Page:An introduction to ethics.djvu/129

 of persons and moral actions, it is called conscience. Conscience is, indeed, simply consciousness dealing with moral life.

(2) But conscience also includes feeling. When conscience judges that such and such an action is wrong, we immediately feel that it is wrong. If my conscience judges that an action which I have committed is wrong, I immediately feel remorse. In addition to this, all moral judgments involve some emotional accompaniments. All moral judgments deal with moral conduct, and however impartial the judgment purports to be, it is always accompanied by the feelings natural to our attitude to the person or persons whose conduct is being judged. Our liking or dislike, our friendship or coolness, our love or hatred for a man will, however hard we try to exclude them, tinge the judgments we pass on his conduct.

Both reason and feeling are comprehended within the self. And conscience is the whole self, as reasoning and feeling, as estimating the rightness and wrongness of actions, in accordance with some moral standard, and with reference to some moral ideal, as sympathising with the various motives which influence it, and as weighing the consequences that will probably follow from its actions. Conscience is simply the moral aspect of personality or self-consciousness. The man's whole personality, when he engages in moral action or makes a moral judgment, is his conscience.

§ 6. Conflicts of Conscience. Conflicts may occur within the conscience itself. Conscience may not be harmonious. It may not be consistent in its