The Moral Conscience

At the moment of acting, man hears within him a judgment that says to him: “this, you must do,” or “this, you must not.” This inner voice, which discerns good from evil in our concrete acts, is the moral conscience. It is what is most intimate and most personal in the moral life, for it is by it that each one stands before the good and answers for it. But conscience is often misunderstood: it is made now a mere feeling, now an infallible judge that would authorize all one feels. Reason, in examining it, discovers a reality higher and more demanding: a judgment that must always be followed, and which one nonetheless has the duty to enlighten.

What conscience is

Conscience is a judgment of reason. Before a precise act, here and now, the intelligence applies what it knows of good and evil, and concludes: this act is good, I must do it; that one is evil, I must avoid it. It is this concrete judgment that is called the moral conscience. It is distinct from the general knowledge of the good, which says “lying is evil”; conscience descends into the particular and says “what I am about to say is a lie, therefore I must not say it.” It is the application to the present case of the principles that reason knows.

This capacity to judge one’s own acts is universal: every man, even without written law or religion, bears within him this sense of good and evil. Saint Paul observes it among the pagans who had not received the Law of Moses and yet fulfilled its requirements: “They show that what the Law commands is written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness at the same time by thoughts which, on either side, accuse or defend them.” Romans 2:15. Conscience accuses or defends: it approves the good act and reproaches the evil one. It is what produces remorse after the fault, and peace after the good accomplished. This law, inscribed by God in the heart of every man, is the sign that the good is a truth which reason recognizes, prior to all human convention.

The duty to follow one’s conscience

The first principle is that man must always act according to his conscience. Since conscience is the judgment by which I see, here and now, what is good, to act against it is to act against what I hold to be the good, hence to do what I believe to be an evil. And to do what one believes evil is always a fault, even if the act were good in itself. The one who would do a good action while convinced that it is evil would sin, for he chooses what he takes to be the evil. Saint Paul states it clearly: “All that does not proceed from a conviction is sin.” Romans 14:23. This is why no one must be forced to act against his conscience: there is here a requirement of human dignity, for man cannot deny himself in what he has most intimate without betraying himself.

But this principle is often distorted. To follow one’s conscience does not mean to do what one feels, nor to judge freely what is good according to one’s taste. Conscience binds because it is a judgment of reason seeking the true, not a whim. To say “I follow my conscience” therefore does not authorize one to decree good and evil at will: it engages one rather to follow an upright judgment, which supposes having formed it.

Conscience can be mistaken

For conscience, being a human judgment, can err. It can hold for good what is evil, or for evil what is good. Saint Paul speaks thus of a weak conscience, ill-enlightened, among those who still believed wrongly in eating certain meats: “Their conscience, which is weak, is defiled.” 1 Corinthians 8:7. A conscience can be mistaken for many reasons: ignorance of the true principles, the habit of evil that dulls the judgment, the passions that incline one to justify oneself, or the bad influences that distort one’s view.

One must then distinguish two situations. Sometimes the error does not come from us: one has judged wrongly without being able to know, despite an honest search. This ignorance, which is called invincible, is not a fault, and the man who follows in all good faith such a conscience is not guilty of his error. But often the error comes from our negligence: one did not inform oneself, one closed one’s eyes, one let the passions or comfort obscure the judgment. That ignorance is culpable, for one had the duty to know and did not will it. One then answers not only for the evil act, but for the negligence that distorted the conscience.

The duty to form one’s conscience

From this comes the second principle, which balances the first: since conscience can be mistaken, man has the duty to form it. One must follow one’s conscience, but one must first enlighten it, so that the judgment one will follow may be just. To form one’s conscience is to seek the truth about the good: to reflect, to learn the true moral principles, to examine one’s acts with uprightness, to be wary of one’s own passions. It is a work of the whole life, never finished, for the human heart ceaselessly inclines to justify itself.

For the believer, this formation has a sure light. Conscience seeks the true good; now God, who knows perfectly the good of man, has made it known by his law and by the teaching of the Church. To form oneself by this light is to give one’s judgment the help of revealed truth, so as not to go astray, rather than to renounce judging for oneself. True freedom of conscience is therefore not the power to judge as one wishes, but that of seeking the true in order to judge well. Thus the two principles meet: one always follows one’s conscience, and this is why one must, with all one’s strength, make it upright. The aim of all this work is the one Saint Paul designates, a life of love springing from an upright heart: “A charity coming from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere faith.” 1 Timothy 1:5.