MORAL CONSCIENCE: CHARACTERISTICS, WHAT IT IS FOR AND EXAMPLES - PHILOSOPHY - 2024

The moral conscience is the faculty that the human being has to make judgments of ethical value about the right and wrong of the acts, thus guiding himself to do or not to do them. This awareness involves not only evaluating what is morally right and wrong in actions, but also about intentions.

Through those moral parameters that the individual conscience has, others are also judged. Within the notion of moral conscience certain elements are included that are considered to be totally united; the first is the conscience referred to the values ​​and moral principles that an individual sustains.

The second refers to the conscience as a faculty by which man can know the fundamental moral truths. This faculty is called in various ways, such as voice of reason, moral sense and voice of God, among others.

The third element is related to the capacity for self-evaluation. It means that consciousness manifests every individual's evaluation of his own actions and desires. This connects you with feelings like guilt, shame, regret, or regret, if something has been done wrong.

characteristics

To know the characteristics of moral conscience, it is necessary to place them within each philosophical thought that has dealt with it since, according to the point of view from which the analysis is carried out, there are certain particularities.

Moral conscience as a car

Self-knowledge can be seen as God - as is the case with Christians - or simply a postulate, as Kant does, specifying the idea of ​​a higher authority that is responsible for sanctioning individuals for their actions.

He can also be a respected philosopher, as Epicurus argues, or he can be an impartial spectator, as specified by Adam Smith.

What characterizes this type of thinking is that self-knowledge is closely related to the role of judging, since the conscience acts more as a judge than as a disinterested observer.

That is why feelings appear that in many cases are described as negative, such as guilt, contrition and remorse, as occurs with the Catholic tradition.

However, there is a conception of conscience that prides itself on its moral merit. This can be seen in Latin Stoics like Seneca and in the Protestant tradition of Luther. In this there is a joy that is born from the awareness of the remission that God can make of sins in the future.

Moral conscience as indirect knowledge of morals

Beginning with Paul, in the Christian tradition the inner conscience is given primacy. Consciousness does not admit the acquisition of direct knowledge from the external source, as is the case with God, but it is through consciousness that the divine laws within us are discovered.

Because consciousness does not have direct access to God, it is erroneous and fallible. This is what Thomas Aquinas maintains, who postulates the syndéresis rule.

This rule, which can be stated as doing good and avoiding evil, is infallible; however, there are errors in consciousness. These happen because mistakes can be made when deriving rules of conduct, as well as when applying those rules to a certain situation.

Outside of religion, the moral source that infuses moral principles is not God, but education or one's own culture.

Moral conscience as direct knowledge of morals

It is Jean-Jacques Rousseau who maintains that good education is what makes possible the liberation of the conscience from the corrupt influence of society. Likewise, it ensures that it is education that provides the elements to critically examine, and thus be able to replace the norms received.

Thus, the innate sense of morality appears in the conscience when it is freed from educational prejudices and errors. So for Rousseau consciousness naturally tends to perceive and continue the correct order of nature; that is why he affirms that reason can deceive us, but conscience cannot.

Taking consciousness as that which allows man to access direct moral principles, it is seen as intuitive and affected by emotions. In this sense, David Hume identified consciousness as active with a moral sense.

Moral conscience as duty

According to this position, conscience motivates man to act taking into account his beliefs or moral principles, so that conscience generates a moral obligation in the conscience of the person.

Understood in this way, conscience has a subjective character whereby the motivational force comes from the person and not from the penalty of an external authority.

A representative of this point of view is Immanuel Kant, since he conceives of conscience not only internally, but as a source of the sense of duty. This is because you take internal judgments to motivate yourself to act morally.

For this philosopher, conscience is one of the natural dispositions that the mind has so that the person is affected by concepts of duty.

What is it for?

Moral conscience is a fundamental part of a person's life, since it allows us to understand what kind of person one is. So, the moral conscience has an internal point of view and an external one that depends on it.

In the interior sense, it is the possibility of choosing the path or action to follow based on an ethical code. This choice is also based on knowing that each action has its consequence and that, as such, the human being is responsible.

This interiority also allows us to evaluate our thoughts, actions, habits and way of life; of course value judgments appear in this evaluation.

In addition, said interiority has a direct relationship with the exterior, since based on those moral values, man is going to act, and not only that, but he is also going to judge the actions of others.

So that moral conscience is what allows the human being to realize what is worth, what is valuable in life, what is good, or at least he realizes what is not worth or is there. to evade.

Examples

As for exemplifying moral conscience, it should be remembered that this has to do with the moral values ​​of each individual; this implies that in some cases these can also be accepted by the whole society. In contrast, in other cases they only represent individual moral value or choice.

-Judging as brave a person who jumped into the stormy sea to save another person who is drowning.

-Feeling sorry for a word or action performed.

-Do not yell at someone who offends or attacks, considering that he deserves respect even if he does not apply it.

-Tell the truth, even if this implies that other people do not take it well.

-To apologize to a person after having offended them, for having realized that something wrong has been done or said.

-Respect the property and assets of others.

-Do not be unfaithful, if that brings a feeling of guilt or remorse; or simply be faithful because, in addition to being a demonstration of love towards someone, it prevents those who are faithful from feeling guilty.

-Do not make fun of or take advantage of people with physical, mental or emotional disabilities.

References

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4. Leiter, Brian (2015). Nietzsche on Morality. Routledge. London.
5. Messner, Johannes (1969). General and applied ethics: An Ethics for today's man. Baliñas, Carlos (trad). Manual Collection of the Current Thought Library ”. Vol. 19. Rialp. Madrid.
6. New World Encyclopedia (2017). Conscience. Newworldencyclopedia.org.
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8. Sorabji, Richard (2012). Gandhi and the Stoics: Modern Experiments on Ancient Values. University Press Scholarship Online. Recovered from oxfordscholarship.com.
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