritical conscience, to technical experts; willingly restricting their moral freedom of choice to limited consumer actions ruled by the ideology of the free market, while citizen participation in public affairs is limited to the isolated act of voting and private-interest lobbying turns even elected representatives against the public interest.[159]
Some argue on religious or philosophical grounds that it is blameworthy to act againstconscience, even if the judgement ofconscience is likely to be erroneous (say because it is inadequately informed about the facts, or prevailing moral (humanist or religious), professional ethical, legal and human rights norms).[160] Failure to acknowledge and accept that conscientious judgements can be seriously mistaken, may only promote situations where one's conscience is manipulated by others to provide unwarranted justifications for non-virtuous and selfish acts; indeed, insofar as it is appealed to as glorifying ideological content, and an associated extreme level of devotion, without adequate constraint of external, altruistic, normative justification,conscience may be considered morally blind and dangerous both to the individual concerned and humanity as a whole.[161] Langston argues that philosophers ofvirtue ethics have unnecessarily neglectedconscience for, once conscience is trained so that the principles and rules it applies are those one would want all others to live by, its practise cultivates and sustains the virtues; indeed, amongst people in what each society considers to be the highest state of moral development there is little disagreement about how to act.[162]Emmanuel Levinas viewed conscience as a revelatory encountering of resistance to our selfish powers, developing morality by calling into question our naive sense offreedom of will to use such powers arbitrarily, or withviolence, this process being more severe the more rigorously the goal of our self was to obtain control.[163]In other words, the welcoming of theOther, to Levinas, was the very essence ofconscience properly conceived; it encouraged our ego to accept the fallibility of assuming things about other people, that selfishfreedom of will "does not have the last word" and that realising this has a transcendent purpose: "I am not alone ... in conscience I have an experience that is not commensurate with any a priori [seea priori and a posteriori] framework-a conceptless experience."[163]
In the late 13th and early 14th centuries, English litigants began to petition theLord Chancellor of England for relief from unjust judgments.[164] AsKeeper of the King's Conscience, the Chancellor intervened to allow for "merciful exceptions" to the King's laws, "to ensure that the King's conscience was right before God".[164] The Chancellor's office evolved into theCourt of Chancery and the Chancellor's decisions evolved into the body of law known asequity.[164]
English humanist lawyers in the 16th and 17th centuries interpreted conscience as a collection of universal principles given to man by god at creation to be applied by reason; this gradually reforming the medievalRoman law-based system with forms of action, written pleadings, use of juries and patterns of litigation such asDemurrer andAssumpsit that displayed an increased concern for elements of right and wrong on the actual facts.[165] Aconscience vote in aparliament allows legislators to vote without restrictions from any political party to which they may belong.[166] In his trial in JerusalemNaziwar criminalAdolf Eichmann claimed he was simply following legal orders under paragraph 48 of the German Military Code which provided: "punishability of an action or omission is not excused on the ground that the person considered his behaviour required by his conscience or the prescripts of his religion".[167] TheUnited NationsUniversal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) which is part ofinternational customary law specifically refers toconscience in Articles 1 and 18.[4] Likewise, the United NationsInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) mentionsconscience in Article 18.1.[168]
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance
Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching
It has been argued that these articles provide international legal obligations protectingconscientious objectors from service in the military.[169]
Nonviolent protestors inWashington, D.C. in 2010 opposed to theIraq WarAmnesty International protects prisoners of conscience. Stamp from Faroe Islands, 1986.
John Rawls in hisA Theory of Justice defines aconscientious objector as an individual prepared to undertake, in public (and often despite widespread condemnation), an action ofcivil disobedience to a legal rule justifying it (also in public) by reference to contrary foundational social virtues (such as justice as liberty or fairness) and the principles of morality and law derived from them.[170] Rawls considered civil disobedience should be viewed as an appeal, warning or admonishment (showing general respect and fidelity to therule of law by the non-violence and transparency of methods adopted) that a law breaches a community's fundamental virtue of justice.[170] Objections to Rawls' theory include first, its inability to accommodate conscientious objections to the society's basic appreciation ofjustice or to emerging moral or ethical principles (such as respect for the rights of thenatural environment) which are not yet part of it and second, the difficulty of predictably and consistently determining that a majority decision is just or unjust.[171]Conscientious objection (also called conscientious refusal or evasion) to obeying a law, should not arise from unreasoning, naive "traditional conscience", for to do so merely encourages infantile abdication of responsibility to calibrate the law against moral or human rights norms and disrespect for democratic institutions.[172] Instead it should be based on "critical conscience' – seriously thought out, conceptually mature, personal moral or religious beliefs held to be fundamentally incompatible (that is, not merely inconsistent on the basis of selfish desires, whim or impulse), for example, either with all laws requiringconscription for military service, or legal compulsion to fight for or financially support the State in a particular war.[173] A famous example arose whenHenry David Thoreau the author ofWalden was willingly jailed for refusing to pay a tax because he profoundly disagreed with a government policy and was frustrated by the corruption and injustice of the democratic machinery of thestate.[174] A more recent case concernedKimberly Rivera, a private in theUS Army and mother of four children who, having served three months inIraq War decided the conflict was immoral and sought refugee status in Canada in 2012 (seeList of Iraq War resisters), but was deported and arrested in the US.[175]
Henry David Thoreau: Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator?
"Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavour to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? ... A man has not everything to do but something; and because he cannot doeverything, it is not necessary that he should dosomething wrong ... It is for no particular item in the tax bill that I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually. I do not care to trace the course of my dollar if I could, till it buys a man, or a musket to shoot one with—the dollar is innocent—but I am concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance ... Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then?"
— Henry David Thoreau. Civil Disobedience. 1848. reprinted Signet Classic, New York. 1960 pp. 228, 229, 236.
In theSecond World War,Great Britain granted conscientious-objection status not just to completepacifists, but to those who objected to fighting in that particular war; this was done partly out of genuine respect, but also to avoid the disgraceful and futile persecutions ofconscientious objectors that occurred during theFirst World War.[176]
Amnesty International organises campaigns to protect those arrested and or incarcerated as aprisoner of conscience because of their conscientious beliefs, particularly concerning intellectual, political and artistic freedom of expression and association.[177]Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, was the winner of the 2009Amnesty InternationalAmbassador of Conscience Award. In legislation, aconscience clause is a provision in a statute that excuses a health professional from complying with the law (for example legalising surgical or pharmaceuticalabortion) if it is incompatible with religious or conscientious beliefs.[178]Expressed justifications for refusing to obey laws because of conscience vary. Many conscientious objectors are so for religious reasons—notably, members of thehistoric peace churches are pacifist by doctrine. Other objections can stem from a deep sense of responsibility toward humanity as a whole, or from the conviction that even acceptance of work under military orders acknowledges the principle ofconscription that should be everywhere condemned before the world can ever become safe for realdemocracy.[179] A conscientious objector, however, does not have a primary aim of changing the law.[170]John Dewey considered that conscientious objectors were often the victims of "moral innocency" and inexpertness in moral training: "the moving force of events is always too much for conscience".[180] The remedy was not to deplore the wickedness of those who manipulate world power, but to connectconscience with forces moving in another direction- to build institutions and social environments predicated on therule of law, for example, "then will conscience itself have compulsive power instead of being forever the martyred and the coerced."[180] As an example,Albert Einstein who had advocatedconscientious objection during theFirst World War and had been a longterm supporter ofWar Resisters' International reasoned that "radical pacifism" could not be justified in the face ofNazi rearmament and advocated a world federalist organization with its own professional army.[181]Samuel Johnson pointed out that an appeal to conscience should not allow the law to bring unjust suffering upon another.Conscience, according to Johnson, was nothing more than a conviction felt by ourselves of something to be done or something to be avoided; in questions of simple unperplexed morality,conscience is very often a guide that may be trusted.[182] But beforeconscience can conclusively determine what morally should be done, he thought that the state of the question should be thoroughly known.[182] "No man's conscience", said Johnson "can tell him the right of another man ... it is a conscience very ill informed that violates the rights of one man, for the convenience of another."[182]
Gandhi in Noakhali, 1946: civil resistance orsatyagrahaGlobal warming protestors in Chicago 2008Chiune Sugihara practisedconscientious noncompliance in issuing visas to fleeing Jews in Lithuania in 1939.NASA climate scientistJames Hansen arrested in 2011 for civil disobedience against laws allowing a tar sands oil pipeline
Civil disobedience asnonviolent protest orcivil resistance are also acts of conscience, but are designed by those who undertake them chiefly to change, by appealing to the majority and democratic processes, laws or government policies perceived to be incoherent with fundamental social virtues and principles (such as justice, equality or respect for intrinsic human dignity).[183] Civil disobedience, in a properly functioningdemocracy, allows a minority who feel strongly that a law infringes their sense ofjustice (but have no capacity to obtain legislative amendments or a referendum on the issue) to make a potentially apathetic or uninformed majority take account of the intensity of opposing views.[184] A notable example of civil resistance orsatyagraha ("satya" insanskrit means "truth and compassion", "agraha" means "firmness of will") involvedMahatma Gandhi making salt inIndia when that act was prohibited by aBritish statute, in order to create moral pressure for law reform.[185]Rosa Parks similarly acted on conscience in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama refusing a legal order to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger; her action (and the similar earlier act of 15-year-oldClaudette Colvin) led to theMontgomery bus boycott.[186]Rachel Corrie was a US citizen allegedly killed by a bulldozer operated by theIsrael Defense Forces (IDF) while involved indirect action (based on the nonviolent principles ofMartin Luther King Jr. andMahatma Gandhi) to prevent demolition of the home of localPalestinian pharmacist Samir Nasrallah.[187]Al Gore has argued "If you're a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration."[188] In 2011, NASA climate scientistJames E. Hansen, environmental leaderPhil Radford and ProfessorBill McKibben were arrested for opposing a tar sands oil pipeline[189][190] and Canadian renewable energy professorMark Jaccard was arrested for opposing mountain-top coal mining;[191] in his bookStorms of my Grandchildren Hansen calls for similarcivil resistance on a global scale to help replace the 'business-as-usual'Kyoto Protocolcap and trade system, with a progressivecarbon tax at emission source on the oil, gas and coal industries – revenue being paid as dividends to lowcarbon footprint families.[192][193][194]
Notable historical examples ofconscientious noncompliance in a different professional context included the manipulation of the visa process in 1939 by Japanese Consul-GeneralChiune Sugihara in Kaunas (the temporary capital ofLithuania between Germany and the Soviet Union) and byRaoul Wallenberg in Hungary in 1944[195] to allow Jews to escape almost certain death.[196]Ho Feng-Shan the Chinese Consul-General in Vienna in 1939, defied orders from the Chinese ambassador in Berlin to issue Jews with visas for Shanghai.[197]John Rabe a German member of theNazi Party likewise saved thousands of Chinese from massacre by the Japanese military atNanjing.[198] TheWhite Rose German student movement against the Nazis declared in their 4th leaflet: "We will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will not leave you in peace!"[199]Conscientious noncompliance may be the only practical option for citizens wishing to affirm the existence of an international moral order or 'core' historical rights (such as theright to life,right to a fair trial andfreedom of opinion) in states wherenon-violent protest orcivil disobedience are met with prolongedarbitrary detention,torture,forced disappearance,murder orpersecution.[200]The controversialMilgram experiment intoobedience byStanley Milgram showed that many people lack thepsychological resources to openly resistauthority, even when they are directed to act callously and inhumanely against aninnocent victim.[201]
World conscience is theuniversalist idea that with ready global communication, all people onearth will no longer be morally estranged from one another, whether it be culturally, ethnically, or geographically; instead they will conceive ethics from theutopian point of view of theuniverse,eternity orinfinity, rather than have their duties and obligations defined by forces arising solely within the restrictive boundaries of "blood and territory".[5]
TheGreen party politicianBob Brown (who was arrested by theTasmanian state police for a conscientious act ofcivil disobedience during theFranklin Dam protest) expressesworld conscience in these terms: "the universe, through us, is evolving towards experiencing, understanding and making choices about its future'; one example of policy outcomes from such thinking being a global tax (seeTobin tax) to alleviate global poverty and protect the biosphere, amounting to 1/10 of 1% placed on the worldwide speculative currency market.[214] Such an approach seesworld conscience best expressing itself through political reforms promoting democratically basedglobalisation orplanetary democracy (for exampleinternet voting for global governance organisations (seeworld government) based on the model of "one person, one vote, one value") which gradually will replace contemporary market-based globalisation.[215]
Underwater Americannuclear test in the Pacific. Worldwide expressions of 'conscience' against such explosions caused the French Government to cease atmospheric tests atMururoa for political reasons.
The American cardiologistBernard Lown and the Russian cardiologistYevgeniy Chazov were motivated inconscience through studying the catastrophic public health consequences ofnuclear war in establishingInternational Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) which was awarded theNobel Peace Prize in 1985 and continues to work to "heal an ailing planet".[216] Worldwide expressions ofconscience contributed to the decision of the French government to halt atmosphericnuclear tests atMururoa in the Pacific in 1974 after 41 such explosions (although below-ground nuclear tests continued there into the 1990s).[217]
A challenge toworld conscience was provided by an influential 1968 article byGarrett Hardin that critically analyzed the dilemma in which multiple individuals, acting independently after rationally consulting self-interest (and, he claimed, the apparently low 'survival-of-the-fittest' value ofconscience-led actions) ultimately destroy a shared limited resource, even though each acknowledges such an outcome is not in anyone's long-term interest.[157] Hardin's conclusion that commons areas are practicably achievable only in conditions of low population density (and so their continuance requires state restriction on the freedom to breed), created controversy additionally through his direct deprecation of the role ofconscience in achieving individual decisions, policies and laws that facilitate global justice and peace, as well assustainability andsustainable development of world commons areas, for example including those officially designated such underUnited Nations treaties (seecommon heritage of humanity).[218] Areas designatedcommon heritage of humanity underinternational law include theMoon,Outer Space, deepsea bed,Antarctica, the world cultural and natural heritage (seeWorld Heritage Convention) and thehuman genome.[219] It will be a significant challenge forworld conscience that as world oil, coal, mineral, timber, agricultural and water reserves are depleted, there will be increasing pressure to commercially exploitcommon heritage of mankind areas.[220]
The philosopherPeter Singer has argued that theUnited NationsMillennium Development Goals represent the emergence of an ethics based not on national boundaries but on the idea of one world.[221]Ninian Smart has similarly predicted that the increase in global travel and communication will gradually draw the world's religions towards a pluralistic and transcendental humanism characterized by an "open spirit" of empathy and compassion.[222]
Noam Chomsky has argued that forces opposing the development of such a world conscience includefree market ideologies that valorisecorporate greed in nominal electoraldemocracies whereadvertising,shopping malls and indebtedness, shapecitizens intoapatheticconsumers in relation to information and access necessary for democratic participation.[223]John Passmore has argued that mystical considerations about the global expansion of all human consciousness, should take into account that if as a species we do become something much superior to what we are now, it will be as a consequence ofconscience not only implanting a goal of moral perfectibility, but assisting us to remain periodically anxious, passionate and discontented, for these are necessary components of care and compassion.[224] TheCommittee on Conscience of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum has targetedgenocides such as those inRwanda,Bosnia,Darfur, theCongo andChechnya as challenges to the world's conscience.[225]Oscar Arias Sanchez has criticised globalarms industry spending as a failure of conscience by nation states: "When a country decides to invest in arms, rather than in education, housing, the environment, and health services for its people, it is depriving a whole generation of its right to prosperity and happiness. We have produced one firearm for every ten inhabitants of this planet, and yet we have not bothered to end hunger when such a feat is well within our reach. This is not a necessary or inevitable state of affairs. It is a deliberate choice" (seeCampaign Against Arms Trade).[226] US House of Representatives SpeakerNancy Pelosi, after meeting with the14th Dalai Lama during the2008 violent protests in Tibet and aftermath said: "The situation in Tibet is a challenge to the conscience of the world."[227]Nelson Mandela, through his example and words, has been described as having shaped the conscience of the world.[228] TheRight Livelihood Award is awarded yearly in Sweden to those people, mostly strongly motivated byconscience, who have made exemplary practical contributions to resolving the great challenges facing our planet and its people.[229] In 2009, for example, along withCatherine Hamlin (obstetric fistula and seefistula foundation)),David Suzuki (promoting awareness ofclimate change) and Alyn Ware (nuclear disarmament),René Ngongo shared theRight Livelihood Award "for his courage in confronting the forces that are destroying theCongo Basin's rainforests and building political support for their conservation and sustainable use".[230][231]Avaaz is one of the largest global on-line organizations launched in January 2007 to promote conscience-driven activism on issues such asclimate change,human rights,animal rights, corruption, poverty, and conflict, thus "closing the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want".[232]
Notable examples of modern acts based on conscience
In a notable contemporary act of conscience, Christian bushwalkerBrenda Hean protested against the flooding ofLake Pedder despite threats and that ultimately led to her death.[233] Another was the campaign byKen Saro-Wiwa against oil extraction by multinational corporations in Nigeria that led to his execution.[234] So too was the act by theTank Man, or theUnknown Rebel photographed holding his shopping bag in the path of tanks during the protests at Beijing'sTiananmen Square on 5 June 1989.[235] The actions ofUnited Nations Secretary GeneralDag Hammarskjöld to try to achieve peace in theCongo despite the (eventuating) threat to his life were strongly motivated by conscience as is reflected in his diary,Vägmärken (Markings).[236] Another example involved the actions of Warrant OfficerHugh Thompson, Jr to try to prevent theMy Lai massacre in theVietnam War.[237] Evan Pederick voluntarily confessed and was convicted of theSydney Hilton bombing stating that his conscience could not tolerate the guilt and that "I guess I was quite unique in the prison system in that I had to keep proving my guilt, whereas everyone else said they were innocent."[238]Vasili Arkhipov was a Russian naval officer on out-of-radio-contactSoviet submarine B-59 being depth-charged by US warships during theCuban Missile Crisis whose dissent when two other officers decided to launch a nuclear torpedo (unanimous agreement to launch was required) may have averted a nuclear war.[239] In 1963 Buddhist monkThich Quang Duc performed a famous act ofself-immolation to protest against alleged persecution of his faith by the VietnameseNgo Dinh Diem regime.[240]
At the awards ceremony for the200 metres at the1968 Summer Olympics inMexico CityJohn Carlos,Tommie Smith andPeter Norman ignored death threats and official warnings to take part in an anti-racism protest[247] that destroyed their respective careers.[248]W. Mark Felt an agent of the United StatesFederal Bureau of Investigation who retired in 1973 as the Bureau's Associate Director, acted on conscience to provide reportersBob Woodward andCarl Bernstein with information that resulted in theWatergate scandal.[249] Conscience was a major factor in US Public Health Service officerPeter Buxtun revealing theTuskegee syphilis experiment to the public.[250] The 2008 attack by theIsraeli military on civilian areas ofPalestinianGaza was described as a "stain on the world's conscience".[251] Conscience was a major factor in the refusal ofAung San Suu Kyi to leaveBurma despitehouse arrest andpersecution by themilitary dictatorship in that country.[252]Conscience was a factor inPeter Galbraith's criticism of fraud in the 2009Afghanistan election despite it costing him hisUnited Nations job.[253] Conscience motivatedBunnatine Greenhouse to expose irregularities in the contracting of theHalliburton company for work inIraq.[254]Naji al-Ali a popular cartoon artist in the Arab world, loved for his defense of the ordinary people, and for his criticism of repression and despotism by both theIsraeli military andYasser Arafat'sPLO, was murdered for refusing to compromise with his conscience.[255] The journalistAnna Politkovskaya provided (prior to her murder) an example of conscience in her opposition to theSecond Chechen War and then-Russian PresidentVladimir Putin.[256] Conscience motivated the Russianhuman rights activistNatalia Estemirova, who was abducted and murdered inGrozny,Chechnya in 2009.[257] TheDeath of Neda Agha-Soltan arose from conscience-driven protests against the2009 Iranian presidential election.[258] Muslim lawyerShirin Ebadi (winner of the 2003Nobel Peace Prize) has been described as the 'conscience of the Islamic Republic' for her work in protecting the human rights of women and children inIran.[259] The human rights lawyerGao Zhisheng, often referred to as the 'conscience of China' and who had previously been arrested and allegedly tortured after calling for respect for human rights and for constitutional reform, was abducted by Chinese security agents in February 2009.[260] 2010Nobel Peace Prize winnerLiu Xiaobo in his final statement before being sentenced by a closed Chinese court to over a decade in jail as a politicalprisoner of conscience stated: "For hatred is corrosive of a person’s wisdom and conscience; the mentality of enmity can poison a nation’s spirit."[261]Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer in Russia, was arrested, held without trial for almost a year and died in custody, as a result of exposing corruption.[262] On 6 October 2001 Laura Whittle was a naval gunner onHMAS Adelaide (FFG 01) under orders to implement a new border protection policy when they encountered the SIEV-4 (Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel-4) refugee boat in choppy seas. After being ordered to fire warning shots from her 50 calibre machinegun to make the boat turn back she saw it beginning to break up and sink with a father on board holding out his young daughter that she might be saved (seeChildren Overboard Affair). Whittle jumped without a life vest 12 metres into the sea to help save the refugees from drowning thinking "this isn't right; this isn't how things should be."[263] In February 2012 journalistMarie Colvin was deliberately targeted and killed by theSyrian Army inHoms during theSyrian uprising andSiege of Homs, after she decided to stay at the "epicentre of the storm" in order to "expose what is happening".[citation needed] In October 2012 theTaliban organised the attempted murder ofMalala Yousafzai a teenage girl who had been campaigning, despite their threats, for female education in Pakistan.[264] In December 2012 the2012 Delhi gang rape case was said to have stirred the collective conscience of India to civil disobedience and public protest at the lack of legal action against rapists in that country (seeRape in India)[265][266] In June 2013Edward Snowden revealed details of a USNational Security Agency internet and electronic communicationPRISM (surveillance program) because of a conscience-felt obligation to the freedom of humanity greater than obedience to the laws that bound his employment.[267][268]
The ancient epic of the Indian subcontinent, theMahabharata ofVyasa, contains two pivotal moments ofconscience. The first occurs when the warriorArjuna being overcome with compassion against killing his opposing relatives in war, receives counsel (seeBhagavad-Gita) fromKrishna about his spiritual duty ("work as though you are performing a sacrifice for the general good").[269] The second, at the end of the saga, is when kingYudhishthira having alone survived the moral tests of life, is offered eternal bliss, only to refuse it because a faithful dog is prevented from coming with him by purported divine rules and laws.[270] The French authorMontaigne (1533–1592) in one of the most celebrated ofhis essays ("On experience") expressed the benefits of living with a clear conscience: "Our duty is to compose our character, not to compose books, to win not battles and provinces, but order and tranquillity in our conduct. Our great and glorious masterpiece is to live properly".[271] In his famous Japanese travel journalOku no Hosomichi (Narrow Road to the Deep North) composed of mixedhaiku poetry and prose,Matsuo Bashō (1644–94) in attempting to describe the eternal in this perishable world is often moved inconscience; for example by a thicket of summer grass being all that remains of the dreams and ambitions of ancient warriors.[272]Chaucer's "Franklin's Tale" inThe Canterbury Tales recounts how a young suitor releases a wife from arash promise because of the respect in hisconscience for the freedom to be truthful, gentle and generous.[273]
The criticA. C. Bradley discusses the central problem ofShakespeare's tragic characterHamlet as one where conscience in the form of moral scruples deters the young Prince with his "great anxiety to do right" from obeying his father's hell-bound ghost and murdering the usurping King ("is't not perfect conscience to quit him with this arm?" (v.ii.67)).[274]
Bradley develops a theory about Hamlet's moral agony relating to a conflict between "traditional" and "critical" conscience: "The conventional moral ideas of his time, which he shared with the Ghost, told him plainly that he ought to avenge his father; but a deeper conscience in him, which was in advance of his time, contended with these explicit conventional ideas. It is because this deeper conscience remains below the surface that he fails to recognise it, and fancies he is hindered bycowardice orsloth orpassion or what not; but it emerges into light in that speech to Horatio. And it is just because he has this nobler moral nature in him that we admire and love him".[275] The opening words of Shakespeare'sSonnet 94 ("They that have pow'r to hurt, and will do none") have been admired as a description ofconscience.[276] So hasJohn Donne's commencement of his poems:Goodfriday, 1613. Riding Westward: "Let man's soul be a sphere, and then, in this, Th' intelligence that moves, devotion is;"[277]
Anton Chekhov in his playsThe Seagull,Uncle Vanya andThree Sisters describes the tortured emotional states of doctors who at some point in their careers have turned their back on conscience.[278] In his short stories,Chekhov also explored how people misunderstood the voice of a tortured conscience. A promiscuous student, for example, inThe Fit describes it as a "dull pain, indefinite, vague; it was like anguish and the most acute fear and despair ... in his breast, under the heart" and the young doctor examining the misunderstood agony of compassion experienced by the factory owner's daughter inFrom a Case Book calls it an "unknown, mysterious power ... in fact close at hand and watching him."[279] Characteristically, Chekhov's own conscience drove him on the long journey toSakhalin to record and alleviate the harsh conditions of the prisoners at that remote outpost. As Irina Ratushinskaya writes in the introduction to that work: "Abandoning everything, he travelled to the distant island ofSakhalin, the most feared place of exile and forced labour in Russia at that time. One cannot help but wonder why? Simply, because the lot of the people there was a bitter one, because nobody really knew about the lives and deaths of the exiles, because he felt that they stood in greater need of help that anyone else. A strange reason, maybe, but not for a writer who was the epitome of all the best traditions of a Russian man of letters. Russian literature has always focused on questions ofconscience and was, therefore, a powerful force in the moulding of public opinion."[280]
E. H. Carr writes ofDostoevsky's character the young student Raskolnikov in the novelCrime and Punishment who decides to murder a 'vile and loathsome' old woman money lender on the principle of transcending conventional morals: "the sequel reveals to us not the pangs of a strickenconscience (which a less subtle writer would have given us) but the tragic and fruitless struggle of a powerful intellect to maintain a conviction which is incompatible with the essential nature of man."[281]
Hermann Hesse wrote hisSiddhartha to describe how a young man in the time of theBuddha follows hisconscience on a journey to discover a transcendent inner space where all things could be unified and simply understood, ending up discovering that personal truth through selfless service as a ferryman.[282]J. R. R. Tolkien in his epicThe Lord of the Rings describes how only thehobbitFrodo is pure enough inconscience to carry the ring of power through war-tornMiddle-earth to destruction in theCracks of Doom, Frodo determining at the end to journey without weapons, and being saved from failure by his earlier decision to spare the life of the creatureGollum.[283]Conor Cruise O'Brien wrote thatAlbert Camus was the writer most representative of the Western consciousness and conscience in its relation to the non-Western world.[284]Harper Lee's 1960 novelTo Kill a Mockingbird portraysAtticus Finch (played byGregory Peck in the classic film from the book (seeTo Kill a Mockingbird)) as a lawyer true to his conscience who sets an example to his children and community.[285]
TheRobert Bolt playA Man For All Seasons focuses on the conscience of Catholic lawyerThomas More in his struggle with KingHenry VIII ("the loyal subject is more bounden to be loyal to his conscience than to any other thing").[286]George Orwell wrote his novelNineteen Eighty-Four on the isolated island ofJura, Scotland to describe how a man (Winston Smith) attempts to developcritical conscience in a totalitarian state which watches every action of the people and manipulates their thinking with a mixture ofpropaganda, endless war and thought control through language control (double think andnewspeak) to the point where prisoners look up to and even love their torturers.[287] In the Ministry of Love, Winston's torturer (O'Brien) states: "You are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us. But we create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable".[288]
A tapestry copy ofPicasso'sGuernica depicting a massacre of innocent women and children during theSpanish Civil War is displayed on the wall of theUnited Nations building inNew York City, at the entrance to theSecurity Council room, demonstrably as a spur to the conscience of representatives from thenation states.[289]Albert Tucker paintedMan's Head to capture the moral disintegration, and lack of conscience, of a man convicted of kicking a dog to death.[290]
TheImpressionist painterVincent van Gogh wrote in a letter to his brother Theo in 1878 that "one must never let the fire in one's soul die, for the time will inevitably come when it will be needed. And he who chooses poverty for himself and loves it possesses a great treasure and will hear the voice of hisconscience address him every more clearly. He who hears that voice, which is God's greatest gift, in his innermost being and follows it, finds in it a friend at last, and he is never alone! ... That is what all great men have acknowledged in their works, all those who have thought a little more deeply and searched and worked and loved a little more than the rest, who have plumbed the depths of the sea of life."[291]
The 1957Ingmar Bergman filmThe Seventh Seal portrays the journey of amedievalknight (Max von Sydow) returning disillusioned from thecrusades ("what is going to happen to those of us who want to believe, but aren't able to?") across aplague-ridden landscape, undertaking a game ofchess with thepersonification of Death until he can perform one meaningful altruistic act of conscience (overturning the chess board to distract Death long enough for a family of jugglers to escape in their wagon).[292] The 1942Casablanca centers on the development of conscience in the cynical American Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) in the face of oppression by theNazis and the example of the resistance leaderVictor Laszlo.[293] TheDavid Lean andRobert Bolt screenplay forDoctor Zhivago (an adaptation ofBoris Pasternak's novel) focuses strongly on the conscience of a doctor-poet in the midst of theRussian Revolution (in the end "the walls of his heart were like paper").[294] The 1982Ridley Scott filmBlade Runner focuses on the struggles of conscience between and within a bounty hunter (Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford)) and a renegadereplicantandroid (Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer)) in a future society which refuses to accept that forms of artificial intelligence can have aspects of being such as conscience.[295]
Johann Sebastian Bach wrote his last great choral composition theMass in B minor (BWV 232) to express the alternating emotions of loneliness, despair, joy and rapture that arise asconscience reflects on a departed human life.[296] Here JS Bach's use ofcounterpoint andcontrapuntal settings, his dynamic discourse of melodically and rhythmically distinct voices seeking forgiveness of sins ("Qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis") evokes a spiraling moral conversation of all humanity expressing his belief that "with devotional music, God is always present in his grace".[297]
Ludwig van Beethoven's meditations on illness, conscience and mortality in theLate String Quartets led to his dedicating the third movement of String Quartet in A Minor (1825) Op. 132 (seeString Quartet No. 15) as a "Hymn of Thanksgiving to God of a convalescent".[298][299]John Lennon's work "Imagine" owes much of its popular appeal to its evocation of conscience against the atrocities created bywar,religious fundamentalism andpolitics.[300]The BeatlesGeorge Harrison-written track "The Inner Light" sets to Indianraga music a verse from theTao Te Ching that "without going out of your door you can know the ways of heaven'.[301] In the 1986 movieThe Mission the guilty conscience and penance of the slave trader Mendoza is made more poignant by the haunting oboe music ofEnnio Morricone ("On Earth as it is in Heaven")[302] The songSweet Lullaby byDeep Forest is based on a traditionalBaegulullaby from theSolomon Islands called "Rorogwela" in which a young orphan is comforted as an act of conscience by his older brother.[303] TheDream Academy song 'Forest Fire' provided an early warning of the moral dangers of our 'black cloud' 'bringing down a different kind of weather ... letting the sunshine in, that's how the end begins."[304]
^This relates to the concept of the different types of heresy as understood within Church teaching. The Church distinguishes between Material Heresy and Formal Heresy. Material Heresy occurs when an individual, after sincere and thorough study of the Church’s moral teachings and a genuine effort to form their conscience in accordance with those teachings, concludes—respectfully and in good faith—that the Church is mistaken on one or more moral issues. In such cases, if the individual maintains their personal belief despite their best efforts to understand and accept Church doctrine, they are considered a Material Heretic. However, because their error stems from a well-intentioned and conscientious process, no sin is imputed to them.[47][48] Formal Heresy, by contrast, involves a willful and culpable rejection of Church teaching despite recognizing its truth. In this case, the individual acknowledges that the Church's doctrine is correct but chooses to reject it knowingly, often out of pride, defiance, malice, or other forms of vice. This rejection constitutes a grave moral fault because it entails acting against one’s own conscience and embracing falsehood knowingly. As such, Formal Heresy is considered a sin, as it reflects both an intentional departure from truth and a deliberate act of dishonesty. One must maintain the separation between Material Heresy and Formal Heresy, simply for the fact that one is sinful, and the other is not.[49]
^abRosemary Moore.The Light in Their Consciences: The Early Quakers in Britain 1646–1666. Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA. 2000.ISBN978-0-271-01988-8,
^Marcus Aurelius.Meditations. Gregory Hays (trans). Weidenfeld and & Nicolson. London. 2003 pp. 70, 75.
^Sachiko Murata and William C. Chittick.The Vision of Islam. I. B. Tauris. 2000.ISBN1-86064-022-2 pp. 282–85
^Ames Ambros and Stephan Procházka.A Concise Dictionary of Koranic Arabic. Reichert Verlag 2004.ISBN3-89500-400-6 p. 294.
^Azim Nanji. 'Islamic Ethics' in Singer P (ed).A Companion to Ethics. Blackwell, Oxford 1995. p. 108.
^John B Noss.Man's Religions. The Macmillan Company, New York. 1968 Ch. 16 pp. 758–59
^Marshall G. S. Hodgson.The Venture of Islam, Volume 1: The Classical Age of Islam. University of Chicago Press. 1975ISBN978-0-226-34686-1. Winner ofRalph Waldo Emerson Prize.
^Calvin,Institutes of the Christian religion, Book 2, chapter 8, quoted in:Wogaman, J. Pilip (1993).Christian ethics: a historical introduction. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press. pp. 119, 340.ISBN978-0-664-25163-5.the enemies who rise up in our conscience against his Kingdom and hinder his decrees prove that God's throne is not firmly established therein.
^Ninian Smart.The World's Religions: Old Traditions and Modern Transformations. Cambridge University Press. 1989. p. 376
^Ninian Smart.The World's Religions: Old Traditions and Modern Transformations. Cambridge University Press. 1989. p. 364
^Brian Moynahan.William Tyndale: If God Spare My Life. Abacus. London. 2003 pp. 249–50
^Ninian Smart.The World's Religions: Old Traditions and Modern Transformations. Cambridge University Press. 1989. p. 353
^Robert Graves.The Greek Myths: 2 (London: Penguin, 1960). p. 380
^Catechism of the Catholic Church – English translation (U.S., 2nd edition) (English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: Modifications from the Editio Typica, copyright 1997, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. – Libreria Editrice Vaticana) (Glossary and Index Analyticus, copyright 2000, U.S. Catholic Conference, Inc.).ISBN1-57455-110-8 paragraph 1778
^Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents. Collegeville: The Liturgical Press 1992.Gaudium and Spes 16. Cfr. Joseph Ratzinger,On Conscience, San Francisco: Ignatius Press 2007
^Thomas Aquinas, Sentences, Book IV, Distinction 38, Question 2, Article 4.
^Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), commentary on Gaudium et Spes, in: Herbert Vorgrimler (ed.), Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, vol. 5, Burns & Oates, 1969, p. 134
^John Henry Newman, Letter to the Duke of Norfolk 1875
^Riley Clare Valentine, Overturning the Catechism: A Catholic Argument for Abortion
^The Code of Canon Law: A Text and Commentary, commissioned by the Canon Law Society of America, edited by James A. Coriden, Joseph Abellán, and Thomas Green, Paulist Press, 1985, p. 548.
^Charles E. Curran, “Ten Years Later,” Commonweal, vol. 105, July 7, 1978, p. 429.
^ Oderberg, David S. (2011). "heresies". In Kurian, George T (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization. Vol. 1. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 1119. doi:10.1002/9780470670606.wbecc0652. ISBN 9781405157629. Heresy being a choice, the element of intent is essential to culpability. Theologians commonly distinguish between 'formal' and 'material' heresy. The distinction is between the matter of heresy, viz. an utterance expressing a proposition that does in fact contradict a dogma, and the formal element, viz. the utterance of the proposition in full knowledge that it contradicts the faith and that the church has proposed the opposite as a dogma. Hence a theologically uneducated person who denies, say, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin (defined in 1950), in ignorance of its being a dogma, has uttered the matter of heresy, but is in no wise a heretic strictly speaking. If it is pointed out to him that the Assumption is a dogma and he still denies it, though the proof put to him is clear, he will have committed formal heresy, i.e. heresy in the strict sense. Even if a person is doubtful about a proof put to him as to the existence of a dogma, as long as his rule of faith is to believe whatever the church teaches, he cannot be called a heretic even if he denies a de fide proposition. In other words, one does not have to be theologically well educated or informed to avoid heresy. Even the simplest peasant, as theologians are fond of putting it, can have the faith and avoid all heresy simply by having the interior disposition, not con- tradicted by habitual external action, to believe whatever the church teaches. Hence the term 'material heretic' is like the term 'rubber duck': a material heretic is not a heretic, he is only responsible for uttering a statement that is, in its content, objectively contrary to the faith. Moreover, canon law requires pertinacity, that is, an obstinate refusal to accept church teaching, not a one-off denial or expression of doubt. This follows the instruction of St. Paul in the letter to Titus (3:10): 'A man that is a heretic [haereti'kon], after the first and second admonition avoid, knowing that such a person is subverted, and sins, being condemned by his own judgment.'
^"Heresy". Catholic Encyclopedia. New Advent. 1912. Retrieved 6 March 2017. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
^"Heresy". Catholic Encyclopedia. New Advent. 1912. Retrieved 6 March 2017. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
^Pope Leo XIV,Dilexi te, paragraph 71, published on 4 October 2025, accessed on 23 November 2025
^Harold H Schulweis.Conscience: The Duty to Obey and the Duty to Disobey. Jewish Lights Publishing. 2008.
^Ninian Smart.The Religious Experience of Mankind. Collins. NY. 1969 pp. 395–400.
^Levi Meier (Ed.)Conscience and Autonomy within Judaism: A Special Issue of the Journal of Psychology and Judaism. Springer-Verlag. New YorkISBN978-0-89885-364-3.
^Manning Clark.The Quest for Grace. Penguin Books, Ringwood. 1991 p. 220.
^Aylmer Maude.Introduction to Leo Tolstoy. On Life and Essays on Religion (A Maude trans) Oxford University Press. London. 1950 (repr) pxv.
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^abHenry Sidgwick.Outlines of the History of Ethics. Macmillan. London. 1960 pp. 145, 150.
^abRurak, James (1980). "Butler's Analogy: A Still Interesting Synthesis of Reason and Revelation",Anglican Theological Review 62 (October) pp. 365–81
^abDietrich Bonhoeffer.Ethics. Eberhard Bethge (ed.) Neville Horton Smith (trans.) Collins. London 1963 p. 24
^May, L. (1983). "On Conscience".American Philosophical Quarterly.20:57–67.
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^Wurgaft, LD. (1976). "Erik Erikson: from Luther to Gandhi".Psychoanalytic Review.63 (2):209–33.PMID788015.
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^D'Arcy, Eric.Conscience and Its Right to Freedom. Sheed and Ward, New York 1961.
^Eva Fogelman.Conscience & courage: rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust. New York: Anchor Books, c1994
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^Jeremy Bentham.Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. (Burns JH and Hart HLA eds), Athlone Press. London. 1970 Ch 12 p. 156n.
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^Gisela Kaplan.Australian Magpie: Biology and Behaviour of an Unusual Songbird. CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood. 2004. pp. 83, 124.
^Susan Greenfield.The Quest For Identity in the 21st Century. Sceptre. London. 2008 p. 223.
^Richard Dawkins.The God Delusion. Bantam Press. London 2006 p. 215-216.
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^AC Grayling. "Do We Have a Veto?"Times Literary Supplement. 2000; 5076 (14 July): 4.
^Batthyany, Alexander: Mental Causation and Free Will after Libet and Soon: Reclaiming Conscious Agency. In Batthyany und Avshalom Elitzur. Irreducibly Conscious. Selected Papers on Consciousness, Universitätsverlag Winter Heidelberg 2009, pp.135ff
^Pitrat, Jacques (2009).Artificial Beings: The Conscience of a Conscious Machine). Wiley.ISBN978-1-84821-101-8.
^Peter Singer.Practical Ethics. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 1993 pp. 292–95.
^Peter Singer.Democracy and Disobedience. Clarendon Press. Oxford. 1973. p. 94
^Ninian Smart.The Religious Experience of Mankind. Collins. New York 1969 pp. 511–12.
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^Saarinen, R.Weakness of the Will in Medieval Thought From Augustine to Buridan. Brill, Leiden. 1994
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