Aquinas gives a rationalistic account of conscience (compared to the intuitive account of Newman). Conscience is a process or tool which allows us to reach informed moral decisions. Aquinas believes conscience comes in two parts, synderisis the knowledge of right and wrong which is God given and conscienta which is our application of synderisis to moral situations. So for Aquinas conscience is the act of applying our God given knowledge of right and wrong (natural law theory) to what we do. Aquinas states that your conscience can lead you to make the wrong decision but people cannot knowingly do wrong; we only ever seek apparent goods. We must always follow our conscience as it is God given; it is our best chance of making the right choices. Aquinas states that it is our duty to keep our conscience well informed by going to church and reading the bible as this will avoid us from making the wrong decisions. Even though we cannot knowingly do wrong it may be wrong of us to allow ourselves to have an uninformed conscience.
Aquinas’ view holds some strength as it accepts that we are not passive; it takes the human element seriously. He makes us responsible for developing our own conscience and unlike Newman he accounts for cultural and moral relativism. However other explanations of conscience which do not involve God are more coherent, for example Piaget and Kohlberg who state that conscience is the natural development of our moral compass over time. It makes no sense to say that our conscience can be wrong but we should follow it regardless of this fact. Perhaps the fact that we can make wrong decisions enables us to grow and develop our conscience further? The idea of real and apparent good seems rather naïve. If no one ever knowingly does wrong why does there seem to be countless cases where people knowingly do wrong? For instance Hitler’s mass genocide of the Jewish during the Second World War, despite knowing murder is wrong he ordered the deaths of millions. Looking at the flaws it seems that the views of Aquinas fall short.
Unlike Aquinas and Newman, Piaget and Kohlberg argue that the conscience is not God given. They argue that conscience is a natural progression of our moral compass over time. Piaget’s work involved playing marbles with boys of different ages and questioning them on the rules. He found that boys he worked with aged 5-10 thought that the rules of the game of marbles came from a ‘semi-mystical’ authority, such as older children or even God. These rules have always existed and can’t be changed. However he found that they still bent the rules to suit themselves. He also worked with boys older than 10 he found that they realised the rules had been made up to prevent arguing and that the rules could be changed if both players agreed. Piaget also asked boys of different ages, about their views on punishment in hypothetical situations, asking them to make moral judgements. The younger children focused on the severity of the outcome, (external responsibility), whereas older children distinguished between the outcome and whether it occurred as a result of someone doing something wrong, (internal responsibility). Piaget concludes that children develop from egocentric to operational thought where they are able to consider things from another person’s point of view. This suggests that a person’s conscience is developed not God given. Kohlberg expands on this theory of moral development and identifies six stages which then fell into three levels. The first level is the Pre-conventional level and usually applies to young children; it consists of people behaving in a socially acceptable way as they are told to by someone in authority. This is done as a threat or punishment will occur if the order is not followed. This then progresses to a belief that right behaviour means acting for your own best interests. The second level is the conventional level as it is commonly found within society. It consists of an attitude of doing things which seek to gain the approval of others. This progresses to the want to abide the law and response to the obligation of duty. The third level is the post-conventional level as it is not reached by the majority of adults. It consists of understanding what everyone wants socially and a genuine concern for the welfare of others. This should progress to the final stage which is based upon respect for universal principles and the demands of individual conscience. While Kohlberg always believed in the existence of Stage 6 and had some nominees for it, he could never get enough subjects who possessed these qualities to study.
The views of Piaget and Kohlberg hold strength as more recent studies by Kruger support Piaget’s work about the importance of disagreements to moral development. They account for the progression of our moral thoughts and differences between consciences. Their account does seem to correlate with our own experience within society regarding the development of our conscience through time. Unlike Newman and Aquinas they provide a logical and coherent account of what conscience is and where is comes from without using God. The issues faced by this theory is that Piaget chose to work with Boys as he felt traditional girls games were too simple for research, this could make his work gender biased. There also seems to be a gap between developing theoretical and practical morality. However Piaget explains this by using the analogy of grammar. Just as children learn to use the laws of grammar practically before they come to look at grammatical theory, children also learn to use the laws of morality before they acquire the skills to reflect upon the theory. The issue with Kohlberg is although he believed in the progression of conscience up to stage six he couldn’t get enough people to define it, this begs the question of does stage six actually exist? The flaws of this theory are limited and do not seem to render this theory as invalid.
In conclusion Newman’s theory never recovers from the fact that conscience should be universal if it is in fact the voice of God. Aquinas’ theory never recovers from the fact that idea of real and apparent goods is naïve, people do knowingly do evil and the idea that we should follow our conscience despite it potentially leading us to do wrong still seems absurd. The idea that our conscience develops over time as put forward by Piaget and Kohlberg seems far more logical and coherent. The views of Newman and Aquinas on conscience seem to fall short as conscience can be better explained by Piaget and Kohlberg without the use of God.