CONSCIENCE AS JUDGMENT

Conscience as the most secret heart and sanctuary of the human person comes to bear in a practical way when we are faced with a decision about doing (or not doing) something in order to remain faithful to ourselves. Practical judgments such as this are what we have traditionally called conscience. It is not just personal opinion or even conviction. Rather, conscience is identified as the judgment of reason about the moral quality and obligatory nature of an action contemplated, being done, or already performed.  

Judgment is an act of reason, but it would be wrong to over emphasise the intellectual character of conscience, to make it something cold and impersonal. The judgment of conscience is an action of the whole person, a person who is integrally cognitive and affective, a person with a head and also a heart.  

Conscience is literally a 'knowing with' (con-scire). It is a kind of holistic knowledge that we come to in community with others, as sharing in and gaining insight from our community (or communities) – from family, school, social and sporting groups, church. The communities in which we develop to adulthood hopefully impart worthwhile human values to us: respect for others, love and compassion, honesty, a sense of fairness and, if we are so gifted, faith. Conscience in the earlier stages of our life is more or less authoritarian. It evolves out of parental and social directives which we obey no doubt through promise of reward or maybe threat of sanctions. As we develop towards adulthood, we begin to internalise the values coming from outside us as well as develop our own on the basis of our experience. We assume responsibility for our own lives and actions. So we pass from an authoritarian to a mature and authentic conscience.   

Psychologists say that the first ten or so years of a child's life are a struggle to differentiate themselves from its parents, morally, sexually and psychologically, to move from authoritarian to an authentic conscience, where choices are made out of one's internalised beliefs and values. Sadly, as we know, not everyone makes this transition successfully.  For whatever reason(s) some people remain all their lives under the domination of an authoritarian conscience. Sometimes social pressure coming either from one's whole culture or from peer groups may impose unconscious prejudices and moral hang-ups that can distort or falsify practical judgments of conscience.  

A mature and authentic conscience first of all requires us to be attuned to the genuine moral values proper to the human spirit, based, all of them, on respect for the dignity of the human person, values such as life, health and bodily integrity, concern for others, patience, and so on. We need to develop a sort of instinctive harmony with, and responsiveness to, these values – which is an ongoing, indeed a life-long task and challenge. It stands to reason that unless we are disposed to cherish these values we cannot hope to make sound judgments about how we should realise them in our day-to-day living. If we do not value life, ours or another's, how will we made a sound judgment about whether or not life supports should be continued in this instance? If we do not value truth, lies will not be of any concern to us. If we place little value on honesty, cheating will not be much of a problem for us. If we have no concern for the environment, we won't take seriously the impact of our carbon footprint upon the natural world. So the values we have are of prime importance for making a mature judgment of conscience.  

In the second place, a mature and authentic conscience requires that we have developed to adulthood, not only physically and psychologically but also spiritually. This supposes a capacity for analysis and discernment. When the moral values at stake are pretty clear, which is often enough the case, a morally mature person knows and judges what should or should not be done instinctively, we could say intuitively. There is no need for rational deliberation prior to judgment. Deliberation about our reasons may come after the judgment has been made.

 But more is needed when we are confronted with complex situations beyond the normal run of things. We then have to embark upon a process of deliberation about the issue. We need to arm ourselves with relevant factual information about it. For example, does this contraceptive medication also act as an abortifacient? And if so what difference might this make to our judgment?  How can we assess the morality of continuing to smoke without reliable information on what smoking does to one's health? Factual information, drawn where necessary from the natural or behavioural sciences, is indispensable to reach an informed moral judgment. The reason why a course of action is to be adopted is also very relevant. From a wife's point of view, there is a clear moral difference between the use of a condom by her husband to prevent conception and submitting to condomistic intercourse with the intention of preventing HIV infection. The quite different reason or motivation for acting is morally very relevant.  

Moral judgment requires us to be well informed about the kind of action proposed or contemplated, as otherwise we literally do not know what we are talking about. But we also need to take into account the circumstances surrounding the action. Taking another's property is only theft in the circumstance that the owner is reasonably against our taking it.

Very important among the circumstances surrounding an action are the foreseeable results of the action. So we need to have sufficient experience of life to be able to recognise and face up to the likely outcomes of certain kinds of actions, the pros and cons of which must then be evaluated. The consequences of our actions, whether for ourselves or for others, whether in the short or the long term, call for special attention. For example, it may be significant to consider the foreseeable effects of legalising euthanasia in the community, of sanctioning surrogate motherhood, of adoption of children by same-sex couples, or of using pesticides on lawns, crops and bushland. Or in some cases there may be some other alternative which we could adopt.  

If after serious deliberation a reasonable judgment cannot be reached, there is still the alternative of taking counsel from wiser heads. We can, and if possible should, consult other people who, because of their expertise or experience, can help us arrive at what would seem to be a correct judgment of conscience about the matter. And for the Catholic faithful the moral teaching of the Church, and the reasons underlying the teaching, ought to be seen as an important source of moral wisdom requiring serious attention.  

The final phase of this process of reflection and deliberation is the practical, normative judgment of conscience: 'This course of action is good and should be done, bad and should be avoided'. We know from experience that we often enough fail to act according to our conscience. This is part of our human fragility. However, we possess other resources to help us combat our fragility. What these resources may be is another story.

                                                                                             Brian Lewis, Ballarat, Australia