Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics · John Dewey
LVIII.
Analysis of Conscience. The practical consciousness, or the recognition of ends and relations of action, is what is usually termed _conscience_. The analysis of conscience shows that it involves three elements, which may be distinguished in theory, although they have no separate existence in the actual fact of conscience itself. These three elements are (1) the knowledge of certain specific forms of conduct, (2) the recognition of the authority or obligatoriness of the forms, and (3) the emotional factors which cluster about this recognition. That is to say, we often speak (1) of conscience telling or informing us of duties; we speak of an enlightened or unenlightened conscience; of savage, or mediæval, or modern conscience. Here we are evidently thinking of the kind and range of particular acts considered right or wrong. But we also speak (2) of the authority and majesty of conscience; of the commands of conscience, etc. Here we are thinking of the consciousness of _obligation in general_. The savage and the civilized man may vary greatly in their estimate of what particular acts are right or wrong, and yet agree in the recognition that such acts as are right are absolutely obligatory. Finally we speak of an approving or disapproving, or remorseful conscience, of a tender or a hardened conscience, of the pangs, the pricks of conscience, etc. Here (3) we are evidently dealing with the responsiveness of the disposition to moral distinctions, either in particular acts, or in the recognition of moral law in general.
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