MORAL CONSCIENCE

As Christians we recognize the importance of the the maxim: “Let conscience be your guide”. But what
does this really mean for us? What is the demand of conscience?

Conscience is a very difficult notion to understand and even more difficult to explain how it works. We
do not deny that we have a conscience even though we could hardly explain how we got it and how it
actually works in us. There are two senses by which we grapple with our conscience, one antecedent
and the other consequent. In the first instance, by virtue of antecedent conscience we know that
relative to certain things we have a clear stance and we know how to struggle for it. As regards
consequent conscience, we also experience the pangs of conscience when we do something wrong,
especially as we reflect on our decision.

We are confronted by questions of conscience not only in big issues like having to decide on the death
or life of a relative in a comatose state but also in simple matters like whether or not to take a pencil left
on the table by someone we do not know. Conscience matters a lot too in very personal concerns like
the dilemma of remaining silent or talking to authorities about a companion in the office who does tricks
to escape the supervisor’s watchful eyes while at work. Indeed, one finds it difficult whether to tell the
parents or not that one’s brother is a drug addict or alcoholic. Yet, in all these we all know that if we
want to grow in our loving relationship with God and people around us, we have to learn to discern
what is truly loving. Here in this discernment we can situate the proper role of conscience.

This chapter aims at clarifying the meaning of conscience. To achieve our goal, I have divided this
chapter into three sections. The first part deals with the distinction between superego and conscience.
This section aims at sorting out the confusion between theologians and psychologists who refer to
different realities using the same term. In the second section we shall deal with the meaning of
conscience in the moral tradition. Here we shall look at the biblical and theological root of the notion of
conscience. Having done this, the third section shall attempt to clarify the concept of conscience
formation, the relations of conscience to character and choice to the goal of a mature conscience and to
the requirements for acting in conscience.

I. Personal Conscience: Its Dignity and Inviolability

1. Superego and Conscience: A Mix up

We have learned in our introduction to the course the need for moral theology to dialogue with other
disciplines so that it becomes relevant to lives of people. Inter-disciplinary dialogue is one of the
characteristic marks of a person-oriented moral theology.

Psychology is one of the disciplines which has contributed so much to the understanding of the moral
agent. In the area of conscience its contributions is most obvious. The insights of Sigmund Freud and
the reflections of the psychoanalytic school which he inspired underscore the important role of affective
elements rooted in the psychic structure of the human person which plays a significant role in the
maturing of the moral conscience.
The normal pattern of growth of the human person is from a conscience subject to external control to a
more internal, self-directing conscience. In the first form of conscience the moral backbone is external
and we do what we are told to do by someone in authority or we follow the actions of others. On the
other hand, in the self directing conscience the moral backbone is interior and we do what we ourselves
perceive to be right and we want to do.

Theologians and psychologists often use the term conscience to refer to different realities. The former
in general uses conscience to refer to the free function of the person involved in the evaluation of moral
good and evil; the latter uses conscience to referring to an element in our personality called the
superego.

Freud sees the formation of moral conscience in terms of its connection with the formation of the
superego. In other words, for Freud conscience is nothing else but the superego. Freud, therefore,
pursues the first form of moral conscience wherein the moral backbone is coming from without,
outside, that is, by someone in authority.

In the Freudian school of psychology the psychic life of the human person is divided into three
segments: the id, the ego, and the superego. According to Freud most of the original inclinations of the
human person are located in the unconscious which contains the energetic stock of instinctual drives,
chiefly sex and aggression. These basic energies operate through the id which is the original system of
human personality. The id is self-seeking and it operates wholly on the pleasure principle for the
gratification of the instincts. The id cannot do anything to bring this pleasure about. Therefore the ego
comes into existence early in life for the purpose of serving the id.

Unlike the id which operates on the pleasure principle, the ego operates on the reality principle. The
ego consists of the conscious in the psychic structure which operates on the reality principle to mediate
the forces of the id, the demands of society, and the reality of the physical world. The task of the ego is
to think, plan, protect itself and the id.

Superego is the ego of another superimposed on our own to serve as an internal censor to regulate our
conduct by using guilt as its powerful weapon. It refers to a set of demands and habits learned from
parents and from society which requires an individual to live and act according to prescribed rules and
standards. It represents all the norms and social values learned during infancy within the family. The
demands of the superego are the continuation and substitution of the parental demands which are
normally rigid and non-amorous in character. The voice of the superego often enters in conflict with the
desire of personal search, a search which we pursue as individuals. The parental application is
substituted by the superego which is vigilant, directive and threatening to the ego exactly like the
parents of the child in early life.

Vincent Genovesi clarifies further the meaning of superego:

In other words, in our years we are easily and simply molded according to the norms and values of those
who have authority over us; we react initially to the influence of our parents and later to various
teachers, and civil and religious leaders. This external influence, which is seen in our uncritical
acceptance of other people’s values, is mediated through the agency of the superego. Again and again,
the superego tells us we are good when we do what we are told to do, and it tells us we are bad and
makes us feel guilty when we do not do what the authority over us tells us to.
The function of the ego is to satisfy the id as much as possible and at the same time to account for the
resistance of the outer world and the demands of the superego. However, the task gets more and more
difficult as socialization continues since the demands of the superego increase. What results from this is
the occurrence of more and more repression of desires. Repression is not a neutral process. It often
causes serious psychological damage. To avoid this dysfunction, Freud demands that the oppression of
the superego be reduced so that the scope of the ego can be expanded in fulfilling the drives of the id.

Although the commands of the superego are not necessarily completely wrong, the fully mature
man/woman must make him/herself free from its apron strings. The mature ego is only determined by
the claims of the id and by the needs of sensible co-existence with the outside world.

The reduction of the moral conscience into the superego leads to the impoverishment of morality since
morality is simply dictated by obedience to authority or a determined social group.

Conscience understood in this sense is essentially related to feelings of moral approval and disapproval.
In other words, as John W. Glaser observes, in superego its commands and prohibitions do not arise
from any kind of perception of the intrinsic goodness or objectionableness of the action contemplated
but rather either on the desire to be approved or love or on fear of loss of love and approval. In this
sense conscience is the result of a process of psychological conditioning. The spontaneous reactions,
impulses, and feelings associated with conscience understood in this sense may be either realistic and
healthy or illusory and pathological. Conscience in the Freudian sense is shaped largely by non-rational
factors, and it is frequently bound to condemn what is not wrong or to approve what is not right.
Psychological conscience, therefore, cannot of itself provide a person with moral guidance and there can
be no obligation to follow conscience understood in this sense.

On the other hand, superego is not all negative; it has a positive and meaningful function in our
personalities. In children, the superego serves as early but necessary stage on the way to a true moral
conscience. In adults, the superego becomes an internalized moral legacy coming from our unconscious
past. Superego functions positively when integrated into a mature conscience by sparing us the hassle
to decide every now and then on matter already legitimately determined by custom or convention. We
must remember that the difference between the working of superego in a child and in an adult is one of
degree and not of kind. The superego and moral conscience cannot be considered as pure alternatives.
Both are experienced as a mixture in our efforts at deciding what to do. Thus for us to say that we are
acting in conscience, there must be a greater influence of the internalized values that we own over the
superego and the pull of social pressure to conform.

We must remember that the motivating force of the true moral conscience arises from a person’s desire
to respond to God’s call to be loving. In other words, the conscience impels and inspires the person to
extroverted action of loving others. This is indeed in contrast to the dynamism of the superego since it
springs from the compulsion to experience oneself as lovable, that is, the person is motivated by his/her
introverted concern to be accepted and loved.

In this light, the basis of mature moral conscience is the ability to make up one’s mind for oneself about
what ought to be done. The mature conscience is formed and exercised in community in dialogue with
other sources of moral wisdom. The person must spend his/her entire life making moral decisions which
are truly his/her own and not what he/she is told to do by someone in authority. Likewise, he/she does
not adhere to the dictates of his/her group because such a group tells him/her to do things in a way they
perceive they should be done. In short, it is not enough to follow simply what we are told to do. The
morally mature person must be able to perceive, choose, and identify the self in what he/she does. We
must give our lives meaning by our free commitment, that is, we must perceive every choice as an
option between an authentic and inauthentic person.

This insight on moral conscience can only come about when the work of the superego, similar to the
primitive precursor of true conscience is taken over gradually by the individual’s ego or self. In this
regard, what eventually happens is that the person’s life is directed not so much by external authority
but rather by one’s own perception of facts and values. These facts and values serve as the bases for
decisions made under name of true moral conscience. Therefore, we become mature people acting in a
responsible manner when our moral life is no longer shaped so much by the conventionalities of society
or by the external influences of others who simply tell us what to do, instead our decisions are more
internalized and self-directed. This means that for us to be directed by a true moral conscience means
to give honest expression to our desire to live in such a manner that we think our life really embodies
the kind of love that Christ reveals to us to imitate.

2. The Moral Conscience

Conscience is often seen as that small voice that makes one feel smaller still. There are two senses we
can use conscience: anterior conscience and subsequent conscience. Anterior conscience refers to
search and deliberation leading to a moral decision while subsequent conscience reflects back on
decisions a person has made. In the latter case, we oftentimes hear people saying: “My conscience is
bothering me.” For our purpose in discussing moral conscience we shall deal more with antecedent
conscience.

Before proceeding with the discussion of conscience, let us eliminate some common misunderstandings
of conscience. We already showed the difference between superego and conscience in the early
discussion. We try to show other misunderstandings.

Conscience is not a separate faculty of the mind. It is a human process of assessment and judgment and
not the authoritative voice of God. Vatican II in Gaudium et Spes 16 notes correctly that “conscience is
people’s most secret core, and their sanctuary. There they are alone with God whose voice echoes in
the depths.” We must note here that it is not God’s voice the one constituting our conscience, but
rather God’s voice could add significance to our deepest reflections. God’s voice never bypasses our
deepest reflections as if he was dictating on us.

Another misunderstanding regarding conscience is to consider conscience as a mere social

reconstruction. The Greek mythology character Antigone can explain this understanding of conscience.
Her conscience is portrayed as one having a higher claim that exposes the pretensions of tyranny and
oppressive social conventions. Moreover, conscience does not endeavor to be the place where
sovereign individuals stands over against the inevitable tyranny of the group. The very origin of the
word conscience negates this understanding. Conscience comes from the two words, con and scientia.
These literally mean knowing with. What is being affirmed in the etymology of conscience is the fact
that it is a moral knowledge that is both self-reflexive and socially connected. In other words,
conscience makes me accountable to my deepest self, to human communities and ultimately God. It is
through the conscience of the person that the larger purposes and standards in life that are beyond
the self exert their moral application. Why? It is because loyalty to those purposes and standards
inevitably relates the person to others in a common cause and mutual accountability. Since these
communal claims can be deceptive, it becomes inevitable that they be measured against the truth that
is known in the heart and before God.

Earlier we said that conscience is not a distinct faculty. We said this because conscience integrates a
whole range of mental operations. It integrates reason, emotion, and will in self-committed decisions
about right and wrong, good and evil. Conscience starts with initial sensitivity to moral salience or
significance and moves to conscious empathy. Pondering on its options, conscience cross checks critical
thought, empirical possibilities, affective attractiveness, imaginatively grasped analogies, intuitive
insight, and social corroboration. Reason teaches emotion and the latter instructs reason; intuition is
measured against remembered experience; imagination projects possible scenarios that are evaluated
by affective resonance and critical reflection. All of these operations lead to the act of making a moral
judgment with as much freedom and commitment as we can muster. No amount of elaborate cross-
checking can manufacture self-commitment.

Conscience produces more than individual decisions. It enters into the self-constitution of the person as
time passes. Moral choices shape the character of the one who makes them insofar as they integrate
personal character or retard moral development. We become what we do.

We can acknowledge and affirm the dignity of human persons better by encouraging and facilitating its
growth in responsibility. Vatican II in its document Declaration on Christian Education (Gravissimum
Educationis) stress this point clearly when it urges that children and young people be helped to acquire
maturity in responsibility.

Therefore children and young people must be helped, with the aid of the latest advances in psychology
and the arts and science of teaching, to develop harmoniously their physical, moral and intellectual
endowments so that they may gradually acquire a mature sense of responsibility in striving endlessly to
form their own lives properly and in pursuing true freedom as they surmount the vicissitudes of life with
courage and constancy. Let them be given also, as they advance in years, a positive and prudent sexual
education. Moreover they should be so trained to take their part in social life that properly instructed in
the necessary and opportune skills they can become actively involved in various community
organizations, open to discourse with others and willing to do their best to promote the common good.
This sacred synod likewise declares that children and young people have a right to be motivated to
appraise moral values with a right conscience, to embrace them with a personal adherence, together
with a deeper knowledge and love of God. Consequently it earnestly entreats all those who hold a
position of public authority or who are in charge of education to see to it that youth is never deprived of
this sacred right (GE, 1).

In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which
holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience
when necessary speaks to his heart: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God; to
obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged. Conscience is the most secret core
and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths. In a wonderful
manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of God and neighbor.

“On his part, man perceives and acknowledges the imperatives of the divine law through the mediation
of conscience. In all his activity a man is bound to follow his conscience in order that he may come to
God, the end and purpose of life. It follows that he is not to be forced to act in manner contrary to his
conscience. Nor, on the other hand, is he to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience,
especially in matters religious (DH, 3).”

The efforts of the Church in emphasizing the importance of conscience is not a new matter in its life.
Already during the Middle Ages, St. Thomas Aquinas described conscience as the practical judgment or
dictate of reason, by which we judge what here and now is to be done as being good, or to be avoided
as evil. St. Thomas saw that an individual conscience must be taken seriously. He affirmed: “Anyone
upon whom the ecclesiastical authority, in ignorance of the true facts, imposes a demand that offends
against his clear conscience, should perish in excommunication rather than violate his conscience (IV
Sent., dist. 38, art. 4). Here it is clearly indicated the very dignity and inviolability of one’s conscience.
St. Thomas saw that as a practical judgment of reason which must be faithfully followed, conscience
plays a crucial role in the life of a person. This lead us to conclude, therefore, that if our conscience is to
be our ultimate personal guide, and we are to bet our lives into it, then it is but necessary that we make
our conscience truly reliable. In other words, it becomes imperative that we strive to discover what true
conscience is and to avoid being misled by fraud or phony conscience.

3. Conscience and Its Levels of Meaning

Before we develop the positive understanding of conscience, let us make some remarks on the place of
feelings in our lives. We must emphasize the importance of not equating feelings with the promptings
of moral conscience. To say, for example, that “I feel guilty,” does not automatically mean that “my
conscience is bothering me” or “I have a guilty conscience.” Sometimes we experience guilt or we feel
guilty but in fact we have done nothing which requires or demands repentance. There are also times
our actions are morally reprehensible and yet we feel no guilt at all. In this case, one may even say “I
feel good about what I did; I have a clear conscience.” These statements may even allude to the
presence of moral virtue in our lives but they may also reflect that we have no conscience at all, or our
conscience is undeveloped or is lazy or deceived.

What we want to say here is that the origin of our feelings is often clouded in mystery. To a great extent
our feelings stand apart from human freedom and human rationality. Precisely because that feelings
stand separate from freedom and rationality that we consider them as morally neutral and therefore
feeling guilty or not feeling guilty is not a reliable measurement in measuring the morality of our action
or decision. Utmost what we can say is this: when feelings coincide with the actual moral facts of the
case that is purely an accident. It is just as likely that they will not. The truth of the matter is that
feeling good or feeling guilty often has much more to do with external proddings of the superego than
with the internal promptings of a true conscience.
Having defined the role of feelings in our moral life, we can therefore say that the experience of guilt is
often an appropriate response to the situation we find ourselves. In this sense our experience can be
positive or conducive to growth. However, we must take note that whether our experience will be
positive or not will depend whether our guilt is authentic or it is a neurotic guilt. We can know whether
our guilt is real or neurotic by determining the outcome of our experience. Neurotic guilt is largely
disproportionate to our perceive wrongdoing; we make more of our transgressions than it deserves.
Oftentimes, neurotic guilt leads to a sense of despair or desperation. This means that we often become
so pre-occupied with our evil-doing that we isolate ourselves in a vicious circle of self-accusation and
self-condemnation. If left unchecked, neurotic guilt leads to self-hatred. Pushed to the extreme,
neurotic guilt deceives us into accepting a view of ourselves as simply unacceptable to God.

In contrast to neurotic guilt is the authentic guilt. The latter is proportionate response to the any real
evil we have done. Though we accept our responsibility for the evil-doing, we express sorrow for our
failings and we ask forgiveness. Far from lingering into self-recrimination or blame, we go beyond
ourselves by humility to go through the process of conversion or repentance, seeking reconciliation with
those whom we have offended, with God who deserves better, with the neighbour who needs more,
from us.

There are two opposite directions the experiences of neurotic and authentic guilt pull us. 1) Neurotic
guilt pulls us towards self-contemplation. There we do not like what we see, we despair in knowing that
we are loved by God or we love ourselves. Authentic guilt, on the other hand, pulls us in the direction of
action, the challenge to growth. With authentic guilt, we stand reminded of who we are and how we
are to live. 2) Neurotic guilt is not in touch with reality, especially with the reality of God and his infinite
capacity for love. Authentic guilt, however, knows this reality and is grateful for it. 3) Neurotic guilt
appears as an unconscious reflection of human pride. We imagine ourselves to be so good at doing evil,
so successful at it that we outdistance God’s capacity and desire to forgive us. Authentic guilt shapes a
different perspective. It enables us to stand tall but humbly before God who has loved us into life and is
now once again summoning us toward forgiveness.

Having established that the stirrings of our conscience are not equated with subjective feelings of guilt
or innocence, we are now ready to tackle the positive meaning of conscience.

There are three senses in which we can understand the meaning of conscience: a capacity; a process
and a judgment. Timothy O’Connel would use these terms to express the three senses conscience is
understood in the Roman tradition: 1) synderesis (habit of conscience), that is, the basic tendency or
capacity within us to know and to do the good; 2) moral science, the process of discovering the
particular good which ought to be done or the evil to be avoided; 3) conscience, the specific judgment of
the good which I must do in this particular situation.

a) Conscience as fundamental capacity for moral discernment of what is right or wrong or what is good
or evil. It refers to the overall sense of value which characterizes what it means to be a human being. In
general, we have an awareness of our personal responsibility; we sense that we are accountable for
what we do and precisely because we have a capacity for self-direction, we also sense that we should
attempt to move to that direction. All these are possible because we have the capacity to know and do
what is good and avoid what is evil. Except for those who are seriously brain-damaged or emotionally
traumatized, everyone seems to have this raw capacity as part of human nature. The very existence of
this orientation towards the good makes possible the lively disagreement over what is right or wrong in
each instance of moral choice. The great array of moral problems which we experience in our lives does
not negate the presence of synderesis but rather affirms it. Inasmuch as we possess synderesis, we
share a general sense of moral value and the general sense that it makes a difference to do what is right
and to avoid what is evil. Without, this capacity of knowing what is good and avoiding what is evil, we
will never be able to live morally. However, possessing synderesis alone is not sufficient to constitute a
moral life:

Quite the contrary, conscience/1 (synderesis) forces individual human persons to search out the
objective moral values of their situation. They feel obliged to analyse their behaviour and their world, to
seek to discover what the right thing is really and what is not. This search, this exercise of moral
reasoning can be termed conscience/2 (moral science).

b) Conscience as process of discerning or discovering. It is the exercise of moral reasoning as a person

searches for objective moral values. Given the complexities of human living, we often find ourselves in
situations which are so confusing that we are uncertain as to what is morally expected of us. It is here
that we need conscience as moral science to enter as we seek to find and understand the concrete
moral values that are at stake in the present circumstances of our lives. We want to discover what is the
right and proper thing to do; in our desire to do what is good, we look for assistance and guidance; in
the process of seeking information that will help us to direct our lives properly, we are engaged in the so
called formation of conscience which in simple terms means an honest and humble pursuit of truth.

What is important in our search for truth is that our investigation must be carried out in a prayerful
manner. By this I mean that if we are prayerful, if we really desire to know God’s will and not simply to
do our own, then our minds will be enlightened and sensitized to the truth. Consequently, we will be
able to see and interpret data with greater freedom from prejudice or self-interested motivation.
Without our attention to God which prayer is our search for moral truth will hardly be seen as honest or
full.

In summary we can say this as regards conscience as moral science. The force of synderesis gives us the
power to search out the objective moral values in each specific situation in order to discover the right
thing to do. Discovering the operative moral values and the right thing to do is the work of moral
science. Its primary tasks are accurate perception and right moral reasoning. Therefore moral science
receives a great deal of attention in moral education and in moral debates. This is because as human
beings we are capable of blindness as well as insight, of distraction as well as attention, of understanding
as well as misunderstanding. So when we speak of conscience as a moral science we refer to an aspect
of humankind that needs all the help it can get. It needs to be educated, formed, informed, examined,
and transformed. In a word, moral science is subject to the process of the formation of conscience. This
process is directed to seeing and thinking correctly. Because of its accountability to moral truth moral
science is illumined and assisted in many ways to perceive and appropriate this truth. In this, we expect
that moral science is formed in community and draws upon the different sources of moral wisdom so as
to know what it means to be human in a truly moral way.

c) Conscience or the judgment by which we evaluate a particular action. Conscience in a narrower sense
moves us from perception and reasoning to action. The general orientation to the good—synderesis,
and the process of considering the different relevant factors—moral science, converge to produce the
judgment of what I must now do and the commitment to do it. In coming to this judgment, many can
help but no one else but I can make this judgment. The characteristic of the judgment of conscience is
that it is always a judgment for me. It is never a judgment of what someone else must do, but only what
I must do.

Probably the best way we can describe conscience is in this manner. Oftentimes, we find ourselves at a
point where we must say: “I have honestly tried to find out what is the right thing to do; I know that it is
still theoretically possible that I may be wrong, but I really think now that I ought to do this. This
decision or judgment upon which we then act is an exercise of conscience as judgment in evaluating a
particular action.

In the light of the different understanding of conscience, we can now do away with the confusion
relative to the saying: “Let your conscience be your guide.” To follow this adage without critical
understanding would taint the personal nature of conscience with a strong individualism and effectively
cut off conscience from being informed by other sources of moral wisdom. The individual and
supremely personal nature of conscience does not mean me against them; it means me distinct from
them but intrinsically with them.

The interpretation of the maxim “Let your conscience be your guide” follows upon understanding it as
referring to the narrow understanding of conscience. When moral science has done its work,
conscience follows. Its judgment in each case will be trustworthy in proportion to the thoroughness of
the work one does in forming his/her conscience. In the final analysis , conscience is the only sure guide
for action by a free and thinking person. Violating conscience means violating one’s integrity. If one
has done all he/she could possibly do to inform him/herself about the most responsible thing to do,
then he/she will not be entering the realm of sin even if he/she does something which he/she later
discovers was wrong.