Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Conscience
Conscience
Conscience
CONSCIENCE
“To follow one’s conscience “
• To follow feelings or emotions
• To follow law or custom
• Blind obedience to the inspiration of God
• Follow personal freedom and autonomy
“The capacity to make practical judgments in matters involving ethical issues”
Conscience
• Involves reasoning about moral principles
• Must be rooted in reality and truth and not on mere will or desire or blind choice
• Sound, true and certain conscience- own perception, sound education, understanding of natural law,
traditional wisdom, teachings of family and Church, experience
• Conscience can be in error as when one misunderstands principles, misjudges facts or is led by
misguided affections
• One is culpable of an erroneous decision of conscience only within one’s capability and freedom to
prevent the error.
Qualities of Conscience
A. Personal freedom
- Free
- Unfree- impeded by some obstacles such as fear and anger
B. Objective Value
- correct- subjective conforms to the objective moral values
- Objective- norms of morality
- Erroneous- lack of conformity to the objective norms of morality
- Culpable- one is in error and therefore responsible
- Inculpable- has erred in good faith
D. Degree of certitude
- Perplexed- wrong if you don’t do; wrong if you did
- Doubtful- lack of sufficient evidence
- Probable- made a decision already but still admitting the possibility that the opposite is true
- Certain
CONSCIENCE FORMATION
• Faced with a specific ethical dilemma, one should use his conscience.
• Making moral decisions demand mature responsibility
• A fully mature and responsible conscience should be free, correct, clear and certain
• Discerning what is right and what is wrong
• We must follow our decision only after we have done our best to search for the truth regarding the
issues facing us
Theories of Ethics
• Utilitarianism- telos- “end”
- right action is that which has the greatest utility and no action is in itself either good or bad
- consequentialism- action is judged as good or bad in relation to the consequence, outcome or end
that is derived from it
- “the end justifies the means”- sometimes it is possible to do wrong to achieve “right”
- the only right action are those that produce the greatest happiness to all concerned
Utilitarianism
- “Primary responsibility is to support the interest of the group”
- Example: One child policy of China
Poor man stealing to feed his family
Teleology
• Advantages:
- easy to use
- can justify many decisions based on the happiness principle
• Disadvantages:
- average happiness of all or total happiness for few
- harm can be done to the minority
- what constitutes happiness? Who determines what is good?
- end justifies the means
Deontology
• Deon- “duty”- “duty oriented”
- rationalist view that the rightness or wrongness of an act depends upon the nature of the act rather
than the consequences that occur as a result of it
- human beings have the freedom, thoughtfulness and sensibility to act in a moral manner- knows what
he/she ought to do
- Respect for person worth/dignity
- Person’s action right if it follows moral rules-fair, honest, doing good
- A person’s action is wrong, without exception, if it violates these rules
• Deontology
- Consequences (-), action still ethically right if the original motive is consistent with moral precepts
-Kantianism- “ One treats others always as ends and never as a means” – respect for person- making a
person’s end your own- treating others the same way you treat yourself
- Nurses code of ethics- importance of fulfilling duties that are inherently owed to patients
Deontology
- The nurse is duty bound to act under moral rules that establish the right or wrong :
a. duty to honor a patient’s autonomy
b. duty to promote good and well-being
c. duty to be just and fair
d. duty to do no harm
e. duty to tell the truth
f. duty to keep promises and confidentiality
- A person has free will and self-determination and can refuse any medical or nursing treatment or
procedure
- A right action is only right if it is done out of sense of duty
• Advantages
- provides clear guidelines for judging the rightness and wrongness of an act
- recognizes the dignity and autonomy of individuals and allows all people equal consideration
• Disadvantages
- problem with disregard for consequences
- all ethical precepts are viewed as equally important
- exceptionless and rigid
CONSCIENCE FORMATION
• Diligently learning the laws of moral life
• Seeking expert advice on difficult cases
• Asking God for light through prayer
• Removing the obstacles to right judgment
• Personal examination of conscience
“My conscience is my guide”
“What I don’t know can’t hurt me”
“It is God’s will”
Conscience Formation
• At times, when faced with a specific ethical dilemma, one can often not find a solution that is satisfying
to everybody. One should be willing to struggle with the issue, move beyond opposing views to a realm
of moral certitude and make the required hard choices.