Treatise on Conscience

Since conscience is the proximate rule of human (moral) acts, logically discussion of it is made before law is treated, which is the remote rule of those same acts. For law indeed binds all subjects in first act; but in second act, or by reason of imputability to fault, only those who have knowledge of the same. Hence St. Thomas:¹ "a human act is judged virtuous or vicious according to the good apprehended, toward which the will is borne, and not according to the material object of the act." But the treatise on conscience follows the treatise on human acts in right order, since in the former the matter is of the human (moral) act considered abstractly, but in this treatise of the same act taken concretely.

32. Definition. - Conscience is the judgment which someone makes concerning the formal morality of an act to be placed or omitted by himself here and now. - It is said:

1° Judgment, namely an act by which the mind affirms or denies something; and hence conscience is not a habit, nor an act of the will. - a) It is not a habit. Yet he who ordinarily affirms well or badly is said to have, as if by habit, a good or bad, true or false conscience. But conscientiousness (conscientiousness) is the habit of executing the dictate of conscience with a prompt mind; - b) nor is it an act of the will. Yet it is exercised under the command of the will, and therefore it will be able to be prudent or imprudent, according as one neglects or does not neglect the rules of prudence in affirming or denying.

2° Concerning morality. Wherefore it differs from psychological consciousness. Nor does conscience judge concerning utility, facility, etc. (Syllab. pp. 58, 64, p. XLV), but concerning the relation of some action or omission to the moral law, namely whether it is alongside it, against it, or outside it.

3° Concerning formal morality, and therefore it differs from science, which judges concerning material morality, as will be clear from the things to be said concerning erroneous and doubtful conscience. See n. 35. 49.

4° Of an act, namely adequately taken, i.e. considered by reason of the object, circumstances, and end of the one acting, or not abstracting from the end of the one acting. For acts in the individual, or formally, indifferent are not given, chiefly because in them abstraction cannot be made from the end of the one acting (n. 24).

5° By himself; yet this does not prevent you, in forming this judgment, either from helping another or being helped by another. Indeed, it is sometimes permitted to adopt another's judgment without discussion, although it must necessarily become one's own, since the formation of conscience is essentially personal. Thus an uneducated person rightly forms his conscience from the judgment of his pastor, and anyone from the judgment of St. Alphonsus; but in doing so he does not cease to judge personally, or by himself, presuming, namely, that he can safely follow the judgment of the pastor or of St. Alphonsus.

6° To be placed or omitted here and now. Hence conscience:

a) Differs from synderesis (conservation), which is a habitual speculative judgment of general principles, for example that sin must be avoided, virtue must be loved, etc. But conscience is an actual practical judgment by which a general principle is applied to an action to be placed or omitted here and now. Wherefore Sporer¹ rightly calls the judgment of conscience the particular conclusion of a syllogism whose "major premise Synderesis places (for example, evil must be fled), whose minor premise reason submits (theft is evil), whose universal conclusion moral science infers (theft must be fled), but whose particular conclusion, or conclusion concerning here and now, prudence and conscience infer (therefore this or that, because it is theft, is not permitted)."

b) As the rule of morals it regards the morality of a present action only (and this is called antecedent conscience); but if it regards the morality of a past action (consequent conscience), it is the rule of actions only in a broad sense.

For it belongs to the former alone to direct one to acting, since it impels, permits, or turns away; but it belongs to the latter to weigh the act, or that which has already been done; namely it approves, praises, accuses, or bites back. Hence antecedent conscience alone is conscience properly so called, or the rule of morals; for consequent conscience can indeed manifest that some action was good or evil, but cannot make it that that action was good or evil. Hence they err who, after an act has been placed, before, for example, they approach Confession, inspect books or inquire whether this and that which they have done is a sin, and whether therefore they must confess it; for an opinion of this sort formed afterwards will be able to have no influence upon the preceding action. Likewise, in vain do some ask the confessor whether by doing this and that they have sinned; for this depends on the conscience which they had while they were acting; but they themselves will know this, and the confessor will learn it from them. But such things are rightly asked for other ends, namely for better directing actions in the future, for avoiding scandal, etc.; and therefore consequent conscience can be called conscience in the sense given, as I have said.

I. Conscience has one object, namely the formal morality of the act to be placed or omitted by you here and now, and considered in the concrete and in the individual, i.e. a) in its single elements, namely in object, circumstances, and the end of the agent, and b) in these taken together; for good is from an integral cause; evil, from any defect whatsoever. - Hence:

II. Only the practical question in the strict sense, or the practically-practical question, namely that which is resolved through the particular conclusion of the syllogism [above 6° a)], is that to which answer is made through the dictate of conscience. - Hence:

III. The remaining questions, although more or less connected with this one question, are only questions preliminary to it. But among these preliminary questions:

1. Some are such in themselves, others per accidens. In themselves, for example, the question concerning the existence of a law, concerning the validity of a vow; for, in order that the question, for example, whether this or that is permitted to me, be resolved, the very nature of that question demands that the question whether there is some law by which it is prohibited first be resolved. Thus likewise, in order that the question whether I am bound to furnish that which I promised by vow be solved, it is required in itself that the question whether my vow was valid be previously decided. - Per accidens, for example, the question whether the fluid flowing from a vine, with which an infant is to be baptized, is natural water or not; for this question is not in itself to be raised when Baptism is administered, but when the case occurs in which necessity urges and certainly natural water is not present.

2. Some are proximately preliminary, others remotely preliminary. - Proximately, the major and minor premises of the syllogism about which above, 6° a); remotely, all those things which must be discussed before the major or minor premise is established. Let the following be an example. There is an obligation of repeating an invalid Baptism (major premise); but Paul was invalidly baptized (minor premise). Therefore, he must be rebaptized. In this example, questions concerning the invalidity of the matter or form, or concerning a defect of intention in the minister, are remotely preliminary to the conclusion or practically-practical question; for these questions must be resolved before the minor premise can be established.

3. Some are of law, others of fact, concerning which see n. 48 under 2.

IV. Conscience is:

a) Commanding, when it judges that an act is to be placed as being of precept.

b) Counseling, when it judges that an act, although by no law to be placed or omitted, is more rightly placed or omitted, as being consonant with or dissonant from a counsel intimated to me here and now either by divine inspiration, or from the dictate of reason soliciting to more perfect things, or from the directive ordinance of a Superior.

c) Prohibiting, when it judges that an act, as repugnant to a negative law (n. 125. IV), is to be omitted.

d) Permitting, namely if it is taken inadequately, or insofar as it judges concerning the object and circumstances only, abstracting from the end of the one acting. For a merely permitting conscience can never be given if it is taken adequately, namely with the end of the agent also included, as is clear from what was said in n. 24. R. 2°, where we proved that indifferent acts in the individual are not given, since these have their morality chiefly from the end of the one acting.

e) True, false, perplexed, scrupulous, lax, certain, doubtful, probable, improbable, concerning which in what follows.

The question concerning the obligatory force of conscience is that in which it is discussed whether and which of the consciences just enumerated one either ought or may follow. Hence this question is set forth: 1) concerning true, false, and perplexed conscience; 2) concerning scrupulous and lax conscience; 3° concerning certain and doubtful conscience; 4° concerning probable and improbable conscience, and concerning all these insofar as conscience is commanding, counseling, prohibiting, or permitting.