Il est un point commun de la prise de conscience entre les spécialistes des sciences cognitives et les spécialistes des sciences du droit. Il s'agit d'un point aveugle (ou d'une tache aveugle) correspondant à un trou de l'oeil. Le cerveau ignore en pareille hypothèse la tache aveugle et il va " au-delà de l'information fournie par la rétine en faisant une supposition raisonnable sur l'image qui pouvait être dans la zone aveugle " (Christof Koch). C'est un procédé analogue sur (...) lequel repose régulièrement le droit. Celui-ci utilise la complétion, l'interpolation et le remplissage pour normer des situations de fait. Le droit – à la lumière des sciences cognitives – peut en être profondément bouleversé. (shrink)

An essay on the philosophy of human nature in Islam, this article examines the views of contemporary Western thinkers to creatively rethink the concept of fiṭra, not only from a theological perspective but also a scientific perspective. Drawing upon Islamic scholarship and previous research on the subject that explore the wide spectrum of connotations couched in the Arabic term fiṭra in comparison with Western perspectives, this study offers a fresh look at, and approach to, the concept of human disposition or (...) primordial nature, giving special attention to the biological, epistemological, and ethical dimensions, while most studies of fiṭra focus mainly on the theological and spiritual sides. It is hoped that this conceptual analysis will serve as a stepping stone towards a more nuanced understanding of fiṭra not only as (i) a natural tendency to act or think in a particular way, but also as (ii) the religious instinct, (iii) the power of the mind to think and understand in a logical way, and (iv) the inner voice or conscience of what is right and wrong in one’s conduct or motives that drives the individual towards right action. (shrink)

Quel est le substrat de la conscience? Qu'est-ce qui la fait? Poser la question signifie ne pas se satisfaire de la position naturaliste qui affirme que c'est le cerveau qui produit la conscience. En fait, toute explication qui situe son substrat dans le monde objectif est confrontée à une forme de circularité à la fois ontologique (la conscience est dans le monde qui est dans la conscience) et épistémique (la conscience explique le monde qui explique (...) la conscience). La phénoménologie transcendantale n'échappe pas à cette circularité. Et le caractère circulaire d'une vision globale de la réalité s'avère rédhibitoire dès lors qu'on est prêt à considérer subjectivité et objectivité sur le même niveau de dignité ontologique. Reste alors l'option d'aborder, sans préjugés, la question du substrat comme problème philosophique. Il s'agit de concevoir le substrat de la conscience comme un domaine d'être à part, situé en amont de toute objectivation. Un tel substrat est transcendantal, puisqu'il est condition de possibilité de toute connaissance. (shrink)

In "Nature and Conscience in Butler's Ethics," Nicholas Sturgeon argues that Butler's account of the role of conscience in morality is fundamentally Incoherent. Butler's emphasis upon conscience as the most superior principle rendering acts natural or unnatural is inconsistent with his tacit commitment to the "Naturalistic Thesis" that conscience always uses naturalness and unnaturalness as grounds upon which it bases its approvals and disapprovals. I argue that Butler is not committed to the Naturalistic Thesis, and hence (...) his views are saved from incoherence. This Thesis is not entailed, as Sturgeon claims, by two of Butler's central doctrines, and there are reasonable interpretations of the passages Sturgeon cites that do not conurlt Butler to the Thesis. Butler's view is that the logically primary perception-approvals of acts as virtuous and perception-disapprovals of acts as vicious by themselves can render acts natural and unnatural, respectively, without the need for conscience to rely upon some other superior principle to first determine the naturalness or unnaturalness of acts. (shrink)

Two years ago, a group of philosophers and bioethicists published what they called a 'Consensus Statement on Conscientious Objection in Healthcare'. The statement, called the Brocher Statement because the group met at a foundation of that name in Geneva, sets out ten points that should 'inform, at the level of legislations and institutional policies, the way that conscientious objections in healthcare is regulated'. The statement proposes a very low threshold for compelling the performance of a practice in violation of (...) class='Hi'>conscience, whether of an individual or of an institution, in healthcare. In so doing, it reflects the position advanced ten years earlier by the influential Australian philosopher, Julian Savulescu. Himself one of the group who proposed this 'Consensus Statement', Savulescu had claimed that '[a] doctor's conscience has little place in the delivery of modern medical care. What should be provided to patients is defined by the law and consideration of the just distribution of finite medical resources, which requires a reasonable conception of the patient's good and the patient's informed desires. If people are not prepared to offer legally permitted, efficient, and beneficial care to a patient because it conflicts with their values, they should not be doctors'. Such a policy would, I submit, fail to accommodate the legitimate scope for conscientious decision-making, which is at the heart of medical professionalism. (shrink)

There are few aphorisms in Minima Moralia that display a less sympathetic attitude towards their subject than “They, the people”(§ 7). Adorno denounces the “amor intellectualis for [the] kitchen personnel” in the subsequent aphorism, but “They, the people” already seems to confirm all suspicions about the alleged elitism of critical theory. The idea that intellectuals mostly encounter those less educated when “illiterates come to intellectuals wanting letters written for them” is laughable, even for the 1950s, and the claim that, among (...) the “underdogs”,“envy and spite surpass anything seen among literati or musical directors”(ibid.) oozes with contempt, no matter how much Adorno insists that these alleged character deficits result from the social structures in which uneducated, working class people find themselves. Yet the point of Adorno’s remarks is not to disprove a deferential form of a Lukácsian “standpoint theory …. (shrink)

This book compares Butler's and Wang's moral vision and conception of conscience. It seeks to advance our ongoing inquiry into the complex encounter between Christianity and Confucianism. The study shows that in both thinkers' treatises are profound consonances that could serve as framework for a constructive interaction between these two civilizations.

The Catholic Tradition requires the faithful to form and follow their conscience. This is the case even with the recognition that consciences can be malformed and one can make errors in practical judgments. Water Shaping Stone examines various aspects of this tradition regarding conscience by using, among other sources, twentieth-century magisterial documents, theologians' works, and Scripture. Kathryn Lilla Cox argues that while the Magisterium retains teaching authority, and a responsibility to help form consciences through its teaching, focusing only (...) on the Magisterium leads to incomplete formation. A more holistic vision of conscience formation means considering the formation of the moral agent to be a multifaceted process that draws on, for example, teaching, prayer, rituals, Scripture, practices, and virtues, along with relationships with the Triune God and communities of accountability. This vision of conscience formation retains the magisterial teaching authority while acknowledging discipleship as the theological basis for making and assessing practical judgments of conscience. (shrink)

Dans la continuité de leurs travaux communs des années 1980, Ernesto Laclau et Chantal Mouffe ont développé parallèlement une nouvelle théorie du populisme. Cet article la définit comme une double ontologie du politique, qui fait droit à la fois à l’inimitié, ou dimension dissociative, et à la délibération, ou dimension associative du politique. Pour distinguer leur approche des populismes de droite, Laclau et Mouffe recourent à un anti-essentialisme intransigeant qui écarte l’histoire des éléments décisifs pour la construction d’un sujet politique. (...) Ce faisant, ils assimilent les mouvements anticoloniaux et antiracistes conséquents au conservatisme ou à la réaction. Une insuffisante problématisation de la question raciale et du militantisme antiraciste, souvent invoqué mais jamais analysé par les auteurs, sont à la source de ces confusions. Cela exige une reformulation du populisme de gauche dont la question du pluralisme pourrait fournir le point de départ. (shrink)

This book presents in translation writings by six medieval philosophers which bear on the subject of conscience. Conscience, which can be considered both as a topic in the philosophy of mind and a topic in ethics, has been unduly neglected in modern philosophy, where a prevailing belief in the autonomy of ethics leaves it no natural place. It was, however, a standard subject for a treatise in medieval philosophy. Three introductory translations here, from Jerome, Augustine and Peter Lombard, (...) present the loci classici on which subsequent discussions drew; there follows the first complete treatise on conscience, by Philip the Chancellor, while the two remaining translations, from Bonaventure and Aquinas, have been chosen as outstanding examples of the two main approaches which crystallised during the thirteenth century. (shrink)

This authoritative study explores the relation of John Henry Newman's idea of conscience to what he called conscience "in the ordinary sense of the word." Grave argues that a proper understanding of this distinction is essential to a satisfactory understanding of Newman's thought wherever the notion of conscience enters into it. He examines some neglected difficulties in this area such as the relation between individual conscience and the authority of the church, and the matter of rights (...) of conscience. (shrink)

Background: Ethical nursing practice is increasingly challenging, and strategies for addressing ethical dilemmas are needed to support nurses’ ethical care provision. Conscientious objection is one such strategy for addressing nurses’ personal, ethical conflicts, at times associated with conscience. Exploring both conscience and conscientious objection provides understanding regarding their implications for ethical nursing practice, research, and education. Research aim: To analyze the concepts of conscience and conscientious objection in the context of nurses. Design: Concept analysis using the method (...) by Walker and Avant. Research context: Data were retrieved from Philosopher’s Index, PubMed, and CINAHL with no date restrictions. Ethical consideration: This analysis was carried out per established, scientific guidelines. Findings: Ethical concepts are integral to nursing ethics, yet little is known about conscientious objection in relation to conscience for nurses. Of note, both concepts are well established in ethics literature, addressed in various nursing codes of ethics and regulatory bodies, but the meaning they hold for nurses and the impact they have on nursing education and practice remain unclear. Discussion and conclusion: This article discusses the relevance of conscience and conscientious objection to ethical nursing practice and proposes a model case to show how they can be appreciated in the context of nurses. Conscientious objection is an option for ethical transparency for nurses but is situated in contentious discussions over its use and has yet to be fully understood for nursing practice. Conscience is an element in need of more exploration in the context of conscientious objection. Further research is warranted to understand how nurses respond to conscience concerns in morally, pluralistic nursing contexts. (shrink)

The lack of moral conscience in contemporary society is frequently noted and lamented, but how valid is the idea of "conscience" today? Does it have a referent, or is the concept merely rhetorical? Guyton B. Hammond proposes in this book that the concept is valid, but that for its utopian possibilities to be recovered it must be revised.

Oxford Legal Philosophy publishes the best new work in philosophically-oriented legal theory. It commissions and solicits monographs in all branches of the subject, including works on philosophical issues in all areas of public and private law, and in the national, transnational, and international realms; studies of the nature of law, legal institutions, and legal reasoning; treatments of problems in political morality as they bear on law; and explorations in the nature and development of legal philosophy itself. The series represents diverse (...) traditions of thought but always with an emphasis on rigour and originality. It sets the standard in contemporary jurisprudence.This book shows that civil disobedience is generally more defensible than private conscientious objection.Part I explores the morality of conviction and conscience. Each of these concepts informs a distinct argument for civil disobedience. The conviction argument begins with the communicative principle of conscientiousness. According to the CPC, having a conscientious moral conviction means not just acting consistently with our beliefs and judging ourselves and others by a common moral standard. It also means not seeking to evade the consequences of our beliefs and being willing to communicate them to others. The conviction argument shows that, as a constrained, communicative practice, civil disobedience has a better claim than private objection does to the protections that liberal societies give to conscientious dissent. This view reverses the standard liberal picture which sees private 'conscientious' objection as a modest act of personal belief and civil disobedience as a strategic, undemocratic act whose costs are only sometimes worth bearing.The conscience argument is narrower and shows that genuinely morally responsive civil disobedience honours the best of our moral responsibilities and is protected by a duty-based moral right of conscience.Part II translates the conviction argument and conscience argument into two legal defences. The first is a demands-of-conviction defence. The second is a necessity defence. Both of these defences apply more readily to civil disobedience than to private disobedience. Part II also examines lawful punishment, showing that, even when punishment is justifiable, civil disobedients have a moral right not to be punished. (shrink)

This study analyzes conscience as a specific cognition, as an axiological consciousness of a human act. The doctrine of Thomas Aquinas plays an important role here: He assumes conscience to be a cognition; his concept of conscience is quite significant and had great influence on philosophical thinking. Nevertheless, this doctrine on conscience is not satisfying enough from the viewpoint of epistemology and, therefore, it requires a complement. Such a complement is found in phenomenological analyses, especially in (...) those concerning consciousness. Underlying the main problem of the study--which is conscience as cognition--is the question of enriching Thomism with phenomenology."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Some physicians in the United States have strong moral objections to the recent bans or near total bans on abortion in this country. The objections are particularly vehement among those who have been abortion providers. They are concerned about the impact of the new restrictions on patients—on their lives and health, especially patients who are socially marginalized and will not be able to travel to “friendly” states to have abortions (i.e., states that legally permit abortions). They are also worried about (...) the status of women, which they fear will be unequal to that of men in a society where women are not permitted to make such intimate decisions about their lives. For these physicians, not to mention their patients, the bans on abortion are morally devastating. They, the physicians, might even feel compelled by their conscience to provide this care—to engage in what some call the “conscientious provision” of care—even though they could lose their careers and their freedom by doing so. There is currently no legal protection for the conscientious provision of abortion care in the U.S., although there is substantial protection for the conscientious refusal of that care. Physicians working in jurisdictions that have abortion bans put themselves at serious legal risk if they defy these bans for reasons of conscience. In general, their freedom of conscience is very low compared to that of physicians who conscientiously refuse to provide abortions in jurisdictions where abortions are still legal. Using theories of conscience and conscientious objection that I develop in Conscience in Reproductive Health Care (Oxford 2020), I argue that this situation is morally untenable. (shrink)

_Conscience and Corporate Culture_ advances the constructive dialogue on a moral conscience for corporations. Written for educators in the field of business ethics and practicing corporate executives, the book serves as a platform on a subject profoundly difficult and timely. Written from the unique vantage point of an author who is a philosopher, professor of business administration, and a corporate consultant A vital resource for both educators in the field of business ethics and practicing corporate executives Forwards the constructive (...) dialogue on a moral conscience for corporations Offers a philosophical and practical approach to considering business ethics. (shrink)

This article critically evaluates the conception of conscience underlying the debate about the proper place and role of conscience in the clinical encounter. It suggests that recovering a conception of conscience rooted in the Catholic moral tradition could offer resources for moving the debate past an unproductive assertion of conflicting rights, namely, physicians’ rights to conscience versus patients’ rights to socially and legally sanctioned medical interventions. It proposes that conscience is a necessary component of the (...) moral life in general and a necessary resource for maintaining a coherent sense of moral agency. It demonstrates that an earlier and intellectually richer conception of conscience, in contrast with common contemporary formulations, makes the judgments of conscience accountable to reason, open to critique, and protected from becoming a bastion for bigotry, idiosyncrasy, and personal bias. (shrink)

Richard Sorabji here presents a selection of his previously-published papers on four topics in ancient philosophy: two on the mind-body relation, nine on sense perception, and one each on moral conscience and on the will. The substantial introduction updates and interconnects the papers and fills out the picture by reference to other writings by himself and others, and to further thoughts. The picture of the four main topics shows that each continued to develop throughout the 1200 year course of (...) Ancient Greek Philosophy up to 600 CE. (shrink)

ch. 1. Conscience--the subjective norm of morality -- ch. 2. Conscience and law -- ch. 3. Relationship between conscience and law -- ch. 4. Holy Scipture on the nature of conscience -- ch. 5. Freedom and commitment of conscience -- ch. 6. The African and conscience with particular reference to the Igbos of Nigeria -- ch. 7. Igbo moral conscience in the light of cross-cultural education: Western civilisation and christianity.

This book walks readers through relevant Scripture passages on the topic of concience--a largely neglected topic in the church today--to offer guiding principles and practical advice for aligning our consciences with God's will.

Conscience-based refusals by health care professionals to provide care to eligible patients are problematic, given the monopoly such professionals hold on the provision of such services. This article reviews standard ethical arguments in support of conscientious refuser accommodation and finds them wanting. It discusses proposed compromise solutions involving efforts aimed at testing the genuineness and reasonability of refusals and rejects those solutions too. A number of jurisdictions have introduced policies requiring conscientious refusers to provide effective referrals. These policies have (...) turned out to be unworkable. They subject patients to a health care delivery lottery, which is incompatible with the fundamental values of medical professionalism. This paper sheds light on transnational efforts aimed at undermining progress made in reproductive health by means of conscientious refusal accommodation claims. The view that the accommodation of conscientious refusers is indefensible on consequentialist ethical grounds, as well as on grounds related to medical professionalism itself, is defended. (shrink)

In this volume, leading scholars in ethics, theology, and health care address conscience and how it relates to Catholic health care. Topics addressed include end-of-life care, abortion, and sterilization. The book is particularly useful for ethics boards and chaplains in Catholic hospitals, especially those merging with non-Catholic chains.

Conscience in Reproductive Health Care responds to the growing worldwide trend of health care professionals conscientiously refusing to provide abortions and similar reproductive health services in countries where these services are legal and professionally accepted. Carolyn McLeod argues that conscientious objectors in health care should prioritize the interests of patients in receiving care over their own interest in acting on their conscience. She defends this "prioritizing approach" to conscientious objection over the more popular "compromise approach" without downplaying the (...) importance of health care professionals having a conscience or the moral complexity of their conscientious refusals. McLeod's central argument is that health care professionals who are gatekeepers of services such as abortions are fiduciaries for their patients and for the public they are licensed to serve. As such, they owe a duty of loyalty to these beneficiaries and should give primacy to their beneficiaries' interests in accessing care. This conclusion is informed by what McLeod believes is morally at stake for the main parties to the conflicts generated by conscientious refusals: the objector and the patient. What is at stake, according to McLeod, depends on the relevant socio-political context, but typically includes the objector's integrity and the patient's interest in avoiding harm. (shrink)

Background: Conscience is an important concept in ethics, having various meanings in different cultures. Because a growing number of healthcare professionals are of immigrant background, particularly within the care of older people, demanding multiple ethical positions, it is important to explore the meaning of conscience among care providers within different cultural contexts. Research objective: The study aimed to illuminate the meaning of conscience by enrolled nurses with an Iranian background working in residential care for Persian-speaking people with (...) dementia. Research design: A phenomenological hermeneutical method guided the study. Participants and research context: A total of 10 enrolled nurses with Iranian background, aged 33–46 years, participated in the study. All worked full time in residential care settings for Persian-speaking people with dementia in a large city, in Sweden. Ethical considerations: The study was approved by the Regional Ethical Review Board for ethical vetting of research involving humans. Participants were given verbal and written study information and assured that their participation was voluntary and confidential. Findings: Three themes were constructed including perception of conscience, clear conscience grounded in relations and striving to keep a clear conscience. The conscience was perceived as an inner guide grounded in feelings, which is dynamic and subject to changes throughout life. Having a clear conscience meant being able to form a bond with others, to respect them and to get their confirmation that one does well. To have a clear conscience demanded listening to the voice of the conscience. The enrolled nurses strived to keep their conscience clear by being generous in helping others, accomplishing daily tasks well and behaving nicely in the hope of being treated the same way one day. Conclusion: Cultural frameworks and the context of practice needed to be considered in interpreting the meaning of conscience and clear conscience. (shrink)

Ce livre a pour objet d’évaluer l’apport de la physique quantique à l’explication du phénomène de la conscience. Après un état des lieux d’ordre sémantique, philosophique et neurobiologique de la question de la relation entre cerveau et conscience, les principaux modèles « classiques » actuels de la conscience sont exposés. Nous montrons que ces modèles laissent en suspens deux questions importantes : a) celle d’expliquer la synchronisation quasi-instantanée de régions éloignées du cerveau qui semble nécessaire à la (...) constitution de percepts conscients; b) celle du fossé explicatif qui existe entre l’expérience subjective, relevant de ce que le sujet est capable de ressentir de façon privée, et la description de ses corrélats neurophysiologiques dans le langage de la science, à la troisième personne – comment ces derniers « donnent-ils lieu » à l’expérience subjective?Les approches quantiques de la conscience plus récentes sont alors exposées de façon détaillée. Nous examinons dans quelle mesure elles peuvent contribuer à répondre à ces questions et proposer une représentation unificatrice intégrant les deux aspects psychique et physiologique du phénomène de conscience. (shrink)

In this volume leading ethicists and theologians address conscience, a term with loaded meaning and controversy in the Catholic Church in recent decades around issues like political participation, human sexuality, war and institutional violence, and theological dissent. Many essays in this challenging and far-ranging volume focus on the tension between the primacy of conscience (codified at Vatican II) and the processes and cultures of Catholic institutions, including schools, hospitals, and medical research facilities.

A number of health care professionals assert a right to be exempt from performing some actions currently designated as part of their standard professional responsibilities. Most advocates claim that they should be excused from these duties simply by averring that they are conscientiously opposed to performing them. They believe that they need not explain or justify their decisions to anyone; nor should they suffer any undesirable consequences of such refusal. Those who claim this right err by blurring or conflating three (...) issues about the nature and role of conscience, and its significance in determining what other people should permit them to do (or not do). Many who criticize those asserting an exemption conflate the same questions and blur the same distinctions, if not expressly, by failing to acknowledge that sometimes a morally serious agent should not do what she might otherwise be expected to do. Neither side seems to acknowledge that in some cases both claims are true: a conscientious professional should not do her professional duty AND others need not permit or excuse her refusal. I identify these conflations and specify conditions in which a professional might reasonably refuse to do what she is required to do. Then I identify conditions in which the public should exempt a professional from some of her responsibilities. I argue that professionals should refuse far less often than most advocates do . . . and that they should be even less frequently exempt for that failure. Finally, there are compelling reasons why we could not implement a consistent moral policy giving advocates what they want, likely not even in qualified form. (shrink)

La Conscience malheureuse est un ouvrage majeur de la philosophie existentielle des années trente. Jeune poète et critique roumain expatrié en France en 1923, Benjamin Fondane (1898-1944) fait partie de ces auteurs hantés par l'absence de Dieu dans la culture rationaliste moderne marquée par le positivisme. D'abord proche de l'esprit subversif du dadaïsme, il identifie rapidement sa révolte par l'absurde à la démarche ironique et irrationaliste du philosophe russe émigré en France Léon Chestov. C'est l'adhésion sans conditions à sa (...) philosophie existentielle à partir de 1929 qui lui permet de déconstruire la tradition du logos issue d'Athènes. Il ne cessera dès lors de dénoncer un conflit profond entre le " réel " construit par la culture rationaliste et l'existant singulier, entre le savoir et le " non-voir " des poètes et de certains mystiques, entre Athènes et Jérusalem: ce divorce intime, c'est celui de la " conscience malheureuse ". (shrink)

A growing number of medical professionals claim a right of conscience, a right to refuse to perform any professional duty they deem immoral—and to do so with impunity. We argue that professionals do not have the unqualified right of conscience. At most they have a highly qualified right. We focus on the claims of pharmacists, since they are the professionals most commonly claiming this right.

Conscience in World Religions is a unique collection of papers which allows the reader to compare and contrast the origins and development of the concept of conscience within different Christian traditions, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism. The first part of the book, based upon extensive research of the Christian debate of conscience, explores the dynamic relation between authority, revelation, and education for both the individual and the community. It provides the reader with an insight into approaches to and (...) interpretations of sources found within Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and Orthodoxy. The second part of the text provides an enthralling and scholarly study of the previously relatively unexplored Jewish, Islamic, and Buddhist viewpoints on the concept of conscience. This book is a thought-provoking collection for all those interested in exploring the many facets of this most fascinating of subjects. (shrink)

Conscience is often referred to yet not understood. This text develops a theory of cognition around a model of conscience, the ACTWith model. It represents a synthesis of results from contemporary neuroscience with traditional philosophy, building from Jamesian insights into the emergence of the self to narrative identity, all the while motivated by a single mechanism as represented in the ACTWith model. Emphasis is placed on clarifying historical expressions and demonstrations of conscience - Socrates, Heidegger, Kant, M.L. (...) King - in light of the ACTWith model, while at once turning these resources to developing the basic architecture. In the end, this text aims to enrich moral theory by improving our understanding of moral cognition, while at once providing a useful tool in everyday moral practice and self-development. (shrink)

This article investigates the question why even the existence of “moral conscience” became regarded with serious doubts among radical eighteenth-century French philosophes La Mettrie, d’Holbach, Diderot, and Voltaire, from the vantage point of conceptual history. The philosophes’ stance of regarding moral conscience only as a name for certain acquired prejudices both fails to engage with the conception of moral conscience upheld by their theistic opponents and stands in a sharp contrast to the moral thought of Protestant reformation, (...) which – less than two centuries earlier – had elevated moral conscience to a position of an infallible moral authority. The article argues, however, that, in spite of the opposition between these two conceptions of conscience, they might be connected, and that the former might have even been a consequence of the latter. It will be shown that the pre-Reformation conception of moral conscience, crystallized in Aquinas, presents it being based on our natural attraction to “the human good”. However, as this conception was not created by medieval theologians, but was inherited from non-theistic ancient philosophy, in principle it would have been as compatible with the deistic and atheistic worldviews of the philosophes as the other ancient philosophical concepts, such as “the human good” and “human nature”, that the philosophes continued using in their original, teleological senses. Having presented a brief overview of the history of moral conscience, the article proceeds to show how the Protestant reformers removed the attraction to the human good from moral conscience while making its normative guidance infallible. The article will suggest that, due to the prevalence of this, exclusively theological, conception of moral conscience in the intellectual environment shaped by Protestantism, several British thinkers of the seventeenth century, including Hobbes, Locke, and Hume, who could not endorse the theological aspects of moral conscience, gradually reduced it into a mere acquired “sentiment”. As their philosophy was a major influence on the philosophes, the article concludes that the loss of a rational justification for moral conscience in the works of the British philosophers could have also been what motivated the philosophes to question moral conscience. (shrink)

Conscience and Conscientious Objection of Health Care Professionals Refocusing the Issue Content Type Journal Article Pages 351-364 DOI 10.1007/s10730-009-9113-x Authors Natasha T. Morton, The University of Western Ontario Ontario Canada N6A 5B9 Kenneth W. Kirkwood, Arthur and Sonia Labatt Health Sciences Building London Ontario Canada N6A 5B9 Journal HEC Forum Online ISSN 1572-8498 Print ISSN 0956-2737 Journal Volume Volume 21 Journal Issue Volume 21, Number 4.