MEANING OF MORALITY
Morality is the quality
or value human acts
have by which we call
them right or wrong,
good or evil.
The terms moral and immoral
mark the extremes of good and
bad within morality, in the field
of morals when moral is used
as the opposite of immoral.
In judging the morality of a human act,
we take into consideration the subjective
peculiarities of the agent (the doer of the act)
and look at the act as conditioned by the
agent’s knowledge and consent, background,
training, prejudices, emotional maturity
and stability, value orientation, and other
personal traits.
We may also abstract from such
subjective conditions which, though
always present in any individual act,
can be known directly only by the
simply look at the kind of act performed
and at the outward circumstances
apparent to any observer.
Morality
considered in
this way is
objective
morality.
Morality in its
completeness
includes both its
subjective and its
objective aspects.
MEANING OF CONSCIENCE
In the popular mind, conscience
is often thought of as an “inner
voice,” sometimes as the “voice
of God,” telling us what to do or
avoid, but this is metaphor.
In the traditional
sense, conscience is
not a special power
distinct from our
intellect.
Conscience is a
function of intellect
concerned with
actions that can be
good or bad.
MEANING OF CONSCIENCE
The term conscience
can actually be applied
to any of the three
distinct aspects
THREE DISTINCT ASPECTS
1. The intellect as a person’s ability,
under the influence of a desire to do
the right and the good, to form
judgements about the right and
wrong of individual acts
THREE DISTINCT ASPECTS
2. The process of reasoning
that we go through, under
the influence of that desire,
to reach such a judgement
THREE DISTINCT ASPECTS
3. The conclusion of this
reasoning process, which
is called the evaluative
judgement of conscience
EMOTIONS &
CONSCIENCE
The evaluational
elements that I use in
living my life have
their beginnings in my
emotions, the affective
side of my being.
Conscience is not developed by critical
thought alone. Emotion also enters into its
development along with imagination, for
conscience is not merely our power to judge
the past in moral terms but also our ability
to see alternatives in moral situations that
have implications for the future.
In the opening
chapter of this
discussion we spoke
of the difference
between customary
morality and
reflective morality.
KINDS OF
CONSCIENCE
A correct
conscience judges
as good what is
really good, and
as evil what is
really evil.
An erroneous
conscience judges
as good what is
really evil, or as
evil what is really
good.
Erroneous conscience is when
someone makes a factual
mistake due to ignorance of a
law that they should know. For
example, if someone doesn't
know that a specific case falls
under a general rule, their
mistaken conscience is not
culpable. However, if the
mistake is due to ignorance of
a law that the person should
know, then they are culpable.
A person’s judgement of conscience may also
be certain or doubtful. We are certain when
we judge without fear that the opposite may
be true in fact. We are doubtful when we
either hesitate to make any judgement at all
or make a judgement but with misgivings
that the opposite may be true.
FOLLOWING THE
JUDGEMENT OF
CONSCIENCE
Having seen what conscience is and the forms it takes,
we must now discuss our obligation to follow what
conscience approves. There are two chief rules, but
each of them involves a problem.
The two rules are:
1. Always follow a certain conscience
2. Never act with a doubtful conscience
1. ALWAYS FOLLOW A CERTAIN CONSCIENCE
First, notice the difference in between
a certain and a correct conscience.
The term correct to the objective
truth of the person’s judgement; the
person’s judgement of conscience
represents the real state of things.
1. ALWAYS FOLLOW A CERTAIN CONSCIENCE
1. A certain and correct
judgement of conscience
really offers no difficulty.
2. NEVER ACT WITH A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE
We have seen that a person
acting with a certain but
unavoidably mistaken
conscience is avoiding moral
evil as far as possible.
2. NEVER ACT WITH A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE
But, then, what should a person
with a doubtful conscience do?
The person’s first obligation is to
try to solve the doubt, to find out
the true nature of the act.
THE MORALLY
SAFER COURSE
THE MORALLY SAFER COURSE
By the morally safer course is
meant the course of action that
more surely preserves moral
goodness and more clearly
avoids moral wrong doing.
THE MORALLY SAFER COURSE
We have an obligation to follow the
morally safer course whenever we
have a known moral obligation to
fulfil or an end (goal) that we ought to
achieve to the best of our power.
A DOUBTFUL
OBLIGATION
A DOUBTFUL OBLIGATION
There are other cases in which
the obligation itself is the thing
in doubt. Here we have a
different question.
A DOUBTFUL OBLIGATION
Out of a desire to do the better thing
we often follow the morally safer
course without question, but if we
were to have an obligation to follow it
in all cases of doubt, life would
become intolerably difficult.
