Conscience clause

“ When I attempt to convince any one that certain conduct which he considers right is wrong, by showing him that it is opposed to the general welfare, my final appeal is to his conscience. And in the same manner, when I correct some of my own moral conceptions, it is my conscience which determines me to the proof of them, and my conscience which is the standard that determines my decision. Conscience is the principle underlying my moral convictions. ”

“ It as truly reaches beyond sense as do the intuitions of time and space or the law of causation; and, as truly as they, it calls for the recognition of a special and original psychical faculty or provision, among the powers of the soul, for its perception. The conscience,
"Deep-seated in our mystic frame,"
discerns a law of righteous obligation, which is not the dictate of mere desire or pleasure or self-advantage, but a law established at once over us and in us not dependent on our will or choice but demanding conformity of will and choice to itself. ”

“ It cannot hold us guilty because we may choose to forego personal advantage or enjoyment. If, however, examination can show that the conscience is a faculty of actual perception, discerning a fundamental distinction between right and wrong and an immutable obligation to apply it in the constituted relations of life, its rightful authority is at once vindicated. It is seen to be an authoritative guide in its sphere of perception, as are the other cognitive powers, each in its own sphere of real knowledge. ”

“ By the supremacy of conscience is meant its right to exercise moral control. It expresses its proper authority. This authority is not to be thought of as original or independent, but as resting on and revealing the absolute authority of God, who has constituted the moral relations of the world and has set the conscience, with its discerning and regulative function, in the human soul. ”

“ Is it not a species of egotism to hold one's own moral discernment as superior to another's; and if so, do we not need some criterion by which to judge between them? Surely the diversity of its judgments makes conscience an impossible foundation for morality; we should have as many codes as consciences and fall into a hopeless confusion. If conscience everywhere agreed in its dictates, could we base morality upon it? Even, however, if conscience led us all in the same direction, would that prove its authority? ”

“ What is the value of conscience?
It would seem, at first glance, as if the development of reason should make conscience unnecessary. When we are able to discern the consequences of our acts, formulate and weigh our motives and aims, what need of these vague pre-rational promptings and inhibitions? Why not train men to supplant a blind sense of duty by a conscious insight, a rational valuation of ends and means? Is not reason, as it has been recently called, "the ultimate conscience"? ”

“ Relief for tender consciences means nothing, where the conscience has previously relieved itself; that is, has complied with the injunctions which it seeks preposterously to be rid of. Relief for conscience there is properly none, but what by better information makes an act appear innocent and lawful, with which the previous conscience was not satisfied to comply. ”

“ But even because conscience is an immediate perception of right and wrong, a moral instinct for good and evil, and, consequently, in form, wholly distinct from that function of reason which infers and deduces consequences, I am indisposed to give it such a name, and would rather regard it as a peculiar faculty of soul or heart, subsisting by itself, and intermediate between will and reason. ”

“ But even if all this were waived, if conscience were in actual agreement among all men, and if there were no difficulty in distinguishing the voice of conscience from the voice of passion, or from other prejudices or sentiments, it would remain true that no ultimate theory of the difference between right and wrong could be founded on the assertions of any instinct. Why an individual should obey his conscience unless he wishes to do so, cannot be made clear by conscience itself alone. ”

“ But if the deliverances of different men's consciences conflict, how shall we know which to trust? If any particular command of the inner voice may be morally wrong, how can we trust it at all? There are obviously morbid and perverted consciences; but if conscience itself is the ultimate authority, and is not to be justified and criticized by some deeper test, what right have we to call any of its manifestations morbid or perverted? ”

“ It possesses its authority, therefore, in the fact that it is the discernment of something higher than our will or ourselves, a principle transcending our personality and appearing as supreme law for our life and conduct. And the law connotes a lawgiver and a judge. The conscience thus puts us in the presence of One who has sovereign and absolute right to rule in us and over us. ”

“ Both the intellectual and emotional action of the soul are, therefore, included in what is named the conscience—the perceptive action, here as everywhere else, being primary and conditional for the emotional. If there were no ethical distinction perceived, none would be felt. The conscience, taken in its totality, thus includes both sides of the human psychology, the intellect and the sensibility, and it addresses its behests of duty to the will in its own peculiar way of moral law for conduct. ”

“ Thus, consciousness testifies that one is considering the performance of a certain act, conscience judges the morality, and permits or forbids; or consciousness testifies that a certain thing was done or not done in the past, conscience declares the morality—condemning, excusing, or approving what took place. ”

“ Only this doctrine, that conscience does not discover law, can explain on the one hand the fact that men are bound to follow their consciences, and on the other hand the fact that their consciences so greatly differ as to what is right or wrong in particular cases. The truth is, that conscience is uniform and infallible, in the sense that it always decides rightly according to the law given it. Men's decisions vary, only because the moral reason has presented to the conscience different standards by which to judge. ”

“ Therefore I must obey him is the conclusion and the dictate of conscience.
2. Conscience is said to be certain, dubious, or probable, as the motive on which it is grounded is morally certain, doubtful, or only probable.
A right conscience is in accordance with the eternal law of morality; an erroneous conscience gives a false instead of a true judgement. If the mistake could and ought to have been avoided by the agent who has a false conscience, the conclusion is vincibly erroneous ”

“ The conscience, in its essential perceptions and judgments, as appears from the analysis already given, is part of the rational intelligence. It designates the power and function of the intelligent ego, or personal self, for discernment in the sphere of right and duty—for insight into the reality of ethical law and obligation which belong to good conduct among rational, self-directing beings. ”

“ Yes; and more than that, the conscience needs educating just as much as any other faculty. A man says, 'My conscience acquits me'; then the question is, 'And what sort of a conscience have you got, if it acquits you?' All that your conscience says is, 'It is right to do what is right, it is wrong to do what is wrong.' But for the explanation of what is wrong and what is right you have to go somewhere else than to your consciences. ”

“ He looks upon conscience as a creation of man. He calls its dictates an imagination. He says that the notion of guiltiness, which that dictate enforces, is simply irrational.
When he advocates the rights of conscience, he, of course, in no sense means the rights of the Creator, nor the duty to him, in thought and deed, of the creature; he means only the right of thinking, speaking, writing, and eating according to his judgment or his humor, without any thought of God at all. ”

“ Without this conscience has no base, for conscience is the law of our will, and God is the law of conscience. That is why you have to arrange the spirits of your children with holy fear and love of the heavenly Father. It is clear that, in the formation of character, the main influence is the moral law that rules conscience, and that law is proposed by reason; but it is also true that, to strongly engrave in the soul the law of conscience, feelings must cooperate. If ideas do not go beyond reason they will have very little effect on the moral regime of man ”

“ Speculative certainty is not sufficient for conscience, but practical certitude is required, since conscience refers not to abstract laws but to concrete cases—not to what is right if only the object of the act is considered, but to what is right when one considers the object, the motive, and all the circumstances here and now present. ”

“ To perceive the force of this argument, it must be remembered, That, by conscience, is only meant a man’s judgement concerning the quality of his own actions; which judgement, however come at, whether by use, or institution, by reason, or instinct, equally supposes some Law, or Rule of conduct, by which the nature of each action is tried, and by which its worth is estimated. ”

“ For it is but the inflashing upon the conscience with overwhelming force of the nature and origin of the laws by which mankind are governed—laws which exist, whether we acknowledge them or whether we deny them, and will have their way, to our weal or woe, according to the attitude in which we please to place ourselves towards them—inherent, like electricity, in the nature of things, not made by us, not to be altered by us, but to be discerned and obeyed by us at our everlasting peril. ”

“ The human conscience sometimes lies buried under ignorance, or is passive in the hands of lawless desire, and it needs the law to arouse it to perform its proper functions, and thus prepare men for a Saviour. “Christ,” says Paul, “is the end of the law.” It arouses men to feel their need of His atonement. 2. It is needed as a basis of punishment and reward. There are some actions upon which men, by almost universal consent, pass judgment, and their judgment is embodied in their law, and thus forms a basis of conviction for the transgressor. ”

“ You surely will not say, that any man’s conscience can preclude mine. You, at least, will not plead for robbing us, of what you strongly claim for yourselves. I mean, the right of private judgment, which is indeed unalienable from reasonable creatures. You well know, that unless we faithfully follow the dictates of our own mind, we cannot have a conscience void of offence toward God and towards man. ”

“ Nevertheless, if our preceding considerations be correct, the uniformities in social relations admit of the establishment of certain general rules which the moral man will follow under most circumstances.
We come finally to the definition of conscience. In humanity as a whole, and in the single societies of which it is composed, a certain moral evolution may be perceived which we have found reasons for believing to be internal as well as external, a matter of heredity as well as of instruction. In this internal sense, conscience, as innate capacity, or tendency, may be said to be an instinct. ”

“ It allows it to stand, as it does all other92 springs of action, in its full rights and value among human motives and virtues in determining duty in conduct. But it is the conscience, and not love itself, that judges and decides the obligation to it and the high rank that ought to be given it as an element of character. Thus the regulative function, even for benevolence, belongs to the ethical sense, through perception of what sentiments and acts are right in conduct. And so the peculiar business of the conscience is to watch all the forces of our nature and keep each in its place. ”

“ In the presence of recognized right or wrong men feel bound to correspondent action as they feel bound under no other perceptions. The conscience, indeed, uses no compulsion, but it presents the right or wrong and correspondent obligation. Freedom is not annulled, but appealed to. The feeling, as the sensibility excited, is the feeling of ought or ought not, added to the perception of it. ”

“ In just the same proportion as we recognise the law of causality, we shall also recognise the moral law. Reason itself is compelled to arouse in us conscience,—theoretical consciousness awakens ethical consciousness. ”

“ When conscience leads us merely to judge and to decide upon the character of a feeling or an action, whether good or evil, it acts in its legislative capacity; but when it reproves and punishes, or approves and rewards, for actions done, it acts in its executive capacity. These two departments of the moral sense seem quite distinct in their nature and operations; and, as we shall immediately see, they not only exist separately, but they sometimes act independently of each other. ”

“ First, that the conscience, being a complex faculty or power, its particular judgments of duty in particular cases, being judgments of application of the principle of rightness, are reached often through very complex processes, in which the obscuration of imperfect information, or misconception of the relations involved, or the misleading effect of prejudice created by wrong training, or some falsely imagined divine authority, may leave not only a state of doubt as to duty, but throw the decision into error. ”