Treatise IV: On Conscience

Usefulness. The treatise of the greatest moment concerning the proximate rule of human actions must be introduced by a few notions, which prepare a distinct solution of questions not so plain and at the same time very practical, which are to be proposed in this treatise.

— I. What conscience is. Conscience, properly so called, is the knowledge which we have of several acts of our life, whether sensible or rational. For the functions of vegetative life lie hidden from our direct consciousness. Therefore it can be described thus: Cognition or attestation of one's own internal fact.

And this is psychological conscience, or conscience properly so called. But at the same time there accompanies us a judgment concerning the moral value of those same acts of ours. That is, spontaneously, according to moral principles, we judge concerning our action. This is called moral conscience. As, therefore, we distinguish psychological and moral liberty, so we distinguish psychological and moral conscience. St. Thomas treats of each conscience, De veritate, q. 17 art. 1.

Moreover judgment concerning our action is made according to moral principles. But the most universal moral principles - good is to be done, evil is to be avoided; precepts are to be fulfilled, promises are to be kept - become known to us most easily because of the inborn habit which, from a Greek word, the Scholastics call synteresis. Therefore synteresis is the natural habit of the first moral principles. And we call moral principles general dictates concerning things to be done, in order to the end of human action.

Therefore moral conscience itself is described: a moral judgment concerning our particular action to be done or done, to be omitted or omitted, according to moral principles.

— Conscience is the rule of morals. Human acts do not find their proximate rule in conscience in the same way in which they find their remote rule in law. Law is an act of a Superior; conscience is an act of a faculty belonging to the subject: law establishes the order, conscience knows the established order and consequently presupposes it; law commands, conscience intimates the precept of the law. Therefore conscience is the herald by whose mediation the laws of our actions are applied to us.

But that conscience is in this way the proximate rule of our human actions is clear from this, that the will is a rational appetite, whose object is not the thing as it exists outside us, but as it is present intentionally (or in the expressed species) in our intellect.

— II. How many kinds of moral conscience there are.

1. The moral judgment concerning our human action precedes and accompanies our act, or follows our act. Hence there is distinguished antecedent conscience, concerning an action or omission at hand, and consequent conscience, concerning an action or omission done.

2. According to the varied conclusion of its judgment, antecedent conscience is obliging, counselling, permitting, forbidding, according as the appetible thing presented is pronounced by it necessary, desirable, of free option, or to be rejected.

But consequent conscience testifies what we have done morally, and, according to the moral nature of the action, approves it, praises it, excuses it, condemns it. Here the appetitive faculty naturally inserts itself, of itself content concerning a good action, afflicted concerning an evil one, so that there is a testimony pacifying and quieting; and remorse, of itself penal.

3. Conscience, like every judgment, of itself is right, or speculatively true, insofar as it dictates what is true. Yet by accident it will be erroneous, and that either vincibly or invincibly. But conscience which errs invincibly is nevertheless called right in a qualified way, i.e. in relation to the agent.

4. Conscience can be certain or doubtful. Certain conscience judges without fear of the opposite. Doubtful conscience of itself does not judge concerning the action, or reports nothing else except that the action is of doubtful honesty. But by the command of the will (which is moved by some perceived reason of good, v.g. of quiet itself from laborious investigation), doubt or suspension between each part can be converted into an opinionative judgment, at least on that side on which some motive of deciding appears. That judgment is made with fear of the opposite. But since that inclination of the intellect is made from the command of the appetitive faculty, there is not more of truth in opinion than in doubt properly so called.

5. Since conscience properly so called regards our action as such, of itself its certainty or doubt is practical. Nevertheless speculatively and practically certain or doubtful conscience is distinguished. The former is concerning the quality of the action considered in itself; the latter concerning the action as it will be done by me in the concrete.

What certainty is considered here. But observe that in our present condition we must be content, in practical matters in which principles must be applied to contingent facts, with a certainty less strict than that which is proper to speculative science. This certainty is called moral, because, according to the common estimation of men, it is sufficient for acting. "When I say conscience," says St. Thomas, "I do not say or imply knowledge only strictly accepted, as it is only of truths, but knowledge accepted in a broad way, for any cognition whatsoever, according as, in the common use of speaking, we are said to know everything which we know" ¹. Thus we say that we know what one upright man tells us is established to him; thus we think ourselves certain concerning validly received baptism, etc.

6. Since what is reported to us is not the habitual state, but the present fact of our life, conscience properly so called always signifies an act. There is no habitual conscience. Yet for rightly judging we are aided by habits. Hence, besides actual conscience, there is also distinguished habitual conscience, which is a habit or inclination, partly acquired, toward making moral judgments. Improperly, however, conscience is sometimes called the very potency or faculty of eliciting moral judgments.

¹ De veritate, q. 17 art. 2 ad 2.

— How many kinds of habitual conscience there are. Taken for a habit, conscience is called tender or timorous, which with outstanding rectitude discerns slight reasons of good or evil.

Scrupulous is that which is agitated in its judgments by illegitimate fear.

Lax is that which is accustomed to be deceived by false excuses. It can also be called harder, insofar as, when the reason of evil has been perceived, it is moved with greater difficulty.

Strict, on the contrary, or rather rigid, is that which cannot use an equitable tempering of obligations, or epikeia: therefore it is incomplete.

Pharisaic is that false conscience which the Lord noted in the Pharisees: these, strict in the smallest matters, were found lax in greater duties, or also by a certain graver hypocrisy were disguising those things from themselves and others (Cf. St. Matt. 23, 23-24 [printed: 24, 24]).

Finally, cauterized is the false conscience which is almost lacking in the very sense or appetite of honesty. The name is taken from 1 Tim. 4, 2.

The distinction of conscience into actual and habitual divides the treatise into two titles, one concerning actual conscience, the other concerning habitual conscience.

First we shall speak of conscience as it is an act, then of the habit.

— Conscience properly means knowledge or immediate relation concerning our internal facts. This is psychological. In moral theology it is the moral judgment which, according to principles of things to be done, we elicit concerning our action. It is distinguished as antecedent and consequent, according as it precedes or accompanies and follows action; right or erroneous, according as of itself it judges according to truth, or by accident errs, whether vincibly or invincibly. It is also certain or doubtful, and that speculatively, concerning the action considered in itself, or practically, concerning the action as it will here and now be posited by the agent. With the appetitive part intervening, there is the quieting testimony of a good conscience, and the remorse of consequent evil conscience.

As the herald by whose mediation the laws of our actions are applied to us, conscience is the proximate rule of our actions.

Because of the moment which is in habits, besides actual conscience, habitual conscience is also distinguished; this is a habit, partly acquired, of making moral judgments. Habitual conscience is called, according to its varied quality, tender or timorous, scrupulous, lax, strict or rather rigid, pharisaic, cauterized.