Conscientious objector

“ They love their ease and creature comforts at least as much as any conscientious objector could; and God knows they are here as far removed from ease and creature comfort as men well could be—entirely of their own free will. And they will carry on all night, cracking their simple jokes and chaffing one another, and jostling each other to get to the front if one or two are required for anything extra dangerous. And the spirit that dictates their little jokes, isn't it as fine as any shown in bygone days by the aristocrats of France and England? ”

“ It is perfectly natural that people who held that it was a Christian duty to help win the war should claim that the conscientious objector was absolutely in the wrong, and especially so if he was a religious objector. ”

“ The Conscientious Objector Those who refused to take any part in winning the war soon found themselves branded as "yellow," "slackers," "cowards," "Huns," "pro-German," or something else equally unkind. The name (borrowed from England) used by the war department to designate the drafted men who took such a stand was, "Conscientious Objector," and at first was in tended to apply only to such as took this stand be cause they belonged to a Church which embodied nonresistance in its creed and because the men themselves believed that it would be wrong for them to have a part in carnal warfare. ”

“ Those scruples which are beyond the range of our ideas we call superstitions and prejudices, and are unwilling to look upon conduct as conscientious, even when prompted by the uninstructed conscience, unless in so far as it is reasonable and right in itself. ”

“ I concede to you conscientious motives in what you do. You are sustained by those around you, men of intellect, men of character. I respect them while I differ from them. I appeal, however, to a higher law, and that, I think, sustains me. ”

“ I have often realized that I kept bad manifestations in check, though the frequent outbreaks of such traits as want of truth, stratagem, attempts at secret influence in the school, proofs of want of delicacy of taste and of conscience, made me feel that all I could do in the short period while my influence lasted, was to hold up my testimony to good principles, and make an adherence to truth, and sincere and conscientious action in every particular of life,—the central points round which all other things must revolve. ”

“ The conscientious.—Have you observed what kind of people attach the greatest importance to scrupulous conscientiousness? Those who are conscious of many mean feelings; who are carefully thinking of and about themselves, and are afraid of others; who are intent upon concealing their innermost feelings to the best of their power ;—by this scrupulous conscientiousness and strict fulfilment of duty, by the severe and harsh impression which others, especially their inferiors, are bound to receive of them, they endeavour to impose upon themselves. ”

“ Attention must bring all the powers of the mind to bear [Pg 335] on the question; habits of right action must carry the feelings, must make right-doing seem the easier and the pleasanter. In the meantime, desire is clamorous; but conscience, the unbiassed judge, duly informed in full court of the merits of the case, decides for the right. The will carries out the verdict of conscience; and the man whose conduct is uniformly moulded upon the verdicts of conscience is the conscientious man, of whose actions and opinions you may be sure beforehand. ”

“ He makes conscience of what he says and does, and, though he may be under some mistakes, yet, according to the best of his knowledge, he abstains from that which is evil and cleaves to that which is good. [3.] He is universally conscientious; and those that are not so are not at all truly conscientious; is so in all manner of conversation: "I have lived in all good conscience; have had my whole conversation under the direction and dominion of conscience." ”

“ As we have seen, conscience is simply the self regarded as passing moral judgments, and conscience has absolute authority because it is the rational self. The free and rational self is, in the fullest sense, the author of its actions and its judgments. ”

“ A person with large conscientiousness, and large Selfish Propensities, will consider an action just, which another, with the same amount of Conscientiousness, and smaller propensities, will consider unjust. This organ is essential to the formation of a truly philosophic mind, especially in moral investigations. ”

“ My Ought is my own will more rationally expressed than, at the instant of a capricious activity, I as yet consciously recognize. The consciousness of the more rational purpose, — of a purpose looming up, as it were, in the distance, beyond my present impulses, and yet even now seen as their own culmination, like a mountain crowning the ascent from the foothills, — the consciousness, I say, of such a purpose, is what we mean in Ethics by the Ought. ”

“ But this man, with the limited knowledge and imperfect ideal which he actually has, can do no more than obey his conscience which bids him realize the highest ideal that he knows. The act of the conscientious man may be right or wrong, judged by objective, social standards. Judged by subjective standards, seen from within, every [182] conscientious act is, relatively to the individual himself, a right act. We should spare no pains to enlighten our conscience, and make it the reflection of the most exalted ideals which society has reached. ”

“ Henceforth, I am determined to use my own reason and conscience in my investigation of truth, and in the establishment of my own opinions and practice I shall give my own reason and conscience the preference to all others. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From whichever point we view it, he bids us aim at life, and so far he might be accused of prompting to self-seeking; but when we once see how life may be understood, and what it may be made to include, we perceive how pointless is the objection. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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"? ”

“ Right and wrong, good and bad, he regarded as qualities solely of conduct—of acts and omissions; there being no feeling which may not lead, and does not frequently lead, either to good or to bad actions: conscience itself, the very desire to act right, often leading people to act wrong. ”

“ For if I should not objectify myself to myself, if in the endeavour to free myself completely from all objectivity, I were to retreat into the first term,—a purely abstract one,—of this relationship by which I posit myself, I should remain on the hither side of this relationship, that is of that very reality in which I am to realise myself. ”

“ It is moral instinct which has led him to reason out some personal agency in the conduct of human affairs. In other words, it is conscience, which, from the pagan point of view, does " make cowards of us all." ”

“ For most men the reason of this cleavage is the fact that their conscious self desires to hold to its moral ideal, whilst the unconscious strives after the amoral ideal, steadfastly rejected by the conscious self. ”

“ Allied to the Emotional school for the purpose of proving conscience are those Rationalists, of whom we have taken Dr. Rashdall as an example, who have for an object the establishment of the [Pg 14] "objective" validity of moral judgment. The real contention becomes clearer; the chief point at issue is the question of authority. ”

“ But just as little as the process of the moral consciousness is satisfied by an emotional theory of the judgment does it sanction any conception of objectivity which requires that values are here or there once for all; that they are fixed entities or "a nature of things" upon which the moral consciousness may look for its information but upon which it exercises no influence. The process of attempting to give—or discover—moral values is a process of mutual determination of object and agent. We have to do in morals not with a nature of things but with natures of persons. ”

“ Although we must define the Supreme Being as a personality to satisfy our moral consciousness, we must not, we are told, make the same moral consciousness the criterion of the attributes of that personality. ”

“ So far we have been concerned with the self and its processes rather than with the actions in which it manifests its activity, with its capacities and tendencies rather than with the actual behaviour in which they are realised. In a word, we have been studying the character of the self rather than its conduct. We must now ask, How is character related to conduct? ”

“ But the difficulty of being good is sometimes due to our ignorance what really is the right thing to do. Now, it is the function of the self, acting as conscience, to tell us what is and what is not the right thing to do. We must therefore go on to ask what exactly we mean by conscience, and what is its place in the moral life. ”

“ Ultimately our moral sense or conscience becomes a highly complex sentiment—originating in the social instincts, largely guided by the approbation of our fellow-men, ruled by reason, self-interest, and in later times by deep religious feelings, and confirmed by instruction and habit. ”

“ But while prudence was a factor in my general settlement, the main factor was, as I have said, conscience. Not the narrow conscientiousness of ordinary men, which is three parts ignorance, two parts cowardice, and five parts envy—for is it not usually roused only when the acts of others are to be judged? ”

“ He took up the written sheet on which he had begun a dissertation as to what conscience is, as exerting a choice between good and evil. He had written: “Understanding governs what we purpose; consciousness governs what our understanding resolves upon. Hence, if our understanding choose the good, consciousness is satisfied.” ”

“ The power to discriminate, choose and act, when normally exercised, implies judgment and understanding.
Hence, we have perception, rational choice, intelligent action and desired results, for which we recognize our personal responsibility. Hence arise our ability and necessity to review our actions, motives, aims and their results, and to pass judgment upon them in the Light of Conscience (Con-Science, to know the Self) to pass judgment upon ourselves as to motives, aims, results, and consequences. ”

“ If so, it is easy to understand that our discernment of men’s motives must depend on the completeness of the elements we can bring from our own susceptibility and our own experience. “See to it, friend, before you pronounce a too hasty judgment, that your own moral sensibilities are not of a hoofed or clawed character.” ”

“ The dispute of the moralists has reference, not to any characteristic of the qualities in conduct which we cognize as moral, but to the mode in which they are cognized. Our conception of such qualities involves the conception of absoluteness in them, and it is only by that notion of absoluteness that they are distinguished from the other qualities which appear in human conduct, such as wisdom, prudence, ingenuity, and the like. ”

“ It is through these feelings that the conscience becomes a motive power for moral life. The perception of duty alone, as purely intellectual, would be, as said, "like a mirror accurately reflecting the ethical reality passing before it, but as indifferent as the mirror." But upon the perception the emotional nature springs into action. Knowledge, if at all, always goes into effect mediately through the sensibilities in which the soul is stirred by affections and desires. ”

“ Objectivity is saved but at the expense of connection with human affairs. Our problem is to see what objectivity signifies upon a naturalistic basis; how morals are objective and yet secular and social. ”

“ And we learn nothing from being told that our conscience or sense of duty, our sentiments in regard to right and wrong, our obligation to pursue one course of conduct and to avoid another course, are ultimate principles which admit of no further analysis or explanation. ”

“ Of these I have in my former Lectures analyzed and described the conscience as the moral instinct for right and wrong, when I named it the reason applied to the will, or, rather, as I preferred to consider it, as a peculiar and independent faculty, intermediate between reason and will, and being an immediate feeling and judgment as to what is good and evil in human desires and actions. Now, just as conscience is a mean between reason and will, so is memory intermediate between reason and understanding. ”

“ A full and correct statement must make it embrace much more. Though the conscience may be the culminating thing, it is by no means all that is requisite to endow a being with the capacities necessary for moral agency. ”

“ We can neither know nor judge ourselves; others may judge, but cannot know us: God alone judges and knows too. Let my character appear—as far as any human character can appear in its integrity, in this world—in my actions, when I describe the one eventful passage in my life which forms the basis of this narrative. ”