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Aquinas’ theory of the conscience

Aquinas’ theory of the conscience involves his theory of natural law ethics.
It is based on the claim that God has designed human nature with the purpose (telos) of following his moral law.
Telos is the idea that a thing has a particular nature which orientates its behaviour towards its natural end or good.
For human beings, this means God has designed our nature to have reason which comes with the ability to know and follow God’s natural moral law.
God gave us reason (ratio).
Reason has a power called synderesis which allows us to know the primary precepts.
Conscientia describes the entire process of the conscience, where we then apply the primary precepts to moral actions/situations and figure out what we should do. This is how we gain secondary precepts.
The ‘synderesis rule’ is that we have the tendency to do good and avoid evil.
Conscience is the whole process of synderesis and conscientia together. Conscience is the means by which we achieve our telos.
Guilt. Our reason knows which actions are good and which are bad, and causes us to feel guilty. This is because deep down, we know through our reason if we have done something bad.
Aquinas says this is how the conscience ‘witnesses’, ‘binds’ and ‘torments’ us.
Vincible & Invincible ignorance. We shouldn’t feel guilty for all bad things we do though – if we do bad due to ignorance but we couldn’t have known better, then that’s not our fault. Aquinas calls that ‘invincible ignorance’ – ignorance that could not have been prevented.
If we do something bad out of ignorance, but we could and should have known better, then that is our fault. Aquinas calls that ‘vincible ignorance’ – ignorance that could have been prevented.

Counter argument:

Telos is unscientific.
At the beginning of the enlightenment period, scientist Francis Bacon realised that Aristotle and Aquinas’ concept of ‘telos’ was unscientific.
The modern scientific view is that the universe is just composed of atoms and energy in fields of force. There is no space in our scientific understanding of the universe for anything like purpose or telos to exist.
Physicist Sean Carroll concludes purpose is not built into the ‘architecture’ of the universe.
Human nature might behaviourally orient us, but this too can be explained by evolution.
Evolution in a herd species will generate instincts like empathy. These are not intrinsically ‘moral’ behaviours from a God, they are just what were evolutionarily advantageous to our species.
So again, science can explain everything about us without the need for the concept of telos – making it an unscientific concept.
Human nature is not the result of anything God-given like telos.

Evaluation:

This critique of Aquinas is successful because of the clear power of science.
Science has transformed our world through its immense explanatory power. Although it cannot absolutely disprove telos, it does show that we have no reason to believe that telos exists. Ockham’s razor further justifies this approach. We are justified in believing the simpler explanation that works. If we have a scientific explanation it is simpler than those which require supernatural beings.
Aquinas’ theory fails – scientific approaches are better explanations.

Freud’s theory of the conscience

Freud thinks that what we call ‘conscience’ is really just the result of the way we are raised to control our animalistic instincts.
He claimed there are three parts to the human mind:
The Id is our unconscious instincts
The Ego is our conscious self-aware decision-making self
The Super-ego is our mind’s memory of the social rules (our society’s morality) conditioned into us by authority figures during childhood
The conscience is just the interaction between these three parts of the mind.
E.g. there’s a desire for food which bubbles up from the Id into the Ego, so you become aware of wanting food. However, your Super-ego tells you that it’s class-time right now, so you can’t eat. You then have to choose whether to obey your super-ego and feel frustrated or give in to your Id and feel guilty about breaking society’s rules.
This explains conscience without reference to anything supernatural like God.
Freud’s theory of psycho-sexual development explains how we acquire this dynamic between the id, ego and superego. Freud thought children had to learn to control the Id in stages. If self-control is not learned at each stage, it can lead to problems later in life.
Oral stage – Babies interact with the world through putting things in their mouth.
Anal stage – children must learn to control going to the toilet – they can control too much or little.
Phallic stage – Oedipus/Electra complex develops
Latency stages – 6-puberty – gender roles learned, sexual desire develops and is learned to be controlled/repressed.
Mature genital stage – Controlled sexual desires result in a desire for love and marriage. A person now has a fully developed conscience where the ego controls the Id with reference to the superego.

Counter

Freud is not a proper scientist – he didn’t do any real experiments, he studied a small sample size of people who were not a good cross-section of society.
Because of this, Popper said Freud’s theories were ‘unfalsifiable’ and thus not real science. Freud’s theories do not make predictions which could be wrong, which is the hallmark of genuine science for Popper.

Evaluation

Piaget is a more rigorous scientist and although he didn’t agree with Freud on everything, he defended Freud’s central thesis, that the conscience is just the result of the way we raise children.
Freud might have been unscientific in many of his ideas, but the claim that conscience is the result of conditioning/socialisation is scientifically accurate, as shown by Piaget.
Contemporary research in psychology also shows Freud was right that we can have little awareness about the unconscious origin of our emotions and desires.

Natural law ethics & Cross-cultural moral variation

A strength of Freud and a weakness of Aquinas’ approach is cross-cultural moral differences.
Fletcher argues a weakness of Aquinas’ approach is cross-cultural moral differences.
Aquinas claimed that conscience involves the ability of reason to know the primary precepts, to guide us towards our good end (telos). But if that was true, it should be universally true of all humans regardless of their culture. We would expect to find more moral agreement.
Different cultures have different moral views – e.g. some countries are more religious and thus ban euthanasia, but other countries allow euthanasia.
Not only is there disagreement, it tends to fall along cultural boundaries. Culture and social conditioning is therefore the better explanation of what determines our moral compass, not telos. This was the view of psychologists like Freud and Skinner. Their scientific approach looks stronger than Aquinas’.

Counter

Aquinas would disagree – he would say that even though there’s disagreement there is still a core set of moral views all cultures share which is very similar to the primary precepts..
Everyone agrees that killing for no reason is wrong, everyone agrees an orderly society is good, reproduction is good, education is good.
Moral disagreement could just be the result of sinful and corrupt cultures and original sin.

Evaluation

However, we have other, better, more scientific explanations of the core moral views found in all cultures.
Richard Dawkins argued our moral sense partly came from evolution – which programmed us with empathy to care about other people, reproduce, educate, etc, all of which is evolutionarily advantageous for a herd species like us.
Furthermore, there is just a practical requirement for a society to exist. Imagine a culture started allowing killing and stealing – it would fall apart and end. So no special explanation of cross-cultural moral codes is needed.
Conscience isn’t God’s design directing us towards our telos then. It’s from evolution, social conditioning and social practicality.
Aquinas’ supernatural explanation of explain cross-cultural moral agreement is an unnecessary hypothesis.
Aquinas’ whole theory of natural law is better explained by scientific analysis of the nature and nurture that goes into human moral decision making.
Freud’s scientific approach is a simpler and better explanation of our moral compass than Aquinas’ theological approach.
So, we do not need the idea of natural law built into us by a God as our telos. That is an unnecessary hypothesis.
Aquinas’ views are a reflection of his medieval cultural perspective, not a genuine morality.

Question preparation

Key paragraphs:

Freud
Aquinas
The issue of cross-cultural moral disagreement

Question types:

Questions could focus on:
Freud’s view of the conscience.
Freud’s theory of psycho-sexual development.
Aquinas’ view of the conscience.
Aquinas’ theory of vincible & invincible ignorance.

How convincing is Aquinas’ theory of vincible & invincible ignorance? [40]

You link this in the following way:
First explain Aquinas’ theory of conscience: how we have an innate ability to know the primary precepts (synderesis), which causes feelings of guilt if we disobey them.
However – sometimes it’s not our fault when we violate the primary precepts. If we do something wrong unintentionally, due to ignorance – then Aquinas says whether we are responsible for it and should feel guilt over it depends.
It depends on whether our ignorance was vincible (we could and should have known better) or invincible (we couldn’t have known better).
It only makes sense to feel guilt and be responsible for bad actions done due to vincible ignorance. E.g. whoever was in charge of the grenfell tower. It’s unlikely they intended it to happen – but they could and should have known better that it could happen.
Counter with scientific critique of telos
Then do Freud – Freud would reject Aquinas’ theory of conscience and the concept of vincible/invincible ignorance that comes with it. We are in/vincibly ignorant regarding the application of the primary precepts – which Freud would say we simply are not born with the ability to know.
Evaluate
Cross-cultural moral differences
Evaluate

Weirdly worded questions:

Does the conscience exist at all, or is it just an umbrella term for things like culture, nurture, genes, etc. [40]

This is the idea that there isn’t a set ‘thing’ in us called the conscience (similar to Fletcher’s view that it’s a verb not a noun).
Aquinas believes it exists in us innately due to God’s design.
Freud believes it exists as something conditioned into us by socialisation.
Our genetic make-up is responsible for our Id, whereas our ego and super-ego are formed by culture and nurture.
Biologists like Dawkins add that genetics and evolution could also play a role in addition to socialisation.
So if we accept all these scientific explanations, the conscience is an umbrella term for various naturalistic factors – of which Freud’s is just one.
The evidence of cross-cultural similarities would be evidence that conscience exists. Aquinas would say it’s evidence that it exists due to God, whereas the evolution counter would say no it just exists due to natural selection. Combined with the cross-cultural disagreement – that suggests it’s also due to social conditioning as Freud suggests.

Does Freud make more sense of guilt than Aquinas? [40]

explain and evaluate their theories as normal, but make sure to emphasise the role guilt plays in the AO1:
Aquinas: guilt occurs when we do something our reason has judged to be immoral (through synderesis & conscientia). Our reason tells us the primary precepts and how they apply, so it tells us what is morally good. If we then go against that, we are doing what we deep down know to be wrong, so we feel guilt. Aquinas says our conscience ‘witnesses, torments and rebukes’ us if we do something wrong – causing feelings of guilt.
For Freud, guilt is a response we learn in childhood when disobeying authority figures. When being disciplined for misbehaviour, children feel guilt and shame and associate it with the action they did. Later in life, those same feelings of guilt can can be triggered by the super-ego when we do something or even think about doing something which goes against our conditioning.