St. Augustine of Hippo had a similar view to St. Paul. In De Trinitate he developed the idea of conscience as a method of distinguishing between good and evil by stating that the conscience was the word of God “writ directly on the heart”. Following the conscience would bring the individual closer to God. However, Augustine’s ideas do differ from Paul’s to an extent. Augustine believes that conscience is essentially a tool for observing the divine will, and due to the necessary omniscience of God could not be mistaken. Therefore, Augustine would answer the posed question emphatically. The conscience could never be ignored and is never wrong: to suggest that the conscience can be wrong is to suggest that God can be wrong, an idea clearly inconsistent with the Judeo-Christian concept of God.
St. Thomas Aquinas rejected the idea that conscience had anything to do with the will of God and called it “the power of reason”. Conscience was principally a faculty for distinguishing right from wrong. Aquinas explained the problem of apparent evil by referring to the “synderesis rule”, which stated that humans basically tend toward the good. He said that evil was simply a case of mistaking what was good rather than intentionally following something wrong. Bowie quotes from Summa Theologica: “…To do this [bad act] will be evil based on ignorance of divine law”. It is an ignorance of the will of God (which could be worked out through reason) and not a fault of the conscience that leads to evil. Using Aquinas’s views, the conscience should be followed only after the individual has fully reasoned out the implications of any situation in order to avoid following the apparent good rather than the ‘real’.
Joseph Butler stated that conscience was intuitive and called it ‘the final moral decision maker’ “Men can distinguish between approval and disapproval of their own actions”. Further, Butler believed that we are driven by two basic principles: self-love and benevolence. Conscience directs us toward benevolence and away from self-love: it is the ultimate moral decision-maker and it is our duty to follow it. Furthermore, conscience was given to us by God. Again, Butler uses the idea of the omniscience and omnibenevolence of God to explain the infallibility of conscience. It is imperative that we follow the conscience when making decisions in order to make the correct choice.
Sigmund Freud presented a very different view of the conscience from those before him. His perspective was entirely secular and he used psychology to explain the conscience, stating that it stemmed purely from social conditioning and social ideas of correctness. Freud believed that our basic desires are expressed in the Id. As we learn that these cannot always be fulfilled without repercussion in the form of disapproval from society, and understand this via the self-awareness of the Ego, we develop the Super-Ego. This is developed from repression of emotions and from “internalising anger and disapproval of others”. The Super-Ego prevents us from undertaking any behaviour deemed socially unacceptable: for example, it is extremely rare that an adult will start crying in public in the same abandoned way as a small child would. Freud would explain this as the Super-Ego preventing behaviour that would be deemed socially improper. A guilty conscience is eventually created that causes pain or worry whenever we do something that society would see as wrong. Bowie states that: “Freud believed that conscience is pre-rational”. Freud’s ideas are in direct opposition to those of Butler and Aquinas in that he believes they are in no way conditioned by the conscious mind. With regard to the use of conscience when making moral decisions, Freud’s ideas suggest that the conscience should be treated as indicative of the beliefs of society rather than of the correct moral path. We should use reason when making moral decisions rather than relying on the conscience, which is basically a concentration of guilt and anger.
The conscience is clearly a matter of some debate. There are some moral issues implicated in the idea of obeying the conscience implicitly and without question, as some philosophers suggest it should be. There is no evidence to suggest that the conscience is infallible as it is purely subjective, and to follow it without use of reason or question could be dangerous. The ALF is a group who claim to be acting on their conscience; however, they use violence and terror to achieve their aims. This is neither morally justifiable nor logical: they appear to have no qualms about killing humans in order to save the lives of animals. Even the Roman Catholic Church suggests that we should act on an “informed conscience” rather than blindly following what could be problematic basic instinct.
Furthermore, the idea of conscience as the voice of God leads to some issues. The first is that the conscience is varied across people: if a person found fifty pounds on the street one person might keep it while another could choose to hand it in. The image of an omniscient and consistent God does not fit with the concept of infinitely variable decisions across different people. A second issue is that Butler gives “ultimate authority” to conscience. Again, this is incompatible with an omnipotent God and leads to some doubt over conscience as stemming from God. The most evident problem in modern society is that most atheists and those of other faiths would claim to have a conscience. Although St. Paul does answer this criticism to a degree, it is still an obstacle in the attribution of the conscience to God.
There are further issues with stating broadly that the conscience should be used when making ethical decisions. This does not take into account the subject. Should the person have a psychopathic or mental disorder, advising them to make a decision based on what an internal urge suggests is obviously unreasonable. Enlightenment philosophers such as Hume or Kant would clearly disagree with the idea of making a decision based on an internal and unempirical urge, and would encourage the use of reason when making ethical decisions.
The conscience is to an extent impossible to ignore when making ethical decisions. It is difficult to act entirely against what is instinctively felt. However, it is clear that from the problems that might arise from it, and from some of the secular theories about the nature of conscience, that it is logical to involve some degree of reason when making decisions. However, it is necessary to listen to the conscience in order to make choices that conform to our own moral standards. The opinions of moral philosophers are so varied that it is impossible to make a decision based on these ideas. Therefore, the ideal would appear to be a balanced understanding of what the conscience suggests and of what reason would dictate.
