conscience

Conscience is a cognitive process that elicits emotion and rational associations based on an individual's moral philosophy or value system. Conscience stands in contrast to elicited emotion or thought due to associations based on immediate sensory perceptions and reflexive responses, as in sympathetic central nervous system responses. In common terms, conscience is often described as leading to feelings of remorse when a person commits an act that conflicts with their moral values. The extent to which conscience informs moral judgment before an action and whether such moral judgments are or should be based on reason has occasioned debate through much of modern history between theories of basics in ethic of human life in juxtaposition to the theories of romanticism and other reactionary movements after the end of the Middle Ages.

Religious views of conscience usually see it as linked to a morality inherent in all humans, to a beneficent universe and/or to divinity. The diverse ritualistic, mythical, doctrinal, legal, institutional and material features of religion may not necessarily cohere with experiential, emotive, spiritual or contemplative considerations about the origin and operation of conscience. Common secular or scientific views regard the capacity for conscience as probably genetically determined, with its subject probably learned or imprinted as part of a culture.

Commonly used metaphors for conscience include the "voice within", the "inner light",Rosemary Moore. ''The Light in Their Consciences: The Early Quakers in Britain 1646–1666''. Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA. 2000. , or even Socrates' reliance on what the Greeks called his " daimōnic sign", an averting (ἀποτρεπτικός ''apotreptikos'') 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, is increasingly conceived of as applying to the world as a whole,Booth K, Dunne T and Cox M (eds). ''How Might We Live? Global Ethics in the New Century''. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge 2001 p. 1. has motivated numerous notable acts for the public goodAmnesty International. Ambassador of Conscience Award
Retrieved 31 December 2013. and been the subject of many prominent examples of literature, music and film.

Views

Although humanity has no generally accepted definition of conscience or universal agreement about its role in ethical decision-making, three approaches have addressed it:Langston, Douglas C. ''Conscience and Other Virtues. From Bonaventure to MacIntyre''. The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, Pennsylvania, 2001. p. 176

# Religious views
# Secular views
# Philosophical views

Religious

In the literary traditions of the Upanishads, Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita, conscience is the label given to attributes composing knowledge about good and evil, that a soul acquires from the completion of acts and consequent accretion of karma over many lifetimes. According to Adi Shankara in his ''Vivekachudamani'' 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". This knowledge requires discrimination between the eternal and non-eternal and eventually a realization in contemplation that the true self merges in a universe of pure consciousness.

In the Zoroastrian faith, after death a soul must face judgment at the ''Bridge 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 the ''House of the Lie''." The Chinese concept of Ren, indicates that conscience, along with social etiquette and correct relationships, assist humans to follow ''The Way'' (Tao) a mode of life reflecting the implicit human capacity for goodness and harmony.

Conscience also features prominently in Buddhism. In the Pali scriptures, for example, Buddha links the positive aspect of ''conscience'' 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 right contemplation. Santideva (685–763 CE) wrote in the Bodhicaryavatara (which he composed and delivered in the great northern Indian Buddhist university of Nalanda, forbearance and training the awareness to be like a "block of wood" when attracted by vices such as pride or lust; so one can continue advancing towards right understanding in meditative absorption. ''Conscience'' thus manifests in Buddhism as unselfish love for all living beings which gradually intensifies and awakens to a purer awareness where the mind withdraws from sensory interests and becomes aware of itself as a single whole.

The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote in his ''Meditations'' 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."

The Islamic concept of ''Taqwa'' is closely related to conscience. In the Qur’ān verses 2:197 & 22:37 Taqwa refers to "right conduct" or "piety", "guarding of oneself" or "guarding against evil". 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. In Qur’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 of vice and virtue 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.

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." In Islam, according to eminent theologians such as Al-Ghazali, although events are ordained (and written by God in al-Lawh al-Mahfūz, the ''Preserved Tablet''), humans possess free 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 the Five Pillars of Islam, deeds of piety, repentance, self-discipline and prayer; and disintegrated and metaphorically covered in blackness through sinful acts. Marshall Hodgson wrote the three-volume work: ''The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization''.

In the Protestant Christian tradition, Martin Luther insisted in the Diet of Worms that his conscience was captive to the Word 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. 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". Many Christians regard following one's conscience as important as, or even more important than, obeying human authority. A Christian view of conscience might be: "God gave us our conscience so we would know when we break His Law; the guilt we feel when we do something wrong tells us that we need to repent." This can sometimes (as with the conflict between William Tyndale and Thomas 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?" Some contemporary Christian churches and religious groups hold the moral teachings of the Ten Commandments or of Jesus as the highest authority in any situation, regardless of the extent to which it involves responsibilities in law. In the Gospel of John (7:53–8:11) (King James Version) Jesus challenges those accusing a woman of adultery stating: "'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" owever the word 'conscience' is not in the original New Testament Greek, and is not in the vast majority of Bible versions.(see Jesus and the woman taken in adultery). In the Gospel of Luke (10: 25–37) Jesus tells the story of how a despised and heretical Samaritan (see Parable of the Good Samaritan) who (out of compassion/pity - 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.

This dilemma of obedience in conscience to divine or state law, was demonstrated dramatically in Antigone's defiance of King Creon's order against burying her brother an alleged traitor, appealing to the "unwritten law" and to a "longer allegiance to the dead than to the living".

Catholic theology sees conscience as the last practical "judgment of reason which at the appropriate moment enjoins personto do good and to avoid evil". The Second 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." 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" 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 before confession. 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". This right of conscience does not allow one to arbitrarily disagree with Church teaching and claim that one is acting in accordance with conscience. A sincere conscience presumes one is diligently seeking moral truth from authentic sources, that is, seeking to conform oneself to that moral truth by listening to the authority established by Christ to teach it. Nevertheless, despite one's best effort, " can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed ... This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility ... In such cases, the person is culpable for the wrong he commits." The Catholic Church has warned that "rejection of the Church's authority and her teaching ... can be at the source of errors in judgment in moral conduct". An example of someone following his conscience to the point of accepting the consequence of being condemned to death is Sir Thomas More (1478-1535). 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, was John Henry Cardinal Newman. 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.

Judaism arguably does not require uncompromising obedience to religious authority; the case has been made that throughout Jewish history, rabbis have circumvented laws they found unconscionable, such as capital punishment. Similarly, although an occupation with national destiny has been central to the Jewish faith (see Zionism) many scholars (including Moses Mendelssohn) stated that conscience as a personal revelation of scriptural truth was an important adjunct to the Talmudic tradition. The concept of inner light in the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers is associated with conscience. Freemasonry describes itself as providing an adjunct to religion and key symbols found in a Freemason Lodge are the ''square'' and ''compasses'' 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." The historian Manning Clark viewed ''conscience'' as one of the comforters that religion placed between man and death but also a crucial part of the quest for grace encouraged by the Book of Job and the Book 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. 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. Many prominent religious works about conscience also have a significant philosophical component: examples are the works of Al-Ghazali, Avicenna,Nader El-Bizri. "Avicenna's De Anima between Aristotle and Husserl" in Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (ed) ''The Passions of the Soul in the Metamorphosis of Becoming''. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Dordrecht 2003 pp. 67–89. Aquinas,Henry Sidgwick. ''Outlines of the History of Ethics''. Macmillan. London. 1960 pp. 145, 150. Joseph ButlerRurak, James (1980). "Butler's Analogy: A Still Interesting Synthesis of Reason and Revelation", ''Anglican Theological Review'' 62 (October) pp. 365–81 and Dietrich BonhoefferDietrich Bonhoeffer. ''Ethics''. Eberhard Bethge (ed.) Neville Horton Smith (trans.) Collins. London 1963 p. 24 (all discussed in the philosophical views section).

Secular

The secular approach to conscience includes psychological, physiological, sociological, humanitarian, and authoritarian views. Lawrence Kohlberg considered ''critical 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 as Jiminy Cricket) and later in adolescents by debates about individually pertinent moral dilemmas. Erik Erikson placed the development of ''conscience'' in the 'pre-schooler' phase of his eight stages of normal human personality development. The psychologist Martha Stout terms ''conscience'' "an intervening sense of obligation based in our emotional attachments." 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".

Sigmund Freud regarded ''conscience'' as originating psychologically from the growth of civilisation, which periodically frustrated the external expression of aggression: this destructive impulse being forced to seek an alternative, healthy outlet, directed its energy as a superego against the person's own "ego" or selfishness (often taking its cue in this regard from parents during childhood). According to Freud, the consequence of not obeying our conscience is guilt, which can be a factor in the development of neurosis; 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'.

Antonio Damasio considers conscience an aspect of extended consciousness beyond survival-related dispositions and incorporating the search for truth and desire to build norms and ideals for behavior.

Conscience as a society-forming instinct

Michel Glautier argues that conscience is one of the instincts 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.

Charles Darwin considered that ''conscience'' 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 to moral authority emerged from the "greater duration of impression of social instincts" in the struggle for survival. In such a view, behavior destructive to a person's society (either to its structures or to the persons it comprises) is bad or "evil". Thus, conscience can be viewed as an outcome of those biological drives that prompt humans to avoid provoking fear or contempt in others; being experienced as guilt and shame in differing ways from society to society and person to person. A requirement of conscience in this view is the capacity to see ourselves from the point of view of another person. Persons unable to do this (psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists) therefore often act in ways which are "evil".

Fundamental in this view of conscience is that humans consider some "other" as being ''in a social relationship''. Thus, nationalism is invoked in conscience to quell tribal conflict and the notion of a Brotherhood of Man is invoked to quell national conflicts. Yet such crowd drives may not only overwhelm but redefine individual ''conscience''. 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.'" Jeremy Bentham noted that: "fanaticism never sleeps ... it is never stopped by ''conscience''; for it has pressed ''conscience'' into its service." Hannah Arendt in her study of the trial of Adolf Eichmann