A conscience is a cognitive process that elicits emotion and rational associations based on an individual's moral philosophy or value system. Conscience is not an elicited emotion or thought produced by associations based on immediate sensory perceptions and reflexive responses, as in sympathetic central nervous system responses. In common terms, conscience is often described as leading to feelings of remorse when a person commits an act that conflicts with their moral values. The extent to which conscience informs moral judgment before an action and whether such moral judgments are or should be based on reason has occasioned debate through much of modern history between theories of basics in ethic of human life in juxtaposition to the theories of romanticism and other reactionary movements after the end of the Middle Ages.
Religious views of conscience usually see it as linked to a morality inherent in all humans, to a beneficent universe and/or to divinity. The diverse ritualistic, mythical, doctrinal, legal, institutional and material features of religion may not necessarily cohere with experiential, emotive, spiritual or contemplative considerations about the origin and operation of conscience.Ninian Smart. The World's Religions: Old Traditions and Modern Transformations. Cambridge University Press. 1989. pp. 10–21. Common secular or scientific views regard the capacity for conscience as probably genetically determined, with its subject probably learned or imprinted as part of a culture.Peter Winch. Moral Integrity. Basil Blackwell. Oxford. 1968
Commonly used metaphors for conscience include the "voice within", the "inner light",Rosemary Moore. The Light in Their Consciences: The Early Quakers in Britain 1646–1666. Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA. 2000. , or even Socrates' reliance on what the Greeks called his "daimōnic sign", an averting (ἀποτρεπτικός apotreptikos) inner voice heard only when he was about to make a mistake. Conscience, as is detailed in sections below, is a concept in national and international law, is increasingly conceived of as applying to the world as a whole,Booth K, Dunne T and Cox M (eds). How Might We Live? Global Ethics in the New Century. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge 2001 p. 1. has motivated numerous notable acts for the public goodAmnesty International. Ambassador of Conscience Award. Retrieved 31 December 2013. and been the subject of many prominent examples of literature, music and film.Wayne C Booth. The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction. University of California Press. Berkeley. 1988. p. 11 and Ch. 2.
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In the literary traditions of the Upanishads, Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita, conscience is the label given to attributes composing knowledge about good and evil, that a soul acquires from the completion of acts and consequent accretion of karma over many lifetimes.Ninian Smart. The World's Religions: Old Traditions and Modern Transformations. Cambridge University Press. 1989. p. 382 According to Adi Shankara in his Vivekachudamani morally right action (characterised as humbly and compassionately performing the primary duty of good to others without expectation of material or spiritual reward), helps "purify the heart" and provide mental tranquility but it alone does not give us "direct perception of the Reality".Shankara. Crest-Jewel of Discrimination (Veka-Chudamani) (trans Prabhavananda S and Isherwood C). Vedanta Press, Hollywood. 1978. pp. 34–36, 136–37. This knowledge requires discrimination between the eternal and non-eternal and eventually a realization in contemplation that the true self merges in a universe of pure consciousness.Shankara. Crest-Jewel of Discrimination (Veka-Chudamani) (trans Prabhavananda S and Isherwood C). Vedanta Press, Hollywood. 1978. p. 119.
In the Zoroastrian faith, after death a soul must face judgment at the Bridge of the Separator; there, evil people are tormented by prior denial of their own higher nature, or conscience, and "to all time will they be guests for the House of the Lie."John B Noss. Man's Religions. Macmillan. New York. 1968. p. 477. The Chinese concept of Ren, indicates that conscience, along with social etiquette and correct relationships, assist humans to follow The Way (Tao) a mode of life reflecting the implicit human capacity for goodness and harmony.AS Cua. Moral Vision and Tradition: Essays in Chinese Ethics. Catholic University of America Press. Washington. 1998.
Conscience also features prominently in Buddhism.Jayne Hoose (ed) Conscience in World Religions. University of Notre Dame Press. 1990. In the Pali scriptures, for example, Buddha links the positive aspect of conscience to a pure heart and a calm, well-directed mind. It is regarded as a spiritual power, and one of the "Guardians of the World". The Buddha also associated conscience with compassion for those who must endure cravings and suffering in the world until right conduct culminates in right mindfulness and right contemplation.Ninian Smart. The Religious Experience of Mankind. Fontana. 1971 p. 118. Santideva (685–763 CE) wrote in the Bodhicaryavatara (which he composed and delivered in the great northern Indian Buddhist university of Nalanda) of the spiritual importance of perfecting virtues such as generosity, forbearance and training the awareness to be like a "block of wood" when attracted by vices such as pride or lust; so one can continue advancing towards right understanding in meditative absorption.Santideva. The Bodhicaryavatara. trans Crosby K and Skilton A. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 1995. pp. 38, 98 Conscience thus manifests in Buddhism as unselfish love for all living beings which gradually intensifies and awakens to a purer awarenessLama Anagarika Govinda in Jeffery Paine (ed) Adventures with the Buddha: A Buddhism Reader. WW Norton. London. pp. 92–93. where the mind withdraws from sensory interests and becomes aware of itself as a single whole.
The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote in his Meditations that conscience was the human capacity to live by rational principles that were congruent with the true, tranquil and harmonious nature of our mind and thereby that of the Universe: "To move from one unselfish action to another with God in mind. Only there, delight and stillness ... the only rewards of our existence here are an unstained character and unselfish acts."Marcus Aurelius. Meditations. Gregory Hays (trans). Weidenfeld and & Nicolson. London. 2003 pp. 70, 75.
The Islamic concept of Taqwa is closely related to conscience. In the Qur’ān verses 2:197 & 22:37 Taqwa refers to "right conduct" or "piety", "guarding of oneself" or "guarding against evil".Sachiko Murata and William C. Chittick. The Vision of Islam. I. B. Tauris. 2000. pp. 282–85 Qur’ān verse 47:17 says that God is the ultimate source of the believer's taqwā which is not simply the product of individual will but requires inspiration from God.Ames Ambros and Stephan Procházka. A Concise Dictionary of Koranic Arabic. Reichert Verlag 2004. p. 294. In Qur’ān verses 91:7–8, God the Almighty talks about how He has perfected the soul, the conscience and has taught it the wrong (fujūr) and right (taqwā). Hence, the awareness of vice and virtue is inherent in the soul, allowing it to be tested fairly in the life of this world and tried, held accountable on the day of judgment for responsibilities to God and all humans.Azim Nanji. 'Islamic Ethics' in Singer P (ed). A Companion to Ethics. Blackwell, Oxford 1995. p. 108.
Qur’ān verse 49:13 states: "O humankind! We have created you out of male and female and constituted you into different groups and societies, so that you may come to know each other-the noblest of you, in the sight of God, are the ones possessing taqwā." In Islam, according to eminent theologians such as Al-Ghazali, although events are ordained (and written by God in al-Lawh al-Mahfūz, the Preserved Tablet), humans possess free will to choose between wrong and right and are thus responsible for their actions; the conscience being a dynamic personal connection to God enhanced by knowledge and practise of the Five Pillars of Islam, deeds of piety, repentance, self-discipline, and prayer; and disintegrated and metaphorically covered in blackness through sinful acts.John B Noss. Man's Religions. The Macmillan Company, New York. 1968 Ch. 16 pp. 758–59 Marshall Hodgson wrote the three-volume work: The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization.Marshall G. S. Hodgson. The Venture of Islam, Volume 1: The Classical Age of Islam. University of Chicago Press. 1975 . Winner of Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize.
In the Protestant Christian tradition, Martin Luther insisted at the Diet of Worms that his conscience was captive to the Word of God, and it was neither safe nor right to go against conscience. To Luther, conscience falls within the ethical, rather than the religious, sphere. John Calvin saw conscience as a battleground: "the enemies who rise up in our conscience against his Kingdom and hinder his decrees prove that God's throne is not firmly established therein".Calvin, Institutes of the Christian religion, Book 2, chapter 8, quoted in: Many Christians regard following one's conscience as important as, or even more important than, obeying human authority.Ninian Smart. The World's Religions: Old Traditions and Modern Transformations. Cambridge University Press. 1989. p. 376 According to the Bible, as enunciated in Romans 2:15, conscience is the one bearing witness, accusing or excusing one another, so we would know when we break the law written in our hearts; the guilt we feel when we do something wrong tells us that we need to repent."Ninian Smart. The World's Religions: Old Traditions and Modern Transformations. Cambridge University Press. 1989. p. 364 This can sometimes (as with the conflict between William Tyndale and Thomas More over the translation of the Bible into English) lead to moral quandaries: "Do I unreservedly obey my Church/priest/military/political leader or do I follow my own inner feeling of right and wrong as instructed by prayer and a personal reading of scripture?"Brian Moynahan. William Tyndale: If God Spare My Life. Abacus. London. 2003 pp. 249–50 Some contemporary Christian churches and religious groups hold the moral teachings of the Ten Commandments or of Jesus as the highest authority in any situation, regardless of the extent to which it involves responsibilities in law.Ninian Smart. The World's Religions: Old Traditions and Modern Transformations. Cambridge University Press. 1989. p. 353 In the Gospel of John (7:53–8:11, King James Version), Jesus challenges those accusing a woman of adultery: "'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.' And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one" (see Jesus and the woman taken in adultery). Of note, however, the word 'conscience' is not in the original New Testament Greek (with the exceptions of the use of the word συνείδησις (synēidēsis) in the letters to the Corinthians and Romans, which is transliterated into Latin for the word translated into English as "conscience") and is not in the vast majority of Bible versions. In the Gospel of Luke (10:25–37), Jesus tells the story of how a despised and heretical Samaritan (see Parable of the Good Samaritan) who (out of compassion or pity; the word 'conscience' is not used) helps an injured stranger beside a road, qualifies better for eternal life by loving his neighbor than a priest who passes by on the other side.Guthrie D, Motyer JA, Stibbs AM, Wiseman DLJ (eds). New Bible Commentary 3rd ed. Inter-Varsity Press, Leicester. 1989. p. 905.