ConscienceRightly Formed & Otherwise

Darlene Fozard Weaver

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I am suspicious enough of the Disney em-pire to feel skeptical that it will prove anally in the moral education of my new

son. Take Disney's Pinocchio, In this versionof the classic Italian children*s tale, JiminyCricket advises the puppet Pinocchio whoaspires to become a real hoy: Always let yourconscience he your guide. As an ethicist andparent, what quarrel could 1 have with thisadvice?

For one thing, once anointed as Pinocchio's conscience,Jiminy i.s not very reliable. His first day on the job he over-sleeps, allowing the unwitting Pinocchio to fall in with ascheming pair wh(i prcjmptly sell him to a puppeteer. Whyalways follow conscience, if conscience is unreliable?

There is another thing about Disney's Pinocchio that both-ers me. When the Blue Fairy animates Pinocchio, she tellshim that to become a real boy he must he brave, truthful, andunselfish. Jiminy Cricket proceeds to instruct Pinocchio onhow to do that by stressing the importance of resisting temp-tation. This instruction assumes that temptation is the basicchallenge of the moral life. It seems to me that just as often,if not more so, the challenge we face is moral confusion. Iftemptation is the phenomenon of attraction to what we knowis wrong, hasn't conscience already done its work? Isn't therest left to deciding—to the will? Moral confusion, though,is exactly the arena of conscience. Conscience is meant todispel the confusion and determine the morally best thing todo. Now, temptation and moral confusion are really not sodistinct, because attraction to what is not good is itself a kindof confusion. That is why the prospect ofan unreliable con-science is so unsettling and the duty to form a good tine sopressing.

Darlene Fozard Weaver is an assistant professor of theolo^ atVillanova University, where she teaches Christian ethics. She is theauthor o/Self Love and Christian Ethics (Cambridge Universi-ty Press).

The prevalence of moral subjectivism is an important chal-lenge today to the formation of conscience. Moral subjec-tivism holds that individuals determine for themselves whatis good or evil, right or wrong. As my students often say, weshould not "impose our beliefs" on others. In this view, con-science formation seems to consist of developing a personalmoral code that is faithful to...well, what? Because there isnothing outside of the self that grounds morality, "Always letyour conscience be your guide" becomes a version of "Be trueto yourself." This is not necessarily bad advice. But unlessone would be so bold as to say {as the logic of subjectivismholds) that an individual can never be morally mistaken,since the individual is the source of morality, then subjec-tivism offers no way beyond moral confusion and heightensthe unreliability of conscience. Moreover, if "always let yourconscience be your guide" means "be true to yourself," one'sown goodness is the goal of the moral life, a notion at oddswith Christian faith.

An alternative may be, then, to develop conscience ac-cording to some external moral authority, like the church.The church is indeed an indispensable help in conscienceformation. Yet, given human finitude and sin, the problems

"These are really great. 1 hate making decisions."

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of reliability and moral confusion remain. What's more, torevise Jiminy's advice to "always let the church be your guide"misses the fundamentally personal (and hence subjective)character at conscience. Forming conscience rightly does notmean hiind obedience to the moral teaching of any commu-nity, including the church, for blind ohcdience does not in-clude a personal appropriation of moral conviction in freedomand with understanding. In short, blind obedience cheatsconscience of its dignity.

So what's a wooden hoy to do? A look at the meaning ofconscience in Catholic moral tradition will clarify what is atstake in ohjective and subjective accounts of conscience andpoint to requirements for forming conscience well.

A brief history of conscience

The term conscience means, etymologically, "with knowing."It generally refers to human knowledge of right and wrong,and thus encompasses our moral consciousness, process ofmoral decision making, and settled moral judgments or de-cisions, This range is hroad enough to permit disagreement,varied emphases, and considerable ambiguity among partic-ular ethical accounts of conscience. The word conscience de-rives from the Latin conscientia, which is itself a translationoi the Greek syneidesis. Ancient and hiblical texts also dc-scrihed moral knowledge by employing metaphorical refer-ences, such as the heart: "In the secret of my heart teach mewisdorn" (Ps 51). Conscience appears tnainiy in a judicialrole, judging actions we have already done. Ethicists identi-fy this operation of conscience as the consequent conscience.Feelings of guilt and remorse over a misdeed, for example,are the "pangs of conscience." Not until St. Paul's letters dowe hegin to see textual acknowledgrnent of a more future-oriented work of conscience in coming to moral decisionsabout what actions to do or to avoid. Paul gestures at thisfunction of conscience—the antecedent conscience—in his dis-cussion of eating meat that has heen sacrificed to idols (1 Cor8). He urges Christians who ate strong in their faith to exer-cise their freedom in ways that will not scandalize their neigh-bors. Conscience thus wt)rks not only in a judicial role assessingactions already performed; it works legislatively as well, dis-cerning the mtJtally good course of action in view of respon-sibility to others.

Debates over objective and subjective accounts of con-science concern the antecedent conscience. What is at issueis the basis of our moral decisions and convictions. Again,St. Paul's letters are important, especially Romans, which de-velops the nature of conscience. "For when the Centiles wbodo not have the law by nature ohservc the prescriptions ofthe law, they are a law for themselves even though they donot have the law. They show that the demands of the law arewritten in their hearts, while their conscience also beats wit-ness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even defendthem" (Rom 2:14-15). Conscience is a capacity for moral

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Discomfort in dealing withmorally confusing issues

shouldn't prompt us to cut shortthe church's process of moral

reflection. In fact the Schiavo casealerted us to the productive

possibilities of "moral confusion"in the formation of conscience.

knowledge that belongs to human nature. Catholictradition affirms an objective moral order discernible in theinclinations, needs, capacities, and goods of human existence,a natural law that gives shape and content to the good Godwills for and with us in our earthly life and for eternity. Thelaw God gives is thus compatible with—indeed, is the con-dition for—human flourishing. Pinocchio illustrates this point.Being good would make him a real hoy. By being bad Pinoc-chio was literally making a jackass of himself.

Medieval theologians systematically addressed theconnection between conscience and human natureby developing a distinction found in St. Jerome he-

tween syneidesis and syrukresis. The distinction was actuallybased on a scribal mistake, and did ntit originate with Jerome.Still, it became a standard feature of Catholic treatments ofconscience. Thomas Aquinas, for example, argued that s>'n-deresis is our capacity to know the first principles of morali-ty (such as "seek gcxxi, avoid evil"), while syneidesis (conscience)is the activity of applying these principles to particular situ-ations, like whether or not to withhold information from an-other, the permissibility of making personal long-distancephone calls from your workplace, or what, if anything, youowe to starving children in Niger. For Aquinas, in apprehend-ing and applying moral principles, human beings participatein the divine law. Conscience thus has both subjective andobjective dimensions, relating as it does to our personal par-ticipation in the moral order that God establishes and willfulfill

In the teaching manuals that dominated moral the<")logyinstruction from the sixteenth century until Vatican II,Catholic moral tradition moved to an emphasis on the ob-jective character of conscience. The manuals were used fortraining priests, especially in their sacramental duties. Moraltheology following the Council of Trent developed with aview toward the confessitm of sins. In this penitential frame-work, the manuals emphasized conscience as the applicationof general principles to particular concrete situations. ThepnKess was basically deductive; one consulted the moral lawsthat were relevant to one's situation, and reasoned from themto the wrongness or permissibility of particular actions (forexample, theft is wrong; making personal long-distance calls

from my workplace is a kind of theft; therefore, I ought notmake them). This approach to conscience privileges a formof reasoning, which, while not without merit, neglects othersources of moral insight, such as what we intuit from out emo-tions. It implies that morality is principally a matter of laws,which, of their nature, serve to constrain or limit our acting.In contrast to earlier understandings of conscience, the morallaw now seems opposed to human freedom. It has becomeprincipally a set of rules specifying actions to avoid ratherthan delineating the conditions necessary for our flourishing.If the moral law God establishes is compatible with and con-ducive to our got)d, then it cannot metely be a limit to ourfreedom; rather, the moral law denotes those qualities of being,ways of acting, and forms of relationship necessary for ourflourishing. The manualist view of conscience also tended tomake the moral life seem atomistic, a scries of discrete acts,rather than the total and unique life ofa person. Discussionof the virtues and growth in sanctification were not absent,but they were subordinated to the legal framewt rk that dom-inated the manuals.

The meaning of conscience today

Vatican 11 invired a correction t)f this legalistic, act-centeredapproach to moral theology in favor of a more person-cen-tered one, but the council itself offers an ambiguous portraitof conscience. According to Gandium et spes: "In the depthsof his conscience, man detects a law which he does not im-pose on himself, but which holds him to obedience....Con-science is the most secret core and sanctuary ofa man. Therehe is alcme with God, whose voice echoes in his depths." Twothings are going on here. First, conscience does not createright and wrong, hut witnesses to an objective moral law thatconfronts and obliges the person. Second, conscience is de-picted as the innermost and inviolable part of the person. Itis "secret," meaning its content and workings are not fullyknowable hy others. As a "sanctuary," conscience designatesthe person's moral dignity as a free and responsible agent;thus, coercing the conscience of another or acting againstone's own conscience violates the person. Yet, even as a per-sonal core and sanctuary, conscience is not simply private.Rather, Gaudium et spes describes conscience in a dialogicalfashion. As the innermost and inviolable part of the person,conscience is our encounter with the God who made us andwills our good. This means that conscience is accountable toGod. Hence, a right conscience is one that discerns, and ori-ents our acting in ways that are compatible with the moralorder God establishes in the work of creation, salvation, andsanctification.

Thus on one hand, conscience refers to a moral law out-side of us that we must obey, and on the other hand, it refersto the voice of God echoing in the deepest part of ourselves.This leads to some tension, since the former suggests that thework of conscience is obedient submission to moral laws that

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are objective and hence universally binding, while the lattersuggests that conscience is the activity of discerning God'sparticular will for me. This second account seems to permitmore creativity in the moral life. For example, you and I findourselves in similar situations, needing to determine how tocare for an aj ing parent whose health and memory arc fail-ing. Given our different capacities and resources, additionalobligations, relationships with our parents, and their partic-ular needs and wishes, what is morally good for you to do (say,placing your parent in a home) may not be what is morallygood for me to do.

What if the situation we share is the imminent andpainful death of a parent hecause of a terminal ill-ness? May we say that the decision to wait on nat-

ural death or to actively bring it about is similarly a matterof discerning what is right in your situation and what is rightin mine.' Put baldly, can assisting in euthanasia be wrong foryou but right tor me? The church teaches that active euthana-sia is always wrong. But what if my conscience tells me, afterconsiderable prayer, discussion, and deliberation, that my caseis an exception to this rule, or that the rule itself is wrong?The magisterium asserts that the person must always act ac-cording to her conscience. Yet what are we to make of thoseinstances when the subjective verdict of an individual's con-science is contrary to what the church teaches as being al-ways objectively wrong?

This tension between objective and subjective dimensionsof conscience is the crux of current debates in Catholic moraltheology. In his 1993 encyclical Veritam splendor, Pope JohnPaul 11 criticized some moral theologians for advocating a"creative" model of conscience. A creative model of con-science postulates that our dignity as persons is tied to ourmoral responsibility, which we can exercise only by assum-ing the gift and burden of freedom in the concrete circum-stances of our lives. This approach needn't deny an objectivemoral order, but it is unlikely to view it as static, or as includ-ing very specific moral rules. Advticates for this approachconstrue objective moral norms as general guidelines thatcannot in themselves account for the moral complexity ofparticular cases that individuals confront. Tbey suggest thatthe magisterium's categorical rejection of certain sorts of ac-tion, like active euthanasia, may actually inhibit and unnec-essatily trouble the individual's freedom of conscience. JohnPaul argued that these theologians misconstrue the relationof personal freedom and the moral law: freedom of conscience,he said, is upheld and protected not by setting it in opposi-tion to the objective moral order—one authentically inter-preted by the magisterium—but hy enabling our free choicesto conftjrm to tbe moral law. Whatever creativity befits thework of conscience, it does not render conscience itself thesource of right and wrong. For the pope and the magisteri-um, the conscience ot a person who determines that activeeuthanasia is good—even if rarely—is mistaken.

Still, since there are so many types of issues that fall across

the moral spectrum, a conscience that dissents from churchteaching on a particular question is not necessarily wrongipso facto. Catholic moral teachings are not equally settled,specitic, or authoritative, and some particular teachings change.Consider, for example, the complex matter of caring for per-stms in a persistent vegetative stave (PVS), as Terri Schiavowas for fifteen years. Granting tbe church's teaching that ac-tive euthanasia is always wrong, how are we morally to un-derstand the decision to finally disconnect Schiavo's feedingtube?

Some commentators have pointed to an address hy PopeJohn Paul II to a group of medical professionals in which hestated that artificially providing nutrition and hydration toPVS patients is an ordinary and proportionate form of care,and, as such, is morally obligatory. The authoritative statusof the address in question is unclear. Respectful considera-tion of it requires placing it within John Paul II's full teach-ing on human life and the Catholic moral tradition's rich,nuanced approach to end-of-life care. The latter includes re-sources to warrant the judgment that in some cases it is moml-ly permissible to withhold nutrition and bydration.

Tbe urgency occasioned hy the removal of Scbiavo's feed-ing tube requires careful attention to the complexity of ourtradition. Furthermore, discomfort in dealing with morallyconfusing issues shouldn't prompt us to cut short the church'sprocess of moral retlection. In fact, the Schiavo case alertedus to the productive possibilities of "moral confusion" in theformation of conscience. It heightened reflection on the med-ical issues involved in PVS and other medical conditions,raised issues related to living wills and substituted judgment,and threw light on the relationship between morality andcivil law. But tbe Schiavo case also challenged our consciencesabout broader concerns: What is the moral significance offeeding as a form of human care? What claims and obliga-tions do parents have with regard to their adult, married chil-dren? Wherein lies the dignity of human life? How are ouranswers to these questions shaped by our own fear of death,of incapacitation, of our dependency on others, and their de-pendency on us ?

Since human beings are, as our faith teaches, a unity ofbody and soul, how do we care for human bodies when theylive apparently without the characteristics we associate withour ensoulment—-consciousness, freedom, responsibility?What does it mean, concretely, to honor our body-soul unityin a culture that values some kinds of bodies but not others,that glorifies autonomy and self-sufficiency? Such questionsare vital for educating our consciences, given the powerfulways our needs, historical circumstances, and cultural process-es shape our moral sensibilities.

Catholic moral theology has long addressed the prob-lem of an erroneous conscience by distinguishing thesource of conscience's error. An invincibly ignorant

conscience refers to an error of which the person is unawareand for which she is not responsible. A nurse feeds a patient.

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and the patient dies as a consequence. The nurse hasahoiit the patient's death, but she acted with invincible igno-rance because she had no way of knowinji, or any reason tosuspect that the patient's relatives had poist)ned his food toobtain an inheritance upon his demise. A culpably ignorantctmscience, though, refers to an error for which the person isresponsible. A nurse who feeds a patient a meal that causes hisdeath is culpahly ignorant if she failed to inform herself of hislife-threatening allergies to certain foods. She ought to knowwhat adequate care of her patient required.

The distinction seems simple, yet considerahle ctintrovcr-sy surrounds the moral status ofthe person who performs anaction with an erroneous conscience. Ifthe error arises frominvincible ignorance, the action itself is objectively wrong,but the person who performs it is not subjectively guilty. Maywe go further and say that the person, since she strives to dowhat is right, is actually good? Does the action, although ob-jectively wrong, contribute to her goodness? Theologians alsodebate how much of our ignorance is culpable. The euthana-sia advocate's case is more complex than the nurse's. Doesthe "culture of death" John Paul discerned make us invinci-bly ignorant of what respect for life requires, since it infectsour basic moral sensibilities? Or do its effects on us signal ourculpable ignorance, a failure to examine critically pervasivesocial attitudes? Importantly, the fact that people can be cul-pably ignorant indicates that a well-formed conscience is notmerely a conscience in possession of facts or information, orone armed with pat moral rationales (whether they comefrom the magisterium or the sound bites offered, for exam-ple, in news reports on issues like emhryonic stem-cell re-.search or welfare reform). To form conscience well it is necessaryto desire the true and the good. So, avoiding both moral sub-jectivism and an objectivism that abdicates personal respon-sibility, what does it mean to form a good conscience?

The formation of conscience

Without resolving current debates about conscience, we mayaffirm several propositions. To begin, the proper formationof conscience is comprehensive. It is a lifelong process in-volving the total person—one's reason, emotions, embodiedand social experience, imagination, and intuition. Conscienceformation is the activity of moral self-transcendence, the con-scious and critical determination of those loves and loyaltiesthat constitute who we are and that frame our knowledge ofthe world. So conscience formation is comprehensive in thesense that it engages the whole person in the pursuit of thetrue and the good, and in the sense that it is a critical reflec-tion encompassing all the sources of and influences on ourmoral knowledge, including the cultural tendencies and struc-tures that distort our moral perception and co-opt our wills.

Second, Christian conscience formation requires partici-pation in the church. Forming conscience means coming toinhabit a moral world. For instance, when we try to teach our

"It's not my inner demons I'm worried about."ANDERSON

children it is good to share, we simultaneously affirm the im-portance of their personal boundaries, the interests of oth-ers, and the goods of kindness and mutuality. We thus locatethem in a world where others matter, and where our own hap-piness and well-being are tied ta theirs. For Christians, theprt5per formation of conscience crucially involves participa-tion in those practices that shape the identity ofthe churchand make Christian moral teaching intelligihle—practicesof breaking bread, forgiveness of sins, peacemaking, and doingjustice. Furthermore, participation in the church offers an in-dispensable resource for challenging our complacency, re-moving our blindness, and sustaining us in the work ofdiscipleship.

Finally, the proper formation of conscience requires faith.Faith here means more than assent to particular dogmas. Awell-formed conscience requires a living faith, the commit-ted and concerted cultivation of an intimate relationshipwith God. By steadfastly placing ourselves before God's lov-ing scrutiny, by accepting God's saving self-offer, we come toknow ourselves and the world truthfully, that is, in God. Aswe .share more deeply in the life t)f God (including the eccle-sial shape of that life), our experience of moral confusion elic-its less fear, and more love. How so? Faith, and faith alone,answers the problem of conscience's unreliability. This is nothecause faith guarantees the impeccable rectitude of con-science, but because faith tells us such perfection is neitherpossible nor necessary. Faith keeps it from scrupulosity as wellas complacency. Faith keeps conscience from evading theburden of freedom through blind obedience and from abus-ing the gift of freedom by presuming it has no conditions.Faith may keep conscience from dissent or lead conscienceto it. Whatever the case, faith keeps conscience from mis-taking ohedience, or freedom, or personal authenticity as itsaim. That is, faith keeps us from mistaking our own goodness(however we understand it) as the direct goal ofthe morallife rather than an indirect outcome of it. So, here is a lessonfrom Pinocchio that 1 will share with my son: a wtioden boybecomes a real one not because he is perfect, but because hegives his life in love for the father who made him. •

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