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 CNS 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. An individual's moral values and their
dissonance with familial, social, cultural
and historical interpretations of moral philosophy
are considered in the examination of cultural
relativity in both the practice and study
of psychology. 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
modern western philosophy 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",
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, has motivated numerous notable acts
for the public good 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:
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)
of the spiritual importance of perfecting
virtues such as generosity, 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 fundamentalist 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" (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
and conscience) 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 [a
person] to 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,
"[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 often be imputed to
personal responsibility ... In such cases,
the person is culpable for the wrong he commits."
Thus, if one realizes one may have made a
mistaken judgment, one's conscience is said
to be vincibly erroneous and it is not a valid
norm for action. One must first remove the
source of error and do one's best to achieve
a correct judgment. If, however, one is not
aware of one's error or if, despite an honest
and diligent effort one cannot remove the
error by study or seeking advice, then one's
conscience may be said to be invincibly erroneous.
It binds since one has subjective certainty
that one is correct. The act resulting from
acting on the invincibly erroneous conscience
is not good in itself, yet this deformed act
or material sin against God's right order
and the objective norm is not imputed to the
person. The formal obedience given to such
a judgment of conscience is good. Some Catholics
appeal to conscience in order to justify dissent,
not on the level of conscience properly understood,
but on the level of the principles and norms
which are supposed to inform conscience. For
example, some priests make on the use of the
so-called internal forum solution (which is
not sanctioned by the Magisterium) to justify
actions or lifestyles incompatible with Church
teaching, such as Christ's prohibition of
remarriage after divorce or sexual activity
outside marriage. 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,
Aquinas, Joseph Butler and Dietrich Bonhoeffer
(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
in Jerusalem, notes that the accused, as with
almost all his fellow Germans, had lost track
of his conscience 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 whose
conscience 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".Sir Arthur Keith in 1948 developed
the Amity-enmity complex. We evolved as tribal
groups surrounded by enemies; thus conscience
evolved a dual role; the duty to save and
protect members of the in-group, and the duty
to show hatred and aggression towards any
out-group.
An interesting area of research in this context
concerns the similarities between our relationships
and those of animals, whether animals in human
society (pets, working animals, even animals
grown for food) or in the wild. One idea is
that as people or animals perceive a social
relationship as important to preserve, their
conscience begins to respect that former "other",
and urge actions that protect it. Similarly,
in complex territorial and cooperative breeding
bird communities (such as the Australian 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.
==== Evolutionary biology ====
Contemporary scientists in evolutionary biology
seek to explain conscience as a function of
the brain that evolved to facilitate altruism
within societies. In his book The God Delusion,
Richard Dawkins states that he agrees with
Robert Hinde's Why Good is Good, Michael Shermer's
The Science of Good and Evil, Robert Buckman's
Can We Be Good Without God? and Marc Hauser's
Moral Minds, that our sense of right and wrong
can be derived from our Darwinian past. He
subsequently reinforced this idea through
the lense of the gene-centered view of evolution,
since the unit of natural selection is neither
an individual organism nor a group, but rather
the "selfish" gene, and these genes could
ensure their own "selfish" survival by, inter
alia, pushing individuals to act altruistically
towards its kin.
==== Neuroscience and artificial conscience
====
Numerous case studies of brain damage have
shown that damage to areas of the brain (such
as the anterior prefrontal cortex) results
in the reduction or elimination of inhibitions,
with a corresponding radical change in behaviour.
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.Attempts have been made
by neuroscientists to locate the free will
necessary for what is termed the 'veto' of
conscience over unconscious mental processes
(see Neuroscience of free will and Benjamin
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.'Jacques
Pitrat claims that some kind of artificial
conscience is beneficial in artificial intelligence
systems to improve their long-term performance
and direct their introspective processing.
=== Philosophical ===
The word "conscience" derives etymologically
from the Latin conscientia, meaning "privity
of knowledge"
or "with-knowledge". The English 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.
Thus conscience 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. Conscience in this
sense is not necessarily the product of a
process of rational consideration of the moral
features of a situation (or the applicable
normative principles, rules or laws) and can
arise from parental, peer group, religious,
state or corporate indoctrination, which may
or may not be presently consciously acceptable
to the person ("traditional conscience").
Conscience may be defined as the practical
reason employed when applying moral convictions
to a situation ("critical conscience"). In
purportedly morally mature mystical people
who have developed this capacity through daily
contemplation or meditation combined with
selfless service to others, critical conscience
can be aided by a "spark" of intuitive insight
or revelation (called marifa in Islamic Sufi
philosophy and synderesis in medieval Christian
scholastic moral philosophy). Conscience is
accompanied in each case by an internal awareness
of 'inner light' and approbation or 'inner
darkness' and condemnation as well as a resulting
conviction of right or duty either followed
or declined.
==== Medieval ====
The medieval Islamic scholar and mystic Al-Ghazali
divided the concept of Nafs (soul or self
(spirituality)) into three categories based
on the Qur’an:
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 physician Muhammad ibn Zakariya
al-Razi believed in a close relationship between
conscience or spiritual integrity and physical
health; rather than being self-indulgent,
man should pursue knowledge, use his intellect
and apply justice in his life. The medieval
Islamic philosopher Avicenna, whilst imprisoned
in the castle of Fardajan near Hamadhan, wrote
his famous isolated-but-awake "Floating Man"
sensory deprivation thought experiment to
explore the ideas of human self-awareness
and the substantiality of the soul; his hypothesis
being that it is through intelligence, particularly
the active intellect, that God communicates
truth to the human mind or conscience. According
to the Islamic Sufis conscience allows Allah
to guide people to the marifa, 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 the Qur’ān.
Some medieval Christian scholastics such as
Bonaventure made a distinction between conscience
as a rational faculty of the mind (practical
reason) and inner awareness, an intuitive
"spark" to do good, called synderesis 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. Early modern theologians such
as William Perkins and William 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).
In the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas regarded
conscience 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 with
synderesis, the structured development of
our innate remnant awareness of absolute good
(which he categorised as involving the five
primary precepts proposed in his theory of
Natural Law) into an acquired habit of applying
moral principles. According to Singer, Aquinas
held that conscience, or conscientia was an
imperfect process of judgment applied to activity
because knowledge of the natural 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). Aquinas also discussed conscience in relation
to the virtue of prudence 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.Aquinas reasoned that acting
contrary to conscience is an evil action but
an errant conscience is only blameworthy if
it is the result of culpable or vincible ignorance
of factors that one has a duty to have knowledge
of. Aquinas also argued that conscience should
be educated to act towards real goods (from
God) which encouraged human flourishing, rather
than the apparent goods of sensory pleasures.
In his Commentary on Aristotle's Nicomachean
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.Thomas A Kempis in the medieval
contemplative classic The 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."
The anonymous medieval author of the Christian
mystical work The Cloud of Unknowing similarly
expressed the view that in profound and prolonged
contemplation a soul dries up the "root and
ground" of the sin that is always there, even
after one's confession and however busy one
is in holy things: "therefore, whoever would
work at becoming a contemplative must first
cleanse his [or her] conscience." The medieval
Flemish mystic John 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."
==== Modern ====
Benedict de Spinoza in his Ethics, published
after his death in 1677, argued that most
people, even those that consider themselves
to exercise free 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. 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.
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 passions sub specie aeternitatis, that
is without reference to time. Hegel's obscure
and mystical Philosophy of Mind held that
the absolute right of freedom of conscience
facilitates human understanding of an all-embracing
unity, an absolute which was rational, real
and true. 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.
A similar idealist notion was expressed in
the writings of Joseph Butler who argued that
conscience is God-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." 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)
in conscience (also linked to the agape of
situational ethics). 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). John Selden in his Table Talk
expressed the view that an awake but excessively
scrupulous or ill-trained conscience 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".As
the sacred texts of ancient Hindu and Buddhist
philosophy became available in German translations
in the 18th and 19th centuries, they influenced
philosophers such as Schopenhauer to hold
that in a healthy mind only deeds oppress
our conscience, not wishes and thoughts; "for
it is only our deeds that hold us up to the
mirror of our will"; the good 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."Immanuel Kant, a central
figure of the Age 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."
The 'universal connection' referred to here
is Kant's categorical imperative: "act only
according to that maxim by which you can at
the same time will that it should become a
universal law." Kant considered critical 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 the soul 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. Rousseau expressed a similar
view that conscience somehow connected man
to a greater metaphysical unity. John Plamenatz
in his critical examination of Rousseau's
work considered that conscience 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."
Other philosophers expressed a more sceptical
and pragmatic view of the operation of "conscience"
in society.John Locke in his Essays 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. Locke highlighted the
metaethics problem of whether accepting a
statement like "follow your conscience" supports
subjectivist or objectivist 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." Thomas Hobbes
likewise pragmatically noted that opinions
formed on the basis of conscience with full
and honest conviction, nevertheless should
always be accepted with humility as potentially
erroneous and not necessarily indicating absolute
knowledge or truth. William Godwin expressed
the view that conscience was a memorable consequence
of the "perception by men of every creed when
the descend into the scene of busy life" that
they possess free will. Adam Smith considered
that it was only by developing a critical
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. John Stuart Mill believed that idealism
about the role of conscience 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.
Mill held that certain amount of conscience,
and of disinterested public spirit, may fairly
be calculated on in the citizens of any community
ripe for representative 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."Josiah Royce (1855–1916)
built on the transcendental 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 our conscience
also required loyalty to "a mysterious higher
or deeper self."
In the modern Christian tradition this approach
achieved expression with Dietrich Bonhoeffer
who stated during his imprisonment by the
Nazis in World War II that conscience 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." For Bonhoeffer a guilty
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. 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".
The man with a conscience, he believed, fights
a lonely battle against the "overwhelming
forces of inescapable situations" which demand
moral decisions despite the likelihood of
adverse consequences.Simon Soloveychik has
similarly claimed that the truth distributed
in the world, as the statement about human
dignity, as the affirmation of the line between
good and evil, lives in people as conscience.
As Hannah Arendt pointed out, however, (following
the utilitarian John 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 bad conscience and their need to regain
integrity and wholeness of the self. 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." 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. Arendt
also wrote eloquently on the problem of languages
distinguishing the word consciousness from
conscience. One reason, she held, was that
conscience, as we understand it in moral or
legal matters, is supposedly always present
within us, just like consciousness: "and this
conscience is also supposed to tell us what
to do and what to repent; before it became
the lumen naturale or Kant's practical reason,
it was the voice of God."
Albert Einstein, as a self-professed adherent
of humanism and rationalism, likewise viewed
an enlightened religious person as one whose
conscience 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."
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."Simone Weil who
fought for the French resistance (the Maquis)
argued in her final book The 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 the conscience of most citizens,
so that social obligations are viewed as fundamentally
having a transcendent origin and a beneficent
impact on human character when fulfilled.
Simone Weil also in that work provided a psychological
explanation for the mental peace associated
with a good 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."Alternatives to such
metaphysical and idealist opinions about conscience
arose from realist and materialist perspectives
such as those of Charles Darwin. Darwin suggested
that "any animal 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."
Émile Durkheim held that the soul and conscience
were particular forms of an impersonal principle
diffused in the relevant group and communicated
by totemic ceremonies. AJ Ayer was a more
recent realist who held that the existence
of conscience 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 existing social sciences. 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'
or conscience. 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.The French philosopher
Simone de Beauvoir in A Very Easy Death (Une
mort très douce, 1964) reflects within her
own conscience about her mother's attempts
to develop such a moral sympathy and understanding
of others.
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. 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. Ronald Dworkin maintains
that constitutional protection of freedom
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." 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."
The philosopher Peter 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.Moral
anti-realists debate whether the moral facts
necessary to activate conscience supervene
on natural facts with a posteriori necessity;
or arise a priori because moral facts have
a primary intension and naturally identical
worlds may be presumed morally identical.
It has also been argued that there is a measure
of moral luck in how circumstances create
the obstacles which conscience must overcome
to apply moral principles or human rights
and that with the benefit of enforceable property
rights and the rule of law, access to universal
health care plus the absence of high adult
and infant mortality from conditions such
as malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and famine,
people in relatively prosperous developed
countries have been spared pangs of conscience
associated with the physical necessity to
steal scraps of food, bribe tax inspectors
or police officers, and commit murder in guerrilla
wars against corrupt government forces or
rebel armies. Scrutton has claimed that true
understanding of conscience and its relationship
with morality 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.
Susan Sontag similarly argued that it was
a symptom of psychological immaturity not
to recognise that many morally immature people
willingly experience a form of delight, in
some an erotic breaking of taboo, when witnessing
violence, suffering and pain being inflicted
on others. Jonathan Glover wrote that most
of us "do not spend our lives on endless landscape
gardening of our self" and our conscience
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. Garrett
Hardin in a famous article called tragedy
of the commons argued 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 her conscience-
merely sets up a system which, by selectively
diverting societal power and physical resources
to those lacking in conscience, 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.
John Ralston Saul expressed the view in The
Unconscious Civilization that in contemporary
developed nations many people have acquiesced
in turning over their sense of right and wrong,
their critical 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.Some
argue on religious or philosophical grounds
that it is blameworthy to act against conscience,
even if the judgement of conscience 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). 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. Langston argues that philosophers
of virtue ethics have unnecessarily neglected
conscience 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.Emmanuel Levinas viewed conscience
as a revelatory encountering of resistance
to our selfish powers, developing morality
by calling into question our naive sense of
freedom of will to use such powers arbitrarily,
or with violence, this process being more
severe the more rigorously the goal of our
self was to obtain control.
In other words, the welcoming of the Other,
to Levinas, was the very essence of conscience
properly conceived; it encouraged our ego
to accept the fallibility of assuming things
about other people, that selfish freedom 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 [see a priori and a posteriori] framework-a
conceptless experience."
== 
Conscientious acts and the law ==
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 medieval Roman law-based
system with forms of action, written pleadings,
use of juries and patterns of litigation such
as Demurrer and Assumpsit that displayed an
increased concern for elements of right and
wrong on the actual facts. A conscience vote
in a parliament allows legislators to vote
without restrictions from any political party
to which they may belong. In his trial in
Jerusalem Nazi war criminal Adolf 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". The United Nations Universal Declaration
on Human Rights (UDHR) which is part of international
customary law specifically refers to conscience
in Articles 1 and 18. Likewise, the United
Nations International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR) mentions conscience
in Article 18.1.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 protecting
conscientious objectors from service in the
military.
John Rawls in his A Theory of Justice defines
a conscientious objector as an individual
prepared to undertake, in public (and often
despite widespread condemnation), an action
of civil 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. Rawls
considered civil disobedience should be viewed
as an appeal, warning or admonishment (showing
general respect and fidelity to the rule of
law by the non-violence and transparency of
methods adopted) that a law breaches a community's
fundamental virtue of justice. Objections
to Rawls' theory include first, its inability
to accommodate conscientious objections to
the society's basic appreciation of justice
or to emerging moral or ethical principles
(such as respect for the rights of the natural
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. 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. 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 requiring
conscription for military service, or legal
compulsion to fight for or financially support
the State in a particular war. A famous example
arose when Henry David Thoreau the author
of Walden 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 the state. A more recent case
concerned Kimberly Rivera, a private in the
US Army and mother of four children who, having
served 3 months in Iraq War decided the conflict
was immoral and sought refugee status in Canada
in 2012 (see List of Iraq War resisters),
but was deported and arrested in the US.
In the Second World War, Great Britain granted
conscientious-objection status not just to
complete pacifists, 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
of conscientious objectors that occurred during
the First World War.Amnesty International
organises campaigns to protect those arrested
and or incarcerated as a prisoner of conscience
because of their conscientious beliefs, particularly
concerning intellectual, political and artistic
freedom of expression and association. Aung
San Suu Kyi of Burma, was the winner of the
2009 Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience
Award. In legislation, a conscience clause
is a provision in a statute that excuses a
health professional from complying with the
law (for example legalising surgical or pharmaceutical
abortion) if it is incompatible with religious
or conscientious beliefs.
Expressed justifications for refusing to obey
laws because of conscience vary. Many conscientious
objectors are so for religious reasons—notably,
members of the historic 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 of conscription
that should be everywhere condemned before
the world can ever become safe for real democracy.
A conscientious objector, however, does not
have a primary aim of changing the law. 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".
The remedy was not to deplore the wickedness
of those who manipulate world power, but to
connect conscience with forces moving in another
direction- to build institutions and social
environments predicated on the rule of law,
for example, "then will conscience itself
have compulsive power instead of being forever
the martyred and the coerced." As an example,
Albert Einstein who had advocated conscientious
objection during the First World War and had
been a longterm supporter of War Resisters'
International reasoned that "radical pacifism"
could not be justified in the face of Nazi
rearmament and advocated a world federalist
organization with its own professional army.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. But before conscience
can conclusively determine what morally should
be done, he thought that the state of the
question should be thoroughly known. "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."
Civil disobedience as non-violent protest
or civil 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).
Civil disobedience, in a properly functioning
democracy, allows a minority who feel strongly
that a law infringes their sense of justice
(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. A notable example of civil
resistance or satyagraha ("satya" in sanskrit
means "truth and compassion", "agraha" means
"firmness of will") involved Mahatma Gandhi
making salt in India when that act was prohibited
by a British statute, in order to create moral
pressure for law reform. 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-old Claudette Colvin) leading to the
Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rachel Corrie was
a US citizen allegedly killed by a bulldozer
operated by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
while involved in direct action (based on
the non-violent principles of Martin Luther
King and Mahatma Gandhi) to prevent demolition
of the home of local Palestinian pharmacist
Samir Nasrallah. 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."
In 2011, NASA climate scientist James E. Hansen,
environmental leader Phil Radford and Professor
Bill McKibben were arrested for opposing a
tar sands oil pipeline and Canadian renewable
energy professor Mark Jaccard was arrested
for opposing mountain-top coal mining; in
his book Storms of my Grandchildren Hansen
calls for similar civil resistance on a global
scale to help replace the 'business-as-usual'
Kyoto Protocol cap and trade system, with
a progressive carbon tax at emission source
on the oil, gas and coal industries – revenue
being paid as dividends to low carbon footprint
families.Notable historical examples of conscientious
noncompliance in a different professional
context included the manipulation of the visa
process in 1939 by Japanese Consul-General
Chiune Sugihara in Kaunas (the temporary capital
of Lithuania between Germany and the Soviet
Union) and by Raoul Wallenberg in Hungary
in 1944 to allow Jews to escape almost certain
death. 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. John Rabe a German
member of the Nazi Party likewise saved thousands
of Chinese from massacre by the Japanese military
at Nanking. The White 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!" 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 the right to life, right to a fair trial
and freedom of opinion) in states where non-violent
protest or civil disobedience are met with
prolonged arbitrary detention, torture, forced
disappearance, murder or persecution.
The controversial Milgram experiment into
obedience by Stanley Milgram showed that many
people lack the psychological resources to
openly resist authority, even when they are
directed to act callously and inhumanely against
an innocent victim.
== World conscience ==
World conscience is the universalist idea
that with ready global communication, all
people on earth will no longer be morally
estranged from one another, whether it be
culturally, ethnically, or geographically;
instead they will conceive ethics from the
utopian point of view of the universe, eternity
or infinity, rather than have their duties
and obligations defined by forces arising
solely within the restrictive boundaries of
'blood and territory.'Often this derives from
a spiritual or natural law perspective, that
for world peace to be achieved, conscience,
properly understood, should be generally considered
as not necessarily linked (often destructively)
to fundamentalist religious ideologies, but
as an aspect of universal consciousness, access
to which is the common heritage of humanity.
Thinking predicated on the development of
world conscience is common to members of the
Global Ecovillage Network such as the Findhorn
Foundation, international conservation organisations
like Fauna and Flora International, as well
as performers of world music such as Alan
Stivell. Non-government organizations, particularly
through their work in agenda-setting, policy-making
and implementation of human rights-related
policy, have been referred to as the conscience
of the worldEdward O Wilson has developed
the idea of consilience to encourage coherence
of global moral and scientific knowledge supporting
the premise that "only unified learning, universally
shared, makes accurate foresight and wise
choice possible". Thus, world conscience is
a concept that overlaps with the Gaia hypothesis
in advocating a balance of moral, legal, scientific
and economic solutions to modern transnational
problems such as global poverty and climate
change, through strategies such as environmental
ethics, climate ethics, natural conservation,
ecology, cosmopolitanism, sustainability and
sustainable development, biosequestration
and legal protection of the biosphere and
biodiversity. The NGO 350.org, for example,
seeks to attract world conscience to the problems
associated with elevation in atmospheric greenhouse
gas concentrations.
The microcredit initiatives of Nobel Peace
Prize winner Muhammad Yunus have been described
as inspiring a "war on poverty that blends
social conscience and business savvy".The
Green party politician Bob Brown (who was
arrested by the Tasmanian state police for
a conscientious act of civil disobedience
during the Franklin Dam protest) expresses
world 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 (see Tobin
tax) to alleviate global poverty and protect
the biosphere, amounting to 1/10 of 1% placed
on the worldwide speculative currency market.
Such an approach sees world conscience best
expressing itself through political reforms
promoting democratically based globalisation
or planetary democracy (for example internet
voting for global governance organisations
(see world government) based on the model
of "one person, one vote, one value") which
gradually will replace contemporary market-based
globalisation.
The American cardiologist Bernard Lown and
the Russian cardiologist Yevgeniy Chazov were
motivated in conscience through studying the
catastrophic public health consequences of
nuclear war in establishing International
Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
(IPPNW) which was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1985 and continues to work to "heal
an ailing planet".Worldwide expressions of
conscience contributed to the decision of
the French government to halt atmospheric
nuclear tests at Mururoa in the Pacific in
1974 after 41 such explosions (although below-ground
nuclear tests continued there into the 1990s).A
challenge to world conscience was provided
by an influential 1968 article by Garrett
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 of conscience-led actions) ultimately
destroy a shared limited resource, even though
each acknowledges such an outcome is not in
anyone's long-term interest. 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 of conscience in achieving individual
decisions, policies and laws that facilitate
global justice and peace, as well as sustainability
and sustainable development of world commons
areas, for example including those officially
designated such under United Nations treaties
(see common heritage of humanity). Areas designated
common heritage of humanity under international
law include the Moon, Outer Space, deep sea
bed, Antarctica, the world cultural and natural
heritage (see World Heritage Convention) and
the human genome. It will be a significant
challenge for world conscience that as world
oil, coal, mineral, timber, agricultural and
water reserves are depleted, there will be
increasing pressure to commercially exploit
common heritage of mankind areas.
The philosopher Peter Singer has argued that
the United Nations Millennium Development
Goals represent the emergence of an ethics
based not on national boundaries but on the
idea of one world. 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.
Noam Chomsky has argued that forces opposing
the development of such a world conscience
include free market ideologies that valorise
corporate greed in nominal electoral democracies
where advertising, shopping malls and indebtedness,
shape citizens into apathetic consumers in
relation to information and access necessary
for democratic participation. 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 of
conscience 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. The Committee on Conscience
of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum has targeted
genocides such as those in Rwanda, Bosnia,
Darfur, the Congo and Chechnya as challenges
to the world's conscience. Oscar Arias Sanchez
has criticised global arms 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"
(see Campaign Against Arms Trade). US House
of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, after
meeting with the 14th Dalai Lama during the
2008 violent protests in Tibet and aftermath
said: "The situation in Tibet is a challenge
to the conscience of the world." Nelson Mandela,
through his example and words, has been described
as having shaped the conscience of the world.
The Right Livelihood Award is awarded yearly
in Sweden to those people, mostly strongly
motivated by conscience, who have made exemplary
practical contributions to resolving the great
challenges facing our planet and its people.
In 2009, for example, along with Catherine
Hamlin (obstetric fistula and see fistula
foundation)), David Suzuki (promoting awareness
of climate change) and Alyn Ware (nuclear
disarmament), René Ngongo shared the Right
Livelihood Award "for his courage in confronting
the forces that are destroying the Congo Basin's
rainforests and building political support
for their conservation and sustainable use".
Avaaz is one of the largest global on-line
organizations launched in January 2007 to
promote conscience-driven activism on issues
such as climate 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".
== Notable examples of modern acts based on
conscience ==
In a notable contemporary act of conscience,
Christian bushwalker Brenda Hean protested
against the flooding of Lake Pedder despite
threats and that ultimately lead to her death.
Another was the campaign by Ken Saro-Wiwa
against oil extraction by multinational corporations
in Nigeria that led to his execution. So too
was the act by the Tank Man, or the Unknown
Rebel photographed holding his shopping bag
in the path of tanks during the protests at
Beijing's Tiananmen Square on 5 June 1989.
The actions of United Nations Secretary General
Dag Hammarskjöld to try and achieve peace
in the Congo despite the (eventuating) threat
to his life, were strongly motivated by conscience
as is reflected in his diary, Vägmärken
(Markings). Another example involved the actions
of Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, Jr to try
and prevent the My Lai Massacre in the Vietnam
War. Evan Pederick voluntarily confessed and
was convicted of the Sydney 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." Vasili Arkhipov was a
Russian naval officer on out-of-radio-contact
Soviet submarine B-59 being depth-charged
by US warships during the Cuban 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. In 1963 Buddhist monk Thich Quang
Duc performed a famous act of self-immolation
to protest against alleged persecution of
his faith by the Vietnamese Ngo Dinh Diem
regime.
Conscience played a major role in the actions
by anaesthetist Stephen Bolsin to whistleblow
(see list of whistleblowers) on incompetent
paediatric cardiac surgeons at the Bristol
Royal Infirmary. Jeffrey Wigand was motivated
by conscience to expose the Big Tobacco scandal,
revealing that executives of the companies
knew that cigarettes were addictive and approved
the addition of carcinogenic ingredients to
the cigarettes. David Graham, a Food and Drug
Administration employee, was motivated by
conscience to whistleblow that the arthritis
pain-reliever Vioxx increased the risk of
cardiovascular deaths although the manufacturer
suppressed this information. Rick Piltz from
the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, blew
the whistle on a White House official who
ignored majority scientific opinion to edit
a climate change report ("Our Changing Planet")
to reflect the Bush administration's view
that the problem was unlikely to exist." Muntadhar
al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist, was imprisoned
and allegedly tortured for his act of conscience
in throwing his shoes at George W. Bush. Mordechai
Vanunu an Israeli former nuclear technician,
acted on conscience to reveal details of Israel's
nuclear weapons program to the British press
in 1986; was kidnapped by Israeli agents,
transported to Israel, convicted of treason
and spent 18 years in prison, including more
than 11 years in solitary confinement.
At the awards ceremony for the 200 metres
at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City
John Carlos, Tommie Smith and Peter Norman
ignored death threats and official warnings
to take part in an anti-racism protest that
destroyed their respective careers. W. Mark
Felt an agent of the United States Federal
Bureau of Investigation who retired in 1973
as the Bureau's Associate Director, acted
on conscience to provide reporters Bob Woodward
and Carl Bernstein with information that resulted
in the Watergate scandal. Conscience was a
major factor in US Public Health Service officer
Peter Buxtun revealing the Tuskegee syphilis
experiment to the public. The 2008 attack
by the Israeli military on civilian areas
of Palestinian Gaza was described as a "stain
on the world's conscience". Conscience was
a major factor in the refusal of Aung San
Suu Kyi to leave Burma despite house arrest
and persecution by the military dictatorship
in that country.Conscience was a factor in
Peter Galbraith's criticism of fraud in the
2009 Afghanistan election despite it costing
him his United Nations job. Conscience motivated
Bunnatine Greenhouse to expose irregularities
in the contracting of the Halliburton company
for work in Iraq. 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 the Israeli
military and Yasser Arafat's PLO, was murdered
for refusing to compromise with his conscience.
The journalist Anna Politkovskaya provided
(prior to her murder) an example of conscience
in her opposition to the Second Chechen War
and then-Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Conscience motivated the Russian human-rights
activist Natalia Estemirova, who was abducted
and murdered in Grozny, Chechnya in 2009.
The Death of Neda Agha-Soltan arose from conscience-driven
protests against the 2009 Iranian presidential
election. Female Muslim lawyer Shirin Ebadi
(winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize) has
been described as the 'conscience of the Islamic
Republic' for her work in protecting the human
rights of women and children in Iran. The
human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, often referred
to as the 'conscience of China' and who had
previously been arrested and allegedly tortured
by the Chinese regime for defending members
of the Falun Gong, was abducted by Chinese
security agents on 4 February 2009 and has
not been seen since. 2010 Nobel Peace Prize
winner Liu Xiaobo in his final statement before
being sentenced by a closed Chinese court
to over a decade in jail as a political prisoner
of conscience stated: "For hatred is corrosive
of a person’s wisdom and conscience; the
mentality of enmity can poison a nation’s
spirit." 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. On 6 October 2001 Laura
Whittle was a naval gunner on HMAS 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 (see Children 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." In February
2012 journalist Marie Colvin was deliberately
targeted and killed by the Syrian Army in
Homs during the 2011–2012 Syrian uprising
and Siege of Homs, after she decided to stay
at the "epicentre of the storm" in order to
"expose what is happening." In October 2012
the Taliban organised the attempted murder
of Malala Yousafzai a teenage girl who had
been campaigning, despite their threats, for
female education in Pakistan. In December
2012 the 2012 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 (see Rape in India)
In June 2013 Edward Snowden revealed details
of a US National Security Agency internet
and electronic communication PRISM (surveillance
program) because of a conscience-felt obligation
to the freedom of humanity greater than obedience
to the laws that bound his employment.
== In literature, art, film, and music ==
The ancient epic of the Indian subcontinent,
the Mahabharata of Vyasa, contains two pivotal
moments of conscience. The first occurs when
the warrior Arjuna being overcome with compassion
against killing his opposing relatives in
war, receives counsel (see Bhagavad-Gita)
from Krishna about his spiritual duty ("work
as though you are performing a sacrifice for
the general good"). The second, at the end
of the saga, is when king Yudhishthira 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. The
French author Montaigne (1533–1592) in one
of the most celebrated of his 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". In his famous Japanese
travel journal Oku no Hosomichi (Narrow Road
to the Deep North) composed of mixed haiku
poetry and prose, Matsuo Bashō (1644–94)
in attempting to describe the eternal in this
perishable world is often moved in conscience;
for example by a thicket of summer grass being
all that remains of the dreams and ambitions
of ancient warriors. Chaucer's "Franklin's
Tale" in The Canterbury Tales recounts how
a young suitor releases a wife from a rash
promise because of the respect in his conscience
for the freedom to be truthful, gentle and
generous.
The critic A. C. Bradley discusses the central
problem of Shakespeare's tragic character
Hamlet 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)).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 by
cowardice or sloth or passion 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". The opening words of Shakespeare's
Sonnet 94 ("They that have pow'r to hurt,
and will do none") have been admired as a
description of conscience. So has John Donne's
commencement of his poem s:Goodfriday, 1613.
Riding Westward: "Let man's soul be a sphere,
and then, in this, Th' intelligence that moves,
devotion is;"Anton Chekhov in his plays The
Seagull, Uncle Vanya and Three Sisters describes
the tortured emotional states of doctors who
at some point in their careers have turned
their back on conscience. In his short stories,
Chekhov also explored how people misunderstood
the voice of a tortured conscience. A promiscuous
student, for example, in The 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 in From a Case Book calls
it an "unknown, mysterious power ... in fact
close at hand and watching him." Characteristically,
Chekhov's own conscience drove him on the
long journey to Sakhalin 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
of Sakhalin, 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
of conscience and was, therefore, a powerful
force in the moulding of public opinion."
E. H. Carr writes of Dostoevsky's character
the young student Raskolnikov in the novel
Crime 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 stricken conscience (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." Hermann Hesse wrote his Siddhartha to
describe how a young man in the time of the
Buddha follows his conscience 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. J.
R. R. Tolkien in his epic The Lord of the
Rings describes how only the hobbit Frodo
is pure enough in conscience to carry the
ring of power through war-torn Middle-earth
to destruction in the Cracks 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
creature Gollum. Conor Cruise O'Brien wrote
that Albert Camus was the writer most representative
of the Western consciousness and conscience
in its relation to the non-Western world.
Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird portrays
Atticus Finch (played by Gregory Peck in the
classic film from the book (see To Kill a
Mockingbird (film))) as a lawyer true to his
conscience who sets an example to his children
and community.The Robert Bolt play A Man For
All Seasons focuses on the conscience of Catholic
lawyer Thomas More in his struggle with King
Henry VIII ("the loyal subject is more bounden
to be loyal to his conscience than to any
other thing"). George Orwell wrote his novel
Nineteen Eighty-Four on the isolated island
of Jura, Scotland to describe how a man (Winston
Smith) attempts to develop critical conscience
in a totalitarian state which watches every
action of the people and manipulates their
thinking with a mixture of propaganda, endless
war and thought control through language control
(double think and newspeak) to the point where
prisoners look up to and even love their torturers.
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".A tapestry copy
of Picasso's Guernica depicting a massacre
of innocent women and children during the
Spanish civil war is displayed on the wall
of the United Nations building in New York
City, at the entrance to the Security Council
room, demonstrably as a spur to the conscience
of representatives from the nation states.
Albert Tucker painted Man's Head to capture
the moral disintegration, and lack of conscience,
of a man convicted of kicking a dog to death.
The impressionist painter Vincent 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
his conscience 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."The 1957 Ingmar Bergman film Seventh
Seal portrays the journey of a medieval knight
(Max von Sydow) returning disillusioned from
the crusades ("what is going to happen to
those of us who want to believe, but aren't
able to?") across a plague-ridden landscape,
undertaking a game of chess with the personification
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). The 1942 Casablanca centers on the
development of conscience in the cynical American
Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) in the face
of oppression by the Nazis and the example
of the resistance leader Victor Laszlo.The
David Lean and Robert Bolt screenplay for
Doctor Zhivago (an adaptation of Boris Pasternak's
novel) focuses strongly on the conscience
of a doctor-poet in the midst of the Russian
Revolution (in the end "the walls of his heart
were like paper").The 1982 Ridley Scott film
Blade Runner focuses on the struggles of conscience
between and within a bounty hunter (Rick Deckard
(Harrison Ford)) and a renegade replicant
android (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.
Johann Sebastian Bach wrote his last great
choral composition the Mass in B minor (BWV
232) to express the alternating emotions of
loneliness, despair, joy and rapture that
arise as conscience reflects on a departed
human life. Here JS Bach's use of counterpoint
and contrapuntal 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".Ludwig van
Beethoven's meditations on illness, conscience
and mortality in the Late String Quartets
led to his dedicating the third movement of
String Quartet in A Minor (1825) Op. 132 (see
String Quartet No. 15) as a "Hymn of Thanksgiving
to God of a convalescent". John Lennon's work
"Imagine" owes much of its popular appeal
to its evocation of conscience against the
atrocities created by war, religious fundamentalism
and politics. The Beatles George Harrison-written
track "The Inner Light" sets to Indian raga
music a verse from the Tao Te Ching that "without
going out of your door you can know the ways
of heaven'. In the 1986 movie The Mission
the guilty conscience and penance of the slave
trader Mendoza is made more poignant by the
haunting oboe music of Ennio Morricone ("On
Earth as it is in Heaven") The song Sweet
Lullaby by Deep Forest is based on a traditional
Baegu lullaby from the Solomon Islands called
"Rorogwela" in which a young orphan is comforted
as an act of conscience by his older brother.
The Dream 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."The American Society of
Journalists and Authors (ASJA) presents the
Conscience-in-Media Award to journalists whom
the society deems worthy of recognition for
demonstrating "singular commitment to the
highest principles of journalism at notable
personal cost or sacrifice".The Ambassador
of Conscience Award, Amnesty International's
most prestigious human rights award, takes
its inspiration from a poem written by Irish
Nobel prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney called
"The Republic of Conscience."
Winners of the award have included: Malala
Yousafzai, singer and social justice activist
Harry Belafonte, musician Peter Gabriel (2008),
Nelson Mandela (2006), the Irish rock band
U2 (2005), Mary Robinson and Hilda Morales
Trujillo (a Guatemalan women's rights activist)
(2004) and the author and public intellectual
Václav Havel (2003).
== See also ==
== References ==
== 
External links ==
