The Nature Of Conscience

Conscience is a thing which many people do not seem to understand.  The word itself is the term referring to the sense of moral outrage or relief seated in our moral feelings; it is our sense of right and wrong.  Rightly so, the Bible describes it highly, as it was implanted in humanity by God.  Romans 2:14-15 describes it as causing us to perceive ourselves to be justified or condemned according to our actions:

"(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)"

What is the nature of conscience, its significance, and its fatal weakness?  Is it sufficient grounds upon which to believe in the existence of morality?  Is it reliable?  Is it sacred?

Conscience seems innate in most people--by this I mean that many claim to possess and act as if have moral feelings or preferences that are not learned by societal conditioning.  I know that I myself have had moral ideas not obtained from my culture or family because they disagreed with what my family and culture actually taught.  However, I do not mean by this, as some Christian apologists state or imply, that we can have any certain moral knowledge from our conscience or that we can "just know" that a moral claim is true.  A written example of people claiming that certain moral truths are self-evident would be the Declaration of Independence, which declares that the following content of the document is held to be "self-evident" by its authors and contributors, including the moral judgments made against the king of England at that time and the moral rights credited to all humans.  But something is not self-evident because it strikes someone as seemingly obvious or because most or all people agree upon it; something is self-evident if its denial brings the denier into contradiction.  For instance, someone who denies that truth exists, that some knowledge is possible, or that logic is reliable contradicts himself or herself as soon as he or she articulates or thinks such a thing, because such truths as the ones being denied are unavoidable, necessary, and self-verifying.  Moral claims do not have this property and thus are not self-evident.

This has not stopped apologists like William Lane Craig from acting like moral truths are self-evident or telling people (at the very least, strongly implying to people) that they can trust their moral intuitions and emotions in and of themselves.  Of course, these apologists rarely acknowledge the dramatic differences in moral beliefs across societies or how subjective conscience really is.  As shocking as it may seem to some people, conscience did not prevent the ancient Spartans from practicing state-authorized infanticide of babies with birth defects; it did not keep the Nazis from experimenting upon, scapegoating, discriminating against, abducting, and gassing Jews; it did not stop the Romans from normalizing war rape, torturing people to death for up to weeks, or denying natural/Biblical rights to non-citizens; it did not keep the Assyrians from taking pleasure in flaying the skin from captives in military campaigns.  Since conscience is an emotive and malleable thing, even cultures which share similar values like justice or patriotism have such wildly differing specifics that their moral philosophies are irreconcilable, far from being similar in any comforting sense.  Because of the subjectivity of conscience someone's moral sense can easily be rerouted, deadened, and changed by societal conditioning.  This is why countries with allegedly the same values have engaged in such different moral practices and held such opposing moral beliefs past a superficial level.  Just because humans generally have an innate moral sense does not mean that those moral feelings or senses agree on any extensive level.

The error of some in secular society is to conclude that because people and societies do not ultimately have the same moral practices and beliefs, therefore there are no moral truths.  Of course individuals and cultures disagree wildly about morality!  But that has nothing to do with whether or not objective moral truths exist.  Objective morality simply means that some things are right or wrong regardless of the context, culture, era, intentions, etc.  Obviously, no amount of disagreement on ethics or hopefulness that moral responsibilities do not exist will ever affect any existing moral obligations, as they would exist independent of human preference, perception, and awareness.  To believe that no moral truths exist because people disagree is to base one's belief in the nonexistence of morality on a major non sequitur fallacy, for it does not follow from disputes about morals that therefore moral truths do not exist; appealing to moral disagreement is grounds for moral skepticism, not moral nihilism.

With the definition of conscience and an explanation of why moral truths are not self-evident presented, now I can explain the usefulness of conscience.  Conscience is subjective, thus unreliable as a source of moral epistemology.  This is demonstrated by its sometimes arbitrary conclusions and by the astonishing lack of consensus between cultures, eras, and individuals about what the specifics of morality are.  I am not saying that morality is subjective but that without special divine revelation everyone is at best lost in subjective moral views with no way to determine who is correct.  However, precisely because conscience is so intimate and subjective, it therefore can restrain the the actions of individuals although it is an unsound foundation for an actual moral system.  Guilt can serve as such a strong emotion or sensation that it will prevent people from doing things they feel are wrong even though no one is around--or they may feel terrible about things they have done in complete solitude, with no way to be found out by others.  Indeed, conscience can be very subjectively compelling, but it never can amount to a reliable basis even for belief in morality, as it does not follow from the fact that I have a conscience that there is even such a thing as morality itself.  But if we inhabit a moral universe, any conscience at all is better than no conscience, so despite its subjectivity, it can at least offer some moral motivation and perspective.

If God did not exist, there would be no such thing as a moral authority in the universe.  There would be nothing to imbue a moral dimension into human existence and humans would merely have arbitrary, malleable, shifting moral emotions or perceptions that they either inherited from a particular society or that they happen to subjectively experience on their own.  This allows for things like murder, adultery, perjury, injustice, bestiality, robbery, racism, and the slave trade to be inherently wrong and for things like giving to the poor, kindness, justice, and honesty to be inherently good, as God's existence provides an actual ontological justification for moral truths.  If God does not exist, there is no philosophical anchor for morality.

It is the facts that 1) morality cannot exist unless God exists and 2) conscience is unreliable which mean that, since morality is tied to the existence and nature of God, God must reveal morality to us for us to have any actual moral knowledge.  Left to myself, I can know that I strongly dislike rape, kidnapping, and racism, but in order for me to actually know that those behaviors are morally wrong I must have God specifically reveal moral ontology to me--and know that I have correctly judged these moral ideas to come from God.  That is, I cannot simply select a religious text at random and say that I "have faith" in it, I must actually have consistent and verifiable [1] reasons why I believe that this divine revelation is true.  Likewise, I cannot legitimately assume a religion is true and then say that anyone who believes in logic at all has to also assume along with me that my specific religion is true to have a basis for believing in logic; this is the error of Christian presuppositionalists, who believe that one is justified in simply presupposing Christianity (but not Islam, Mormonism, Judaism, or Wicca, though!) and that any logical or moral claim operates within a philosophical framework borrowed from Christianity, consciously or unknowingly.  Instead of presupposing either Christianity or the truth of my moral preferences, I can provide extensive evidence for Christianity as a worldview and then point to particular verses in the Bible as grounds for condemnation of certain actions.

As a Christian I cannot just point to Romans 2 and say, "See!  Every person knows morality deep down inside!"  This is obviously false considering the information I have presented.  Just because most people have some loose moral principles that they find themselves compelled by their hearts to act upon does not mean that they actually know the details or ontology of morality.  So when Christians read Romans 2 and ignore these facts, they arrive at the belief that conscience is a sufficient basis for moral beliefs when they are in reality in grave error.  Conscience can be compelling, it can be moving, it can be powerful--but it is not inherently reliable.


Summary of observations:
1. Most people have innate moral intuitions, feelings, or preferences.
2. These moral intuitions, feelings, and preferences are subjective and thus by themselves do not serve as an adequate basis for moral knowledge.
3. Moral truths are not self-evident.
4. Conscience can restrain the actions of individuals even though it is only a subjective and sometimes arbitrary impulse.
5. Morality does not exist if God does not exist.
6. Actual moral knowledge, as opposed to moral feelings or perceptions, must be revealed by God.


[1].  In this context I mean verifiable in the sense that I can verify it to the best of my ability considering my epistemic limitations.  For instance, I cannot verify in the truest sense the existence of atoms no matter how many scientific experiments I run and monitor, but I can verify using my experiences that unless the world is different than I perceive atoms do exist.  There is a sharp division between things I can prove and know with absolute certainty (meaning there is no way I could be incorrect) and things which seem true based on my experience but could still be false.  While I can prove that an uncaused caused that I call God exists, I cannot prove that it is the Christian God, and so I am left with the ability to make an excellent case for Christianity based on the world as it appears to me (history, science, etc).