The Definition of Conscience

What do you think the conscience is?  It is a voice that calls us “to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil”  It is our most secret core and sanctuary where we are alone with God  That part of us that makes us feel guilty when we do something wrong

 When people develop a mature conscience they tend to direct their actions more from within, rather than an outside influence  Commands of the moral conscience come from our perception which we discover in the stories/examples of persons we want to be like  Moral conscience is the key to responsible freedom  The task of the conscience is to direct our activities

Conscience can be described in 3 ways  1. Conscience as a capacity to recognize right and wrong  2. Conscience as a process of moral reasoning.  3. Conscience as Judgment

 Here conscience is a capacity (ability) of the human person. According to the Church all men and women have the ability to discover the one law that was placed deep within our conscience by God Himself. This Law was not devised by humans, it was inscribed there by God and He calls us to love by doing good and avoiding evil. This is otherwise known as natural law. Through our conscience this law is made known. A man or woman’s dignity lies in observing this law, and by it he/she will be judged. All people in all cultures have a general awareness that some things are right and others are wrong and they have the capacity to orient themselves toward the good. Conscience as a capacity defines the essential identity of the human being.

 It is not enough to have a conscience or ability to choose the right and avoid evil. You need to search out in each situation what is the right thing to do. To act according to your conscience, you must seek to be educated about moral issues. Your conscience must be formed and informed. This is a lifelong process of learning. It means relying on community and being humble enough to draw upon many sources of moral wisdom rather than relying on yourself.

Growing in years does not guarantee a person will develop a a more mature, adult level conscience. There are many adults who continue to make decisions based on a child’s motivations:  Desire to please  Fear  Unhealthy guilt

A healthier adult level conscience develops only with an accumulation of and reflection on experience and information. Unfortunately we sometimes lack the information we need to form right judgments or make good decisions. Conscience can be malformed through:  Immoral actions  Faulty reasoning  Faulty value structures  Misinformation received by others

A misinformed conscience may lead one to believe that they are doing something right when in fact they are doing something evil in order to achieve some desired outcome. Some symptoms of a misinformed conscience are:  Rationalization: “Stealing may be wrong sometimes, but large stores can afford it because they are making huge profits.”  Trivialization: “It’s no big deal everybody else does it.”  Misinformation: “My doctor told me that all teenage girls should take the birth control pill to prevent getting pregnant.”  The ends justifies the immoral means: “I had to steal the chocolate bar – I didn’t have any money and I hadn’t eaten for 12 hours. I get sick if I don’t eat.”  Means to an end: By dropping a nuclear bomb to end war, we’ll end up saving lives.

READ SCRIPTURE  By doing this we learn about what Jesus did when confronted by moral dilemmas and we learn how the early church developed guidelines for us.

LEARN ABOUT THE TRADITIONS OF THE CHURCH  These lessons are not necessarily located in the bible but they have been passed on through history. The majority of these lessons may be found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It also involves the lives and the testimonies of people of faith (ex. Saints – St. Thomas More)

LISTEN TO THE MAGESTERIUM Involves those people who interpret scripture and tradition for our time and culture – the pope and the bishops. These teachings can be found in official Vatican documents known as encyclicals. It is important to remember that the authority of the church is not a form of control, but a guide to human fulfillment and true freedom. When we disagree with the magesterium we should ask ourselves:  Do I fully understand the church’s teaching on this matter?  If I do, am I considering its authoritative character?  Am I being swayed by the example of others?  Am I trying to do what is good or what feels good?  Will this decision move me closer to or further from God?  Is my decision based on love and concern for others?

APPROACH EVERY DECISION WITH HUMILITY  Humility allows us to understand our own limitations and our need for others to challenge us, expand our thinking, and to remind us that there truths that cannot be ignored.

PRAY  This allows us to reflect on our decision making process and when praying we should remember that God is always willing to forgive us for bad decisions as long as we admit that we are wrong and ask for forgiveness from God and others.

 Your conscience is incomplete until you act on it. After examining all the factors, you still need to make a judgment and a decision and a commitment to do what you believe is right and avoid what you believe to be wrong. Conscience makes a moral decision “my own” and the moral action expressive of “me” by realizing and expressing my fundamental stance. The decision is not simply about this or that object of choice, but also about being this or that sort of person. This is the conscience that I must obey to be true to myself. Your choices convey who you are.

 One of the branches of psychology – developmental psychology – studies the pattern of growth of the human personality and identity. This is important to the development of conscience because developmental psychology shows how over a lifetime, our personal choices can either mature or decline depending on how we respond to the different challenges of life. We will be studying the developmental theories of three psychologists: Lawrence Kohlberg ( ), Erik Erickson ( ) and Sigmund Freud ( ). Lastly we will be using a biological approach to explain the evolution of conscience.

The theories that we will be investigating have a tendency to outline moral development in the form of a neat progression of stages. We have to keep in mind that as we progress through the stages we may also regress. We drift in and out of stages influenced by many situations and people. In general, to develop as an ethical person one needs:  To trust in the integrity of others  To feel capable of acting morally  To believe in objective truth and principles  To believe that, despite one’s limitations, one can overcome whatever threatens to diminish one’s worth, one’s dignity  A sense of one’s own identity  A compassionate understanding of one’s limitations so that one can forgive and be forgiven  A sense of one’s own autonomy so that one can follow one’s conscience  To pursue a life that is meaningful, not just for oneself, but also for others

 Today most psychologists affirm the significant role that both cognitive development and socialization play in the formation of morality. Each stage of life takes place as a result of socialization by parents, teachers and influential members of society. These people model moral behavior, they give opportunities to recognize and practice moral action, and they encourage us to take into consideration the viewpoints of others and to develop the skills needed to reason. As we grow older we begin to accept responsibility for our own actions.