My conscience told me to do it! (29.01.2025)

My conscience told me to do it!

We’re all familiar with the picture of two angels sitting on our shoulders. One angel tempts us with the all bad things we want to do. The other whispers in our ear, telling us what we ought to do.

Decision-making can often feel like that: a conflict between our desires and morality. But does this image help us understand the conscience?

Probably not.

I did a school-survey a while ago, asking students to define the word conscience. Overwhelmingly, they said it was either ‘a sense of guilt’ or ‘an inner moral voice’. Very few believed it could err and most of them associated it with God.

It’s common for religious people to associate the conscience with God’s voice telling them what to do. It’s authoritative and they believe the commands are universal and true. Yet, interestingly, Saint Thomas Aquinas, the great medieval philosopher and theologian disagreed.

He argued that conscience is more like a tool or a device. It’s what we do when our reason works with our natural desire to seek the good (that is, anything that works to enhance our lives). Like all devices, however, it can malfunction; it might mistake an apparent good for a real one. Take that person you’re madly in love with but who happens to be married. Since love is a great good, the conscience might decide that in this situation, adultery is morally right. You go ahead and have an affair.

Interestingly, Aquinas doesn’t think this action warrants judgement. Yes, you were mistaken but your motives weren’t bad, they were misled. What you need is help to refine and develop your conscience. As a Roman Catholic, he advises confession and a chat with the priest. Compare this to the person who knows the affair is wrong and does it anyway. They are guilty and merit judgement because they could have done otherwise and didn’t.

People are often surprised by Aquinas’ optimistic approach; they expect hell-fire and damnation. But they have a point when they pose the problem of other cultures

The Fiore people of Papua New Guinea were cannibals until the 1950s. They considered it morally right to consume their loved ones.  Were they reasoning poorly? Did they lack the ability to align their rationality with our God-given purpose?

According to Aquinas, the answer is yes. But for those who question God’s existence, there are other explanations for the conscience.

Freud locates it in our subconscious. It is a psychological response to social constraints.

When we’re born, we’re motivated by powerful, instinctive desires that demand satisfaction. Think of a two-year-old having a tantrum. Slowly, we learn that the external world has demands of its own and imposes restrictions on us. Our ego recognises this and tries to work with it, internalising the disapproval and punishments its receives. These form the superego. And it’s here where the conscience resides, that ‘voice’ which forbids us to do certain things and punishes us with guilt when we disobey. The superego can be neurotic – seriously so – but without it, our selfish desires would be destructive.

The power of this approach is obvious: it explains cultural differences and works well with evolutionary theory. And we see proto moral behaviour in other animals such as chimpanzees.

But there are problems too. Some dislike how relative it is (we can’t judge any culture, not even the Nazis), while others find it too deterministic. Moreover, it can’t easily explain why some people break society’s laws because of their conscience. Think of Nelson Mandela and Alexei Navalny. If the conscience is merely the voice of society, how were they able to over-ride it?  Aquinas can provide an answer, but you will have to believe in God to agree with him.