Concept
Conscience
Overview
judgment that assists in distinguishing right from wrong
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Conscience is discussed.
The consciousness of an internal tribunal in man (before which "his thoughts accuse or excuse one another") is CONSCIENCE. Every man has a conscience, and finds himself observed by an inward judge which threatens and keeps him in awe (reverence combined with fear); and this power which watches over the laws within him is not something…
Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics
a chapter is titled for it; names the idea; author linked in the graph; opens on it
His conclusion is that, if we would avoid falling into a contradiction, we must think of the judge (in the judicial conscience-drama that is enacted in our breasts) as different from us, in fact, as another person; nay more, as one that is an omniscient knower of hearts, whose hests are obligatory on all, and who is almighty for every purpose of executive authority.[6] He thus passes by a perfectly smooth path from…
Arthur Schopenhauer, The Basis of Morality
a chapter is titled for it; names the idea
Conscience as the Recognition of Special Acts as Right or Wrong. Conscience in this sense is no peculiar, separate faculty of mind. It is simply intelligence dealing with a certain subject-matter.
John Dewey, Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics
names the idea; states what it is; author linked in the graph; opens on it
In this aspect conscience is a _résumé_ of the _generic_ values realized under the system of custom and authority, but to the present continued attainment of which the _particular prescriptions_ of custom and authority are no longer adequate guides. Conscience is thus at once an inward prompting to the application of logical method to the case in hand and a body of general or specific rules under some one of which…
John Dewey, Studies in Logical Theory
names the idea; states what it is; author linked in the graph; opens on it
Now, it is clear that all these things follow the actual application of knowledge to what we do. Wherefore, properly speaking, conscience denominates an act. But since habit is a principle of act, sometimes the name conscience is given to the first natural habit--namely, "synderesis": thus Jerome calls "synderesis" conscience (Gloss. Ezech. 1:6); Basil [*Hom. in princ.
Aquinas Thomas, Summa Theologica, Part I
names the idea; states what it is; author linked in the graph; opens on it
Philosophers who discussed Conscience
Related ideas
- Arjuna
- Roger Scruton
- Emotion
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Fear
- Washington, D.C.
- Jesus
- Brahma Sutras
- Animal
- Five Pillars of Islam
- Freemasonry
- Avicenna
- Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Artificial intelligence
- Free market
- George Orwell
- G. E. Moore
- Guilt (emotion)
- Genetics
- John Rawls
- Gospel of Luke
- Gospel of John
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
- Philosophical realism
Place in the tradition
Part of Evolutionary ethics.