Conscience: An Interdisciplinary View: Salzburg Colloquium on Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities / Edition 1

by G. Zecha, P. Weingartner

Overview

Value change and uncertainty about the validity of traditional moral convictions are frequently observed when scientific research confronts us with new moral problems or challenges the moral responsibility of the scientist. Which ethics is to be relied on? Which principles are the most reasonable, the most humane ones? For want of an appropriate answer, moral authorities often point to conscience, the individual conscience, which seems to be man's unique, directly accessible and final source of moral contention. But what is meant by 'conscience'? There is hardly a notion as widely used and at the same time as controversial as that of conscience. In the history of ethics we can distinguish several trends in the interpretation of the concept and function of conscience. The Greeks used the word O"uvEt81lm~ to denote a kind of 'accompanying knowledge' that mostly referred to negatively experienced behavior. In Latin, the expression conscientia meant a knowingtogether pointing beyond the individual consciousness to the common knowledge of other people. In the Bible, especially in the New Testament, O"uvEt81l0"t~ is used for the guiding consciousness of the morality of one's own action.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789027724526
Publisher:	Springer Netherlands
Publication date:	03/31/1987
Series:	Theory and Decision Library A: , #1
Edition description:	1987
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.03(d)

Table of Contents

1 / Conscience: Foundational Aspects.- Conscience as Principled Responsibility: On the Philosophy of Stage Six.- Discussion.- The Phenomenon of Conscience: Subject-Orientation and Object-Orientation.- Discussion.- 2 / Conscience: Social and Educational Aspects.- Value-Neutrality, Conscience, and the Social Sciences.- Discussion.- Moral Competence and Education in Democratic Society.- Discussion.- The Idea of Conscience in High School Students. Development of Judgments of Responsibility in Democratic Just Community Programs.- Discussion.- 3 / Conscience: Special Topics.- Conscience in Conflict?.- Discussion.- Aquinas’ Theory of Conscience from a Logical Point of View.- Discussion.- The Ambivalent Relationship of Law and Freedom of Conscience: Intensification and Relaxation of Conscience Through the Legal System.- Discussion.- Psychoanalysis and Ethics.- Discussion.- Index of Names.- Index of Subjects.

Editorial Reviews

‘This book presents an excellent overview of theoretical and empirical issues in the investigation of conscience. ... a rich source of integrative modern thinking. I would like to recommend this book to students and scholars in philosophy, education, social and comparison of the important notions of human sciences, and to all those who are concerned about the responsibility of mankind in the face of political and ecological trends endangering this world of ours.'
Prof. Dr. Fritz Oser, University of Fribourg, Switzerland

From the Publisher