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Conscience - What is conscience?

Conscience - What is conscience?: Encyclopedia II - Conscience - What is conscience?

The 1913 Webster's dictionary defines conscience in the modern sense as the faculty, power, or inward principle which decides as to the character of one's own actions, purposes, and affections, warning against and condemning that which is wrong, and approving and prompting to that which is right; the moral faculty passing judgment on one's self; the moral sense. It quotes William Shakespeare's Richard III from the play of the same name as saying: My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, And every tongue brings in a several tale ...

Conscience: Encyclopedia II - Conscience - What is conscience?

Conscience - What is conscience?

The 1913 Webster's dictionary defines conscience in the modern sense as

the faculty, power, or inward principle which decides as to the character of one's own actions, purposes, and affections, warning against and condemning that which is wrong, and approving and prompting to that which is right;
the moral faculty passing judgment on one's self;
the moral sense.

It quotes William Shakespeare's Richard III from the play of the same name as saying:

My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, And every tongue brings in a several tale, And every tale condemns me for a villain.

and William Whewell:

As science means knowledge, conscience etymologically means self-knowledge . . . But the English word implies a moral standard of action in the mind as well as a consciousness of our own actions. . . . Conscience is the reason, employed about questions of right and wrong, and accompanied with the sentiments of approbation and condemnation.

Any consideration of conscience must consider the estimate or determination of conscience and the resulting conviction or right or duty.

Adam Smith said:

Conscience supposes the existence of some such [i.e., moral] faculty, and properly signifies our consciousness of having acted agreeably or contrary to its directions.