Conscience

Fr. Richard M. Gula, SS, „Conscience‟ and „The Formation of Conscience‟ (Chapter 9-10), in Reason
Informed by Faith: Foundations of Catholic Morality (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1989), 123-151.

Chapter 9
Conscience

“Conscience” is another word like “sin” – often pushed but little understood. Trying to explain
conscience is like trying to nail jello to the wall; just when you think you have it pinned down, part of it
being to slip away. This is really no surprise. We all know we have a conscience, yet our experiences of
conscience are ambiguous. We struggle with conscience when facing those great decisions in life, such as
the choice of a career, or of conscientious objection to war, or whether to pay our taxes which support
defend projects. Yet we even feel the pangs of conscience over petty matters, like jaywalking or taking
cookies from the cookie jar. We are told that conscience enjoys inviolable freedom, yet we are often
given rules so absolute in character that we conscience matters at all. What is this thing called conscience?
Which is the true conscience?

The first task is to clarify the important distinction between moral conscience and the superego,
a psychological notion of conscience. After establishing this distinction, we will be able to appreciate the
meaning of personal moral conscience in our theological tradition. Only then will we be ready to
consider the critical issue of formation of conscience. Chapter 10 will be exclusively devoted to that issue.
Chapter 11 will consider the relation of personal moral conscience to the moral teaching of the
magisterium, the official teaching office of the pope and the bishops.

Moral Conscience and the Superego

Psychology has helped us greatly in our efforts to be clear about the meaning of conscience. The
work of psychologists has helped us to understand the development of a mature conscience which is
subject to all the vagaries of the human experience of growth and development. Normally the pattern of
growth is from conscience subject to external control (when the moral backbone is on the outside and
we do what we are told to do by someone in authority, or what we see others do) to a more internal, self
directing conscience (when the moral backbone is on the inside and we do what we ourselves perceive to
be right and want to do).

In other words, a criterion of a mature moral conscience is the ability to make up one‟s mind for
oneself about what ought to be done. Note: the criterion says for oneself, not by oneself. The mature
conscience is formed and exercised in community in dialogue with other sources of moral wisdom. The
criterion also implies that if a person spends his or her whole life doing what he or she is told to do by
some authority simply because the authority says so, or because it is expected by the group, then that
person never really makes moral decisions which are his or her own. For moral maturity one must be
one‟s own person. It is not enough merely to follow that one has been told. The morally mature person
must be able to perceive, elect, and identify the self with what one does. On the moral level, we perceive
every election as a choice between an authentic or an inauthentic person. Or, as some would put it today,
we act either in character or out of character. In short, we give our lives meaning by committing to

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freedom. The morally mature adult is called to commit his or her freedom, not to submit it. As long as
we do not direct our own activity, we are not yet free, morally mature persons.

One of the most common errors and sources of confusion in talking about conscience, or in
examining conscience, is to mistake what the theologians mean by “moral conscience” with some
psychologists mean about conscience when speaking of the “superego.” We can appreciate this goal of
committing our freedom, or developing our character, as a morally mature person if we clear up the
confusion between moral conscience and superego which contaminates so much of our thinking and
conversing about moral conscience.

The conscience/superego mixup causes confusion about what it is we must form, follow,
examine, and whose freedom we must respect as morally responsible adults. So many concessions in the
Sacrament of Reconciliation are more clearly expressions of an overactive superego producing unhealthy
guilt than they are witness of an adult moral conscience renewing itself so that the moral person can
serve God more lovingly and faithfully. But the moral conscience is not the superego. What then is the
difference between them?

Psychologists of the Freudian school tell us that we have three structures to our personality: the
Id – the unconscious reservoir of instinctual drives largely dominated by the pleasure principle; the ego -
the conscious structure which operates on the reality principle to mediate the forces of he id, the
demands of the society, and the reality of the physical world; and the superego – the ego of another
superimposed on our own to serve as an internal censor to regulate our conduct by using guilt as its
powerful weapon, the superego is like an attic in an old house. Instead of furniture, it store all the
“shoulds” and “have-tos” which we absorb in the process of growth up under the influence of authority
figures – teachers, police, boss, sisters, pope, etc. Its powerful weapon of guilt springs forth automatically
for simple faults as well as for more serious matter. The superego tells us we are good when we do what
we are told to do, and it tells us we are bad and makes us feel guilty when we do not do what the
authority over us tells us to do.

To understand the superego we need to begin with childhood. As we development through

childhood, the need to be loved and approved is the basic need and drive. We fear punishment as
children not to its physical pain only, but more because it represents a withdrawal of love. So we regulate
our behaviour so as not to lose love and approval. We absorb the standards and regulations of our
parent or anyone who has authority over us, as a matter of self-protection. The authority figure takes up
a place within us to become the source of commands and prohibitions. Gordon Allport tells a delightful
tale which illustrates graphically the way an authority figure takes up a place within us so that not only
the content of the command but also the voice of the external authority arise from within.

A three-year old boy awoke at six in the morning and started his noisy play. The
father, sleepy-eyed, went to the boy‟s room and sternly commanded him, “get back into
the bed and don‟t you dare get up until seven o‟clock.” The boy obeyed. For a few
minutes all was quiet, but soon there were strange sounds that led the father again to
look into the room. The boy was in bed as ordered; but putting an arm over the edge, he
jerked it back in, saying, “Get back in there.” Next a leg protruded, only to be roughly
retracted with the warning, “You heard what I told you.” Finally, the boy rolled to the
very edge of the bed and then roughly rolled back, sternly warning himself, “Not until
seven o‟clock!” We could not wish for a clearer instance of interiorizing the father‟s role
as a means to self-control and socialized becoming.

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 At this stage the external voice of authority is in the process of becoming the
internal, or appropriate, voice of authority. The parents‟ task is to enlist the voice on
behalf of virtue, as the parents themselves conceive virtue.

To illustrate the prevailing theory at a somewhat later age, let us say the parents
take their son into the woods on a family picnic. Under their watchful eyes he picks up
the litter after lunch and disposes it. Perhaps a firm warning on a printed sign, or the
sight of a passing constable, may also act as a monitor of neatness. Here still the moral
backbone is on the outside.1

A simplified way of thinking about the difference between the superego and the moral
conscience is to distinguish between the “shoulds” or “have-tos” and the “wants” as the source of
commands directing our behavior. “Shoulds” and “have tos” belong to someone else. “Wants” belong to
us. As a friend of mine once reminded me, “Don‟t „should‟ on me. I don‟t want to be the way you think I
should be.” She had it exactly right.

The commands of the superego which tell us what we “should” do come from the process of
absorbing the regulations and restrictions of those who are the source of love and approval. We follow
the commands of the superego out of the fear of losing love, or out of our need to be accepted and
approved. The moral conscience, on the other hand, acts in love responding to the call to commit
ourselves to value. The commands of the moral conscience come from the personal perception and
appropriation of values which we discover in the stories or examples of persons we want to be like. The
moral conscience is the key to responsible freedom of wanting to do what we do because we value what
we are seeking. Whereas the “should” and “have-tos” of the superego look to authority, the “wants” of
the moral conscience look to personalized and internalized values. The conscience/superego mixup
helps us to understand in part what makes a person with an overly developed or overly active superego
have a difficult time distinguishing between what God is enabling or calling him or her to do from what
someone in authority says he or she “should” do.

John W. Glaser gives a more sophisticated contrast of the differences between the superego and
moral conscience in his valuable article, “Conscience and Superego: A Key Distinction.” 2 In the
accompanying chart, I have reconstructed Glaser‟s nine contrasting characteristics of the superego and
moral conscience. This listing is not intended to be exhaustive. I have added emphasis to the points of
contrast in Glaser‟s list, and I have slightly reworded his characteristics to bring his language into line
with what I am using here.

Glaser points out that the failure to distinguish between superego and moral conscience can
cause some serious pastoral confusion. For example, the belief that we can make a transition from grace
to serious sin and back to grace again easily and frequently leads to the phenomenon of mortal sin on
Friday, confession on Saturday, Communion on Sunday, and back to sin again on Monday. However, the
approach to serious sin which respects the dynamics of the theory of fundamental option, together with
an understanding of the difference between superego guilt and genuine moral guilt, challenges such a
belief that one can sin seriously, repent, only to sin seriously again – and do all this within a matter of
days! The nature of genuine moral conscience which are exploring in this chapter, together with the
dimensions of human freedom which we explored in Chapter 7, do not support such an easy transition.

1
Allport, Becoming (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955), pp. 70-71.
2
In C. Ellis Nelson, ed., Conscience: Theological and Psychological Perspectives (New York: Newman Press, 1973), pp.
167-188.

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 SUPEREGO CONSCIENCE
1. Commands us to act for the sake of 1. Responds to an invitation to love; in the very
gaining approval, or out of fear of losing act of responding to others, one becomes a
love. certain sort of person and co-creates self-
value.
2. Turned in toward self in order to secure one‟s 2. Fundamental openness that is oriented toward
sense of being of value, of being lovable. the other and toward the value which calls
for action.
3. Tends to be static by merely repeating a 3. Tends to be dynamic by a sensitivity to the
prior command. Unable to learn or demand of values which call for new ways
function creatively in a new situation. of responding.
4. Oriented primarily toward authority not a 4. Oriented primarily toward value: responds to
matter of responding to value, but of the value that deserves preference
obeying the command of authority blindly. regardless of whether authority recognizes
it or not.
5. Primary attention is given to individual acts 5. Primary attention is given to the larger
as being important in themselves apart process or pattern. Individual acts become
from the larger context or pattern of important within this larger context.
action.
6. Oriented toward the past: “The way we 6. Oriented toward the future: “The sort of
were.” person one ought to become.”
7. Punishment is the sure guarantee of 7. Reparation comes though structuring the
reconciliation. The more severe the future orientation toward the value in
punishment, the more certain one is of question. Creating a new future is also the
being reconciled. way to make good the past.
8. The transition from guilt to self renewal 8. Self-renewal is a gradual process of growth
comes fairly easily and rapidly by means of which characterizes all dimensions of
confessing to the authority. personal development.
9. Often finds a great disproportion between 9. Experience of guilt is proportionate to the
feelings of guilt experienced and the value degree of knowledge and freedom as well
at stake, for extent of guilt depends more as the weight of the value at stake, even
on the significance of authority figure though the authority may never have
“disobeyed” than the weight of the value addressed the specific value.
at stake.

Another area of pastoral confusion pertains to the appropriate form of moral counseling. An
approach which services superego needs would be oriented primarily toward individual actions apart
from their total context in one‟s life. Moral counseling sensitive to moral conscience and moral growth
would pay attention to the larger context of the person‟s life and to the values that deserve preference in
this context.

What would this distinction between superego and moral conscience look like when dealing with
a pastoral problem? Glaser offers some illuminating pastoral approaches to certain issues of sexuality (an
area notoriously susceptible to the tyranny of the superego) which respect the difference between the
superego and the moral conscience. For example, an actual case dealing with masturbation was resolved
by the counselor‟s refusing to respect the superego as if it were the conscience. It went like this:

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 A counselor told me of a case in which a happily married man with several
children had been plagued by masturbation for fifteen years. During these fifteen years
he had dutifully gone the route of weekly confession, communion, etc. The counselor
told him to stop thinking of this in terms of serious sin, to go to communion every
Sunday and to confession every six weeks. He tried to help him see his introversion in
terms of his own sexual maturity, in terms of his relationship to his wife and children.
Within several months this fifteen-year-old “plague” simply vanished from his life. By
refusing to follow a pattern of pastoral practice based on the dynamics of superego, this
counselor was able to unlock the logjam of fifteen years; by refusing to deal with the
superego as it were conscience, he freed the genuine values at stake; he allowed them to
speak and call the person beyond this present lesser stage of sexual integration. We can
pay rent to the superego but the house never becomes our own possession.3

Although basically a principle of censorship and control, the superego still has a positive and
meaningful function in our personalities. In children, the superego is a primitive but necessary stage on
the way to genuine conscience. In adults, the superego functions positively when integrated into the
mature conscience to relieve us from having to decide freshly in every instance those matters which are
already legitimately determined by convention or custom.

The difference between the working of the superego in the child and the adult is one of degree
and not of kind. In concrete cases, the superego and moral conscience do not exist as pure alternatives in
undiluted form. We experience a mixture of these in our discernment (deliberation). Fr. Frank McNulty
provides an illuminating example of this mixture in his account of the interior dialogue he experiences in
trying to decide whether to attend a wake service or not. This issue emerged when he did not think he
would be able to go to the wake because of a meeting he already had to attend. But meeting broke up
early, and thus the need for the decision. Here is the account of his interior dialogue.

“Good. I will have a chance to attend that wake.” (Conscience at work, saying, in effect:
“Frank, my friend just lost his father. Go to the wake; it will mean something to him.”)

“Wait a minute. I can‟t go to that wake. I‟m not wearing clerical clothes. Priests don‟t go
to wakes dressed like this.” (Superego warning about making a “bad” appearance, facing
disapproval.)

“Why not? The important thing is consoling the bereaved. It‟s an act of charity. Look at
Jesus and his example in Scripture, at how good he was to Mary and Martha when
Lazarus died. Did he worry about what he was wearing? (Conscience back again.)

“What will people think? Remember I was taught that a priest should even carry a hat to
a wake. I don‟t have to do that, but at least I have to wear my clericals.” (Superego)

“But I gotta go. I have time. The family would like to see me there. It will mean a lot to
them. I‟ll probably be the only priest there, since they don‟t know priests in the parish
too well. Go to the wake. (Conscience)

3
Ibid., p. 182.

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 “Well, if I go, maybe no one will recognize me. I can sneak in, say a quiet prayer and
sneak out, without declaring myself as a priest.” (Superego making a concession, but
hanging in there.)4

(As it turned out, the family asked Frank to come forward and lead the rosary.)

The development from the superego of the child to the personal value perception of the adult
moral conscience does not take place automatically. One of the tasks of moral education and pastoral
practice in moral matters is to reduce the influence of the superego and to allow a genuinely personal
way of seeing and responding to grow. One the great temptations of moral counseling is to “should” on
the person seeking assistance. We can examine our pastoral practice on this score by asking, “Have I
„should‟ on anyone today? Or, have I drawn out of another what he or she perceives to be going on and
wants to do? The goal of adult moral education and adult moral development is to act more out of a
personally appropriated vision and personally committed freedom and less out of superego.

Now that we have distinguished superego from the moral conscience, we can proceed with a
more elaborate expression of the ways the Catholic moral tradition has understood the moral conscience.

Moral Conscience in the Theological Tradition

The Catholic Tradition has long attested to the primacy, dignity, and inviolability of the moral
conscience. According to that tradition, no one is to be forced to act to his or her conscience. The
following two statements from the Second Vatican Council sum up the Catholic tradition‟s support of
the dignity and inviolability of conscience:

On his part, man perceives and acknowledges the imperatives of the divine law
through the mediation of conscience. In all his/her activity a man is bound to follow
his/her conscience faithfully, in order that he/she may come to God, for whom he/she
was created. It follows that he/she is not be forced in a manner contrary to his/her
conscience. Nor, on the other hand, is he/she to be restrained from acting in accordance
with his/her conscience, especially in matters religious (Declaration on Religious Liberty, n.
3).

In the depth of his/her conscience, man detects a law which he/she does not
impose upon himself/herself, but which hold him/her to obedience. Always summoning
him/her to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience can when necessary speak
to his/her heart more specifically: do this, shun that. For man has in his/her heart a law
written by God. To obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he/she will be
judged.

Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of man. There he (she) is alone
with God, whose voice echoes in his (her) depths. (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the
Modern World, n. 16).

4
Frank J. McNulty and Edward Watkin, Should You Ever Feel Guilty? (Ramsey: Paulist Press, 1978), pp. 53-54.

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 While the dignity and inviolability of conscience in our tradition is incontestably clear, the
meaning of conscience in the minds of many is not so clear. What does the Church intend to uphold
when speaking of the inviolable dignity and freedom of conscience? To what does the Church refer
when speaking of conscience as our “most secret core and sanctuary”?

Whereas in the past we tried to restrict conscience to a function of the will or the intellect, today
we understand conscience as an expression of the whole person. Simply put, conscience is “me coming
to a decision (election).” It includes not only cognitive and volitional aspects, but also affective, intuitive,
attitudinal, and somatic aspects as well. Ultimately, conscience is the whole person‟s commitment to
values and the judgment one must make in light of that commitment to apply those values.

In light of this holistic sense of conscience we can appreciate the three dimensions of conscience
which the Roman Catholic tradition ascribes: (1) synderesis, the basic tendency or capacity within us to
now and to do the good; (2) moral science, the process of discovering the particular good which ought to
be done or the evil to be avoided; (3) conscience, the specific judgment of the good which “I must do” in
this particular situation. To simplify matters, Timothy O‟Connell refers to these dimensions as
conscience/1, conscience/2, conscience/3 respectively.5 These are not three different realities, nor three
distinct stages through which conscience moves in developing from infancy to adulthood, but simply the
three senses in which we can understand the one reality of conscience.

The accompanying chart summarizes briefly the principal characteristics of each sense of
conscience in our theological tradition
The Three Senses of Conscience:

CONSCIENCE /1 CONSCIENCE/2 CONSCIENCE/3

Synderesis Moral Science Conscience
The sense of the The sense of our way of The concrete judgment
fundamental seeing and thinking. of what I need to do in
characteristic of being the situation based on
human which makes it The realm of moral my personal perception
possible to know and do disagreement and error, and grasp of values.
the good. blindness and insight.
The primary object of
Our general sense of The proper realm of the this judgment is not
value and fundamental formation and simply this or that object
sense of responsibility examination of of choice but being this
which makes it possible conscience. or that sort of person
for us to engage in moral through what I choose.
discussion to determine Follows moral truth
the particular moral which it seeks to grasp The act of conscience
good. by making use of sources makes a moral election
of moral wisdom (decision) “my own” and
The fundamental wherever they may be the moral act is
condition which serves found. expressive of “me” by
as the presupposition to realizing that expressing
moral agreement or my fundamental stance.
disagreement on a
particular issue.
5
O’Connell, Principles for a Catholic Morality (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), pp. 88-93.

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 The goal of its tasks is to This is the conscience
reach “evaluative which I must obey to be
knowledge,” personally true to myself.
appropriated,
interiorized knowledge. This is the “secret core
and sanctuary of our self
Searches for what is right which must not be
through accurate violated (GS #16). Each
perception, and a “is bound to follow that
process of reflection and he may come to God,
analysis. who is his last (absolute)
end. Therefore he/she
must not be forced to
act contrary to his/her
conscience” (DH #3).

As the chart indicates, conscience/1 (synderesis) is a given characteristic of being human. This is
the capacity for knowing and doing what is good and avoiding what is evil. The very existence of this
orientation to the good makes possible the lively disagreement over what is right or wrong in each
instance of moral choice. The great array of moral disagreement which we experience in our lives does
not negate the presence of conscience/1, but affirms it. Because we have synderesis, we share a general
sense or moral value and the general sense that it makes a difference to do what is right and to avoid
what is wrong. We cannot live morally without conscience/1, yet it is not sufficient in and of itself to
enable us to choose what is right in each specific instance.

We also need conscience/2, moral science. The force of conscience/1 empowers us to search out
the objective moral values in each specific situation in order to discover the right thing to do.
Discovering the operative moral values and the right thing to do is the work of conscience/2. Its primary
tasks are accurate perception and right moral reasoning. For this reason, conscience/2 receives a great
deal of attention in moral education and in moral debates. It is the realm of moral blindness and insight,
moral disagreement and error. It needs to be educated, formed, informed, examined, and transformed.
In a word, conscience/2 is subject to the process called “the formation of conscience.” The goals of this
process are correct seeing and right thinking. In its accountability to truth, conscience/2 is illumined and
assisted in many ways to perceive and appropriate this truth. This means conscience/2 is formed in
community and draws upon many sources of moral wisdom in order to know what it means to be
human in a truly moral way.

Conscience/3 (conscience in a more narrow sense) moves us from perception and reasoning to
action. The general orientation of the good (conscience/1) and the process of considering the relevant
moral factors (conscience/2) converge to produce the judgment of what I must now do and the
commitment to do it (conscience/3). In coming to make this judgment, many can help but no one can
substitute for making the judgment which only I can make. The characteristic of the judgment of
conscience/3 is that it is always a judgment for me. It is never a judgment of what someone else must do,
but only what I must do. The quintessence of the dignity and freedom of conscience is to be found in
conscience/3: I must always do what I believe to be right and avoid what I believe to be wrong. If a
person truly believes in his or her heart (i.e., with one‟s whole person) that one line of action rather than
another is God‟s objective call, then that line of action is no longer simply one option among many. It
becomes the morally required line of action for that person to take, which is what we mean by being
“bound to follow one‟s conscience.” Conscience/3 cannot be violated. It is what the Vatican Council
called our “most secret core and sanctuary” (GS n. 16) where we are alone with God.

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 A good illustration of conscience/3 at work is Sir/St. Thomas More as portrayed by Robert Bolt
in A Man for All Seasons. This play can be read as a portrayal of the conflicts which arise between one
who answers to conscience and those who choose to follow what is convenient. Thomas More faces up
to his conscience above the prestige of his service to the king. In so doing, he creates a conflict between
what is expedient or popular and what he holds so strongly of exercising the freedom of conscience, i.e.,
the freedom to think only what we believe to be true and to do only what we believe is right.

Two short excerpts illustrate dramatically the power and dignity of the judgment of
conscience/3. The first is a scene in which Thomas More defends his loyalty to the pope against the
charges of the Duke of Norfolk:

NORFOLK: All right – we are at war with the Pope! The Pope‟s a Prince, isn‟t he?

MORE: He is.

NORFOLK: And a bad one?

MORE: Bad enough. But the theory is that he‟s also the Vicar of God, the descendant
of St. Peter, our only link with Christ.

NORFOLK: (Sneering) A tenuous link.

MORE: Oh, tenuous indeed.

NORFOLK: (To the others) Does this make sense? (No reply; they look at MORE) You‟ll
forfeit all you‟ve got – which includes the respect of your country – for a theory?

MORE: (Hotly) The Apostolic Succession of the Pope is – (Stops; interested)… Why, it‟s a
theory, yes; you can‟t see it; can‟t touch it; it‟s a theory. (To NORFOLK, very
rapidly but calmly) But what matters to me is not whether it‟s true or not but that I
believe it to be true, or rather, not that I believe but that I believe it…6

In another place Thomas More demonstrates that the freedom and judgment of conscience/3 do not
extend to anyone else. In conscience/3 one stands alone with God.

NORFOLK: I‟m not a scholar, as master Cromwell [the prosecutor] never tires of
pointing out, and frankly I don‟t know whether the [King‟s] marriage was lawful
or not. But damn it, Thomas, look at those names…You know those men! Can‟t
you do what I did, and come with us, for fellowship?

MORE: (moved) and when we stand before God, and you are sent to Paradise for doing
according to your conscience, and I am damned for not doing according to mine,
will you come with me, for fellowship?

GRANMER: So those of us whose names are there are damned, Sir Thomas?

6
Bolt, A Man for All Seasons (New York: Random House, Inc., Vintage Books, 1962), pp. 52-53.

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 MORE: I don‟t know, Your Grace. I have no window to look into another
man‟s conscience. I condemn no one.7

The same idea is expressed as poignantly by Martin Buber‟s tale of Rabbi Zusya who illustrates
the integrity of conscience to be true to itself, for out of our loyalty to our conscience will we be judged
by God.

The Rabbi Zusya said a short time before his death, “In the world to come, I shall not
be asked, „Why were you not Moses?‟ Instead, I shall be asked, „Why were you not
Zusya?‟”8

In light of this understanding of conscience, we can now appreciate the truth of the maxim, “Let
your conscience be your guide.” To follow this maxim uncritically would be to inject the personal nature
of conscience with a strong dose of individualism and effectively cut off conscience/3 from being
informed by other sources of moral wisdom. Yet genuine conscience is formed in dialogue, not in
isolation. The work of conscience/2 is to carry on this dialogue with the sources of moral wisdom. As
Daniel C. Maguire explains it, “The individual and supremely personal nature of conscience does not
mean me against them; it means me distinct from them but intrinsically with them.”9

The proper interpretation of “Let your conscience be your guide” follows upon understanding it
as referring to conscience/3. When conscience/2 has done its moral homework well, it yields to
conscience/3. Its judgment in each case will be trustworthy in proportion to the thoroughness of the
homework one does in forming one‟s conscience. In the last analysis, conscience/3 is the only sure guide
for action by a free and knowing person. Violating conscience/3 would be violating our integrity. If we
have done all we could to do, then we will not be entering the realm of sin even if we do something
which we later discover was the objectively wrong thing to do. We need to consider, then, what the
formation of conscience entails.

Chapter 10
The Formation of Conscience

In the moral education of adults, the pastoral priority is to enable people to make their own
moral decisions in light of the guidance of scripture and the teaching of the Church. This means not so
much providing answers to moral questions as encouraging the process of arriving at a moral decision.
This brings us squarely into the domain of the formation of conscience.

The Range of Interest in Forming the Conscience

Often, discussion about the formation of conscience are preoccupied with answering the
practical moral question, “What ought I to do?” The emphasis then is necessarily placed on what we
need in order to make a particular moral choice/election (conscience/3). However, when the right
“choice” becomes of primary interest, the formation of conscience becomes a matter of requiring the

7
Ibid., pp. 76-77.
8
Martin Buber, The Way of Man According to the Teaching of Hasidism (New York: Citadel Press, 1966), p. 17.
9
Maguire, The Moral Choice (Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1978), p. 379.

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necessary skills for making right judgments. These are such skills as the ability to assess morally relevant
factors, such as the action itself, intention, circumstances, consequences, values, and norms; the ability to
consider all sides of an issue; the ability to provide sound reasons for a moral judgment; and the ability to
have a decisive will to execute judgment. This is the process of deliberation/discernment proper to
conscience/2. Certainly, the natural law of Catholic moral theology encourages this kind of thinking.
According to the natural law tradition, to be moral is to be reasonable. The Catholic tradition of natural
law has been very optimistic about reason and has placed a premium in the moral life on developing the
capacities for exercising reason rightly.

Our approaches to moral education and the moral development of conscience in recent years
have been dominated by such a point of view. Craig Dykstra rightly calls it “juridical ethics.”10 A prime
example of this point of view, with its implications for moral education and the development of the
moral conscience, can be found in the theories of Lawrence Kohlberg. According to his theories, the
moral life is primarily a matter of making choices/elections on the basis of reason. Moral development is
a matter of acquiring the ability to provide increasingly more principled reasons to justify those
choices/elections.

One of the dangers of this approach is that it can too easily split the intimate connection
between religion and morality in our lives. Religious beliefs, for example, too easily become dispensable
baggage in the moral life, since moral choices/elections can be defended on grounds other than religious
ones. Another danger with Kohlberg‟s approach is that, if we limit the formation of conscience to the
development of moral reasoning for making a decision/election, we severely restrict what is involved in
morality and in the Christian conscience and we oversimplify both.

While making a reasoned choice/election is indeed an important interest in the moral life, it is
not the whole morality. We have already seen in the first chapter that the twofold range of interest of
moral theology includes not only making moral decisions/elections but also forming moral character.
The interest in character appeared again under the considerations for determining sin. There I indicated
that determining sin is not a matter of examining isolated actions against a set of moral rules, but
involves discerning the orientation and commitment of the person. We can expect, therefore, that the
formation of conscience will involve more than simply answering the practical moral question, “What
ought I to do?” It must also address the prior moral question, “What sort of person ought I to become?”
This means the aim of the formation of conscience is not simply to increase a person‟s knowledge of
facts and values, or skills for resolving a moral dilemma. It must also include the fuller texture of the
person‟s moral character. As long as we can remember that morality is interested in who we are, as well as
in what and how we choose/elect, then we will eliminate character form our consideration of the formation of
conscience.

Conscience is properly formed in dialogue with several sources of moral wisdom. As humans we
consult our own experience as well as the experience of family, friends, colleagues, and experts in the
field which pertains to the area of judgment at hand. We analyse and test the stories, images, language,
rituals, and actions by which various communities in which we participate live the moral life. As
Christians we turn to the testimony of scripture, the religious convictions of our creeds, the lives of moral
virtuosos, and the informed judgments of theologians past and present who help interpret the traditions
of Christian life. Christian Communities, have access to a rich heritage of stories, images, language, rituals,
devotional practices, and spiritual disciplines which nurture one‟s moral vision and practice. These

10
Vision and Character (Ramsey: Paulist Press, 1981), p. 1. This book offers a careful criticism of Kolhberg as well as a
proposal for an alternative to moral education based on a “visional ethics” rather than the standard “juridical ethics” promoted
by Kohlberg.

11
communities have also official statements of moral teaching from its leaders to give guidance in areas of
specific moral concern. As Catholics we pay attention to our rich heritage of stories, images, and practices
as well as to the official teachings of the magisterium which are pertinent to our areas of concern.

The proper formation of conscience uses these sources of moral wisdom to inform the four
points of moral analysis which we took from James Gustafson and introduced in Chapter 1 under the
consideration of the practical level of moral theology. Those four points are: the agent; beliefs;
situational analysis; and moral norms. Although we all work together in the formation and functioning of
conscience, for purposes of analysis here we will correlate what pertains to the agent and beliefs with
conscience and character, and correlate what pertains to situational analysis and moral norms with
conscience and decision making.

Conscience and Character

Perhaps the most serious danger in concentrating merely on choosing the acquiring more
principled reasons for the choices/elections we make is that we fail to deal adequately with the formation
of character. Attention to character has been the sorely neglected side of the formation of conscience.
Some theologians today are encouraging greater attention to character as the more important side of the
moral life.11 These theologians are saying that who we are matters morally. If a judgment of conscience is
to be a response from the heart, then much depends on character, or virtue. We need to explore the
moral import of “who we are” and to give full weight to all the factors which influence the formation of
character.

Moral choices/elections are not made in a vacuum. They are made by people who see the world
in a certain way because they have become particular sorts of people. The very way we describe a
situation and the kinds of choices/elections we make follow from the kind of character we have.
Character gives rise to choice/election. Choices/Elections in turn confirm or qualify character, for
choices/elections are self-determining. In choosing to adopt one or another course of action, we make
ourselves into certain sorts of persons. Heroes, heroines, and saints illustrate this most vividly when they
refuse to compromise on matters which seem to others of little practical importance. Once again,
Thomas More portrays this well in Robert Bolt‟s drama. The following scene takes place in the jail cell
when Thomas More‟s daughter‟s, Margaret, comes to persuade him to swear to the Act of Succession:

MORE: You want me to swear in the Act of Succession?

MARGARET: “God more regards the thoughts of the heart than the words of the
mouth.” Or so you‟ve always told me.

MORE: Yes.

MARGARET: Then say the words of the oath and in your heart think otherwise.

11
Recent years have shown an increasing interest in character in moral theology. This interest in ethics has developed
along with the increasing interest in story, or narrative, in other areas of theology. Stanley Hauerwas has been a consistent
advocate of an “ethics of character.” See, for example, his major work, Character and the Christian Live: A Study of Theological
Ethics (San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1975); also, his collections of essays: Vision and Virtue (Notre Dame: Fides
Publishers, Inc., 1974); with Richard Bondi and David Burrell, Truthfulness and Tragedy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1981); also The Peaceable Kingdom (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983); and Suffering Presence (Notre
Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1986).

12
 MORE: What is an oath then but words we say to God?

MARGARET: That‟s very neat.

MORE: Do you mean, it isn‟t true?

MARGARET: No, it‟s true.

MORE: Then it‟s a poor argument to call it “neat,” Meg. When a man takes an oath
Meg, he‟s holding his own self in his own hands. Like water. (He cups his hands).
And if he opens his fingers then - he needn‟t hope to find himself again. Some
men aren‟t capable of this, but I‟d be loath to think your father one of them.12

This scene emphasizes that any choice which really involves free self-determination includes
one‟s whole self with it. Thomas More shows that when we do not act according to our character, our
very own self can be lost. Moral choices/elections are fundamentally matters of integrity: we act in
character or out of character.

What is this “character” which is so important in the moral life? When we “size people up” to
get a glimpse of their character, what do we attend to? We pay attention to patterns of actions which
reflect attitudes, dispositions, the readiness to look on things in certain ways and to choose in certain
ways. These are indices of character, since character shows itself in its fruits. Character identifies the
responsive orientation of a person: seeing the world as a hostile or friendly place of being a person who
loves and helps or one who is fearful and selfish.

We acquire character by directing our freedom to loyalties outside ourselves. Christian character,
for example, is formed by directing our freedom to the person and message of Jesus as the ultimate
center of our loyalty. Character is what results from the values we make our own. When a value has
woven its way into the fabric of our being, we delight in doing what pertains to that value. The just
person “justices” and the loving person loves with such ease that we say such actions are “second nature”
to these people. Character predisposes us to choose in certain ways, even though it does not
predetermine every choice/election. We can act against character, and by making new choices/elections
we can change our character.

Conscience, Character, and Vision

Vision and choice/election are two key concepts which pertain to conscience and character. Clearly,
vision is prior to choice/election in the moral life. After all, we choose/elect what we do on the basis of
what we see, and we see what we see because of who we are, our character. Think for a moment: What
really makes us morally different? Is it the specific choices/elections we make? Many of us make the
same choices/elections: to pay taxes, to resist violence, to visit the sick. We are morally different because
of the underlying vision which provides the foundation for attitudes and choices/elections.

Philosophy Iris Murdoch, who has contributed some foundational ideas to today‟s interest in
vision and character, explains that we differ not because we choose/elect differently, but because we see
differently:

12
Bolt, A Man for All Seasons (New York: Random House, Inc., Vintage Books, 1962), p. 81.

13
 We apprehend and assess other people we do not consider only their solutions to
specificable practical problems, we consider something more elusive which may be called
their total vision of life, as shown in their mode of speech or silence, their choice of
words, their assessments of others, their conception of their own lives, what they think
attractive or praise-worthy, what they think funny: in short, the configurations of their
thought which show continually in their reactions and conversation. These things, which
may be overly and comprehensibly displayed or inwardly elaborated and guessed at,
constitute what, making different points in the two metaphors, one may call the texture
of man‟s being or the nature of his personal vision.13

From this we can conclude that the first task of the formation of conscience is the attempt to
help us see.

The model of responsibility for the moral life indicates that we respond to what we see. Before
we can answer the question, “What ought I to do?” we need to ask, “What is going on?” This is the
question of vision. In fact, most of what appears in our decisions/elections and actions is the result of
what we see going on, rather than the result of conscious rational choices/elections. For example, if we
look on our children as burden, we refuse to carry them; if we look on our colleagues, as competitors, we
refuse to cooperate with them.

The “seeing” which is an expression of our character is more than taking a look. Seeing is
interpreting and valuing as well. What we regard as worthy of our response depends on how we “view” it.
For example, “My wife is a nag,” “My employer is bossy,” “My students are eager” are ways of seeing
which profoundly influence our choices/elections. But these ways of seeing have nothing directly to do
with the logical application of rules. They have to do with the images through which we grasp what we
see. What we see sets the direction and limits of what we do; it generates choices/elections rather than
others; and it disposes us to respond in one way rather than another. What is a choice/election for
someone else may never occur to us as a choice/election at all, for we simply do not see the world that
way.

Conscience, Vision, and Story

The importance of vision and character for understanding the moral judgments of conscience
cannot be emphasized enough. Most people most of the time do not make moral choices/elections in
the first instance on the basis of impersonal rules, rational abstractions, or logical procedures. Many of
our moral decisions/elections do not call for the leisure to sit down and ponder the rational dimensions,
general principles, and logical procedures which go into every choice/election. More often than not, the
analysis which discovers such dimensions and procedures comes after the fact of the decision/election.
The real world of our moral choices/elections includes imagination, vision, habits, affections,
dispositions, somatic reactions, and countless non-rational factors which logical generalizations never
account for in the immediate moment of making a decision/election. We make our election more out of
the beliefs we live by and the habits we have formed than out of the principles we have learned. Linus is
a prime example of this in his response to Lucy in this excerpt from a Peanuts comic strip which has
Linus preparing a snowball to toss to Lucy:

13
“Vision and Choice in Morality,” in Ian T. Ramsey, ed., Christian Ethics and Contemporary Philosophy (New York: The
Macmillian Co., 1966), p. 200.

14
 LUCY: “Life is full of choices.
You may choose, if you wish,
not to throw that snowball at me.
Now, if you choose to throw that snowball at me
I will pound you right into the ground.
If you choose not to throw that snowball at me,
your head will be spared.”

LINUS: (Throwing the snowball to the ground)

“Life is full of choices,
but you never get any.”

This illustrates how much character (which includes the beliefs we live by as well as the habits we
have formed), rather than rational principles, determines an election or ever whether an election should
be made at all. In this case, Linus‟ fear of Lucy, his belief that she will do what she says and his habitual
experience of her habitual way of responding, makes up his mind for him, so to speak. Given what he
sees and believes, he has no need to ponder any further.

Properly to understand moral behaviour, then, we need to pay attention most to the images
shaping the imagination, and the stories giving rise to these images before we consider moral rules. We
live more by stories than we do by rules. All of this tells us that learning moral rules is not the first task
in the formation of conscience. We first need to learn how to see.

To a great extent, our vision is not something we provide for ourselves by ourselves. A moral
vision is not so much chosen as it is inherited from our social worlds. Vision is a community
achievement. Social scientists tell us that as we grow, the vision we acquire is in part the result of
internalizing the beliefs and values, causes and loyalties of the community which make up our
environment. Our vision is almost wholly dependent on our relationships, on the worlds in which we
live, and on the commitments we have made. As a result, the morality into which we are socialized is not
a set of rules but a collection of stories and images of what makes life worth living.

James Gustafson cites a personal experience which illustrates well how his participation in a
religious family and a church community which lived by the religious belief “God is love” shaped his
character and vision. He says that the church building of his childhood had across its front a painting of
the Gethsemane scene and above it was printed, “God is love.” The juxtaposition of the anguish and
suffering of Gethsemane with the affirmation “God is love” made an indelible impression on him. This
visual image, together with exposure to preaching on 1 John 4 by his pastor (who also happened to be
his father), as well as the experience of human relationships in which the affirmation of God‟s love was
embodied, came together to shape his character and his awareness of being loved by God even in
moments of his spiritual suffering of uncertainty and doubt.14 Gustafson‟s experience shows how both
the historical experience of the community of the church which gave formal expression to the conviction
“God is love,” and his lived personal experience of human relationships which affirmed that conviction,
entered into the formation of his awareness and helped sustain him even when circumstances might have
led him to object to such a conviction.

14
Can Ethics be Christian? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), p. 69.

15
 Yet the world of family and church are not the only worlds we live in. Religious beliefs and
stories are not the only ones shaping our lives. Each of us inhabits many overlapping worlds at the same
time. The formation of conscience takes place in these communities so that one‟s conscience reflects in
many ways the values and loyalties of the most influential communities. For example, why do parents
worry about what they do in their free time, about the television shows they watch? They worry because
the inner spirit, or the conscience, is shaped and developed by the structures within which we live, by
what we see, and by what we do. To speak only moral rules to our children and expect that this will
make them virtuous is to miss the mark of forming conscience. We must also pay attention to their
schools, their friends, the books they read, the television programs they watch, and so on. If one is
deeply involved in the Christian community, its beliefs and stories will highly influence one‟s moral
conscience. From the perspective of “reason informed by faith,” Christian beliefs have a great deal to do
with shaping what we see.15 But intense competition exists between the Christian community and the
many others which vie for our attention. Each of these communities competes for our loyalty but often
with contradictory beliefs, images, and norms.

In addition to family and church, we also live in the worlds of our ethnic community, school,
profession, sports, politics, commerce, advertising, and entertainment, to name a few. To become aware
of the strong impact these worlds have on us, try this little exercise. Place yourself in the center of a
series of concentric circles.

SELF

In each of circle, beginning with the one nearest to you, place the name of the world which you think has
had the greatest influence on shaping your character and vision. Name some of the concrete particulars
of these worlds which have had a significant influence on you. To extend this exercise, arrange the
worlds in the order of their greatest influence on your present attitudes toward those moral issues:
divorce, homosexuality, pre-marital sex, the arms race, the use of drugs, euthanasia, and a moral issue of
your choice. Do the worlds of family and church come close to you in each instance? An exercise like
this may help us become totally conscious of our vision, but it at least helps us to see the ways our vision
is shaped by participating in communities.

Each world we enter demands our loyalty and is alive with many forms of communicating that
loyalty. Rules and regulations try to do it, but stories, images, rituals do it better. Through these latter
means, we come to see what life centered around the convictions of these communities is about, and
how life is to be lived. The more we participate in the stories, rituals, images, and language of a
community which has a great influence on us, the more we begin to take on its way of seeing.

15
See, for example, Donald Evans, “Does Religious Faith Conflict with Moral Freedom,” Faith, Authenticity, and
Morality (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), pp. 197-246.

16
 Take the “community” or world of college and professional football, for example. The weekly
exposure to the annual fall ritual of the quest to be “No. 1” has an unmistakable impact on our
imaginations. Without this fall ritual and image, as well as the stories which go with it, football season
would be less exciting. But once we get immersed in the world of sports with its stories and images, we
have a hard time seeing what is going on anywhere else in any other way. For example, we may even find
ourselves, talking about having “to gain yardage” on a deal, or “to run interference” for a colleague, or
“to punt” in order to to get out of a jam. We may even begin to approach all forms of human interaction
with the image of “No. 1.” It tells us someone must win and someone must lose. When everyone is out
to be victoriously undefeated, aggressive competition, not harmony, reigns supreme. When everyone is
out to be “No. 1,” then our lives become filled with competition and conflict, and our styles of
interaction become a mixture of aggressively offensive and staunchly defensive behaviour.

The worldview presented by the entertainment community competes most intensely with the
Christian community‟s. William F. Fore‟s book, Television and Religion: The Shaping of Faith, Values and
Culture, maintains that television is usurping the role of the church in shaping the imagination and our
system of values. He says,

Television, rather than the churches, is becoming the place where people find a
worldview which reflects what to them is of ultimate value, and which justifies their
behaviour and way of life.16

Few television viewers are so firmly established in their value commitments as to to untouched by the
persistent promotion of the values and behavioural patterns which television programs transmit. For
example, consider the number of “family” programs which do not prize marital fidelity, or which portray
their central characters as single and free to explore a wide range of interpersonal dynamics, or whose
humor is carried by sexual innuendo. Television is a powerful source of influence on attitudes and
behaviours in the areas of violence and sexuality.17 For children, it is in cartoons. For adults, it comes
through situation comedies, soap operas, and police drams. Such programs portray violence and
coercion as natural parts of sexuality and tell us that the young, the strong, and the beautiful are the ones
who are sexual and need loving. These programs transmit many images of what makes life worthwhile
which stand in direct conflict with the images of the gospel and rob religious stories and images of their
power to move people.18

In addition to the television programs themselves, consider how many of our preferences and
ways of evaluating what is worthwhile in persons and in life are shaped by the powerful images
communicated through the clever world of advertising. Recall the number of television commercials
which tell us that enough is enough, “You need more...” ; “Get more out of life by...” The advertising
world‟s pursuit of “more” communicates a vision about life and how to live it meaningfully. We can
soon take this vision of consumerism and use it to interpret the whole of our lives and our relationships.
When we begin to look upon all our activities and people with a sense of insufficiency and know that
whatever we have is not enough, the newest, or the most improved, then we have been converted by the
images of the world of advertising. The rest of our lives will soon follow in kind.

16
Fore, Television and Religion: The Shaping of Faith, Values, and Culture (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House,
1987), p. 24.
17
On media violence, see ibid., pp. 131-158.
18
For a brief report of a study on the significance of television in attempts at moral education, see Thomas M. Martin,
“Television and the Teaching of Christian Morality,” The Living Light (Fall 1981): 234-241.

17
 The strong influence of the business would on moral vision and moral character was graphically
brought home to me while I was watching the Oregon Shakespearean Festival‟s production of Arthur
Miller‟s Death of a Salesman. This play is a strong indictment of society for its failure to provide its
members with a worthy vision of life. The vision which ultimately destroys Willy Loman is born out of
his belief in unrestrained individualism and his worship of success. Willy could not make this vision of
life work. The competition of the business world, and the pressure of a success-oriented world in which
respect is earned by achievement, eventually drives him mad. In a world which looked upon love,
acceptance, and respect as something to be earned by achievement, failure was unbearable. The
“successful” vision of Willy Loman‟s world finally led him to suicide. Part of his tragedy is that he had
no other story to replace the vision his business world had given him.

These examples of the religious world of James Gustafson and the non-religious worlds of
sports, television, advertising, and business give us a sense of ways our vision is shaped by the multiple
worlds in which we live. Each examples show clearly that most of what we see does not lie in front of
our eyes but behind them in the images which make up our imaginations. Images and the imagination,
then, are extremely important for the moral life.

Conscience, Imagination, and

Christian Stories

The imagination is a powerful moral resource, not to be equated with mere fantasy or make-
believe. As we saw in Chapter 5 on the human person, the imagination is our capacity to construct our
world. By means of the imaginative process, we bring together diverse experiences into a meaningful
whole. When we “get the picture” we have come to an image which helps us put all the diverse parts
together so that we can understand what is going on and so relate to it appropriately. Human behaviour
is a function not so much of the moral propositions one holds as true, but of the imagination holding the
images which give us a “picture” of the world. In forming our consciences for the sake of making a
moral judgment, then, we need to be critically alert to images at play in our imaginations.

Our imaginations determine what we see and so influence how we respond. Every teacher
knows the power of apt examples, and every preacher knows that effort of a story well told. Frequently,
our students or congregations do not understand a simple point, not because they lack intelligence, but
because their frame of vision has them looking in the wrong direction. A good example, or a well-told
story, allows the listener to suspend prior judgment about the nature of reality and it frees one to let
images play together in a new way. Suddenly all is clear: “Oh, I get the picture! I‟ve just never seen it like
that before!” From the point of view of the imagination, moral conversion is a matter of repatterning the
imagination so as to see dimensions of reality which were not available to us before. When we begin to see
differently, we will begin to respond differently. The challenge to pastoral ministry is to feed the imagination with
the Christian stories and images through which we can see the world in depth and respond appropriately.

Christian morality believes that the stories and images which come to us in the Christian story
portray and describe goodness in the moral life, and they provide truthful ways of seeing the world.
Undoubtedly, these stories and images will be in competition with others coming to us from the various
worlds which we live. Each world tries to tell us something about what is good, and how life ought to be
lived. The important question before us, them, is how decisive our Christian believing and beliefs ought
to be for shaping our moral awareness. As James Gustafson would have it, “[they] ought to be the most

18
decisive, most informing, most influencing beliefs and experiences in the lives of people.”19 However,
how decisive they actually are will depend on how deeply one has appropriated them in becoming a
Christian. They incorporation of these stories into our own way of seeing, feeling, thinking, judging, and
acting will help us to engage the world as a people formed by Christian faith. Chapter 4 showed that the
distinctively Christian aspect of morality is very much a function of the images of faith shaping one‟s
vision and character. Chapters 12, 13, and 14 will treat more completely some of the ways which
scripture, Jesus, and the church function in the moral life to influence moral character through the
images of the good life which they provide.

Conscience and Election

From vision comes election. We respond to what we see. The response we make is shaped, too
by the sort of persons we have become. In fact, being a good person has a greater influence on the
elections we make than any system of principles or methods of making an election. Since we elect on the
basis of what we see and who we are, we need some way to check our vision and character. As we have
said above, the properly informed conscience sees rightly. We we see what is really there? Or do we see
just what we want to see? To answer these questions we need to have an accurate grasp of the situation
and to make a proper use of moral norms.

A fundamental axiom of Catholic morality is that morality is based on reality. Asking the right
questions to analyse the situation is the way to move toward seeing reality rightly. The reality-revealing
questions of situational analysis can help us to test our vision, character, and conscience. Daniel Maguire
offers several which we can use for this test. He asks: What? Who? When? Why? How? What if? What
Else?20 We will examine these simple questions briefly to see how they help us set our sights on what is
real in our human situations.

What is the human situation of this moral reality? What may seem too large as a question since it
can stretch over all others. However, it does fix our attention on the primary data (physical,
psychological, systematic) through which we first meet our world. Good moral judgments are those
which fit the situation as it really is. What helps us to see what is really there. What presses us to make
distinctions where there are true differences. Unless we see the moral disagreements result from the
ignorance of what is really the case. Whether war if justified, for example, depends on what war is, what
nuclear weapons do. In medical matters, we need to know what chemotherapy does, what death is, what
abortions do. In sexual matters, we need to know what masturbation does, what contraceptive pills do,
what sexual intercourse is. For everyday morality, we need to know what smoking does, what car pooling
does, what overworking and overeating do.

Next is who. We have already explored some of the who dimension in our discussion of character.
There we saw that character brings important dispositions to bear on our actions. For example, if I am
more like Ghandi than Hitler, that will alter the reality of any situation of conflict. Whether I am an
authentic conscientious objector or a coward alters the reality of my draft resignation. Whether I am
diabetic or not affects the morality of my eating habits. The who also includes the other persons involved
in the election. The moral reality of sexual intercourse, for example, is different when my partner is my
spouse or my neighbour.

19
Gustafson, Can Ethics Be Christian? p. 65.
20
Maguire, The Moral Choice (Garden City: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1978, pp. 128-188.

19
 The third and fourth questions are when and where. Driving 55 mph has different moral meaning
when it is done in a school zone at three o‟clock than when it is done on Interstate 80. And we all know
the difference between yelling “fire” on a rifle range or in a crowded movie theatre.

Why and How are the next two questions. They also have something to do with character. Why is
the critical question of motivation that sends us back to clarify our values. What looks like love at the
what level might truly be manipulation at the why level. For example, why do I care for my ailing parents?
Is this an expression of love and sincere care on my part, or do I intend to guarantee a substantial cut of
the inheritance? Why do I give such large donations to St. Jude‟s Hospital? To promote efforts of health
care and research carried on there, or to qualify for a sizable tax deduction? “The last temptation is the
greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason,” as Thomas Becket puts it in T. S. Eliot‟s
paly, Murder in the Cathedral.

But we never do anything for only one reason. We are a mixed bag of motives and conditioning
factors, some of which are conscious and some are not. A description of only conscious motives does
not adequately account for the complex causes of our behaviour. Answering the why question well, then,
demands a great deal of personal honesty and integrity. Sometimes it may require psychological or
psychoanalytic help.

The ethical challenge of why is to reach the highest possible level of honesty with ourselves so as
to be as clear as we can be about what moves us. One real enemy is rationalization. We can con
ourselves so easily. The greater the impact an act will have, the more critical it becomes to know why we
are doing it. Beneath our mix of motives and conditioning factors, then, we must try to discover what we
really want to put forth and to express for ourselves and for others by our behaviour.

But good motivation is not all that matters. The purest of motives can have catastrophic
consequences. So, no matter how noble the motive, how, what if, and what else must also be taken into
account. How can even tell us much about our why. How is a matter of style; it gives expression to our
true convictions and real character. Our real why often sneaks through to show itself in our how all too
easily. For example, today we hear some assert that while the why of saving many American lives in
World War II was a good one, the how of atomic bombing Nagasaki and Hiroshima did not justify the
killing and maiming of thousands of Japanese civilians. Or while the why of bringing on emotional calm is
a good one, the how of taking drugs may not justify the physical and psychological dependency that
results.

Overlapping the how question are the what if and what else questions. What if probes foreseeable
effects. To act is to elect something, but not everything here and now. Hence the ethical necessity to ask
what if: If I elect this, what will result? What are the foreseen consequences for myself and others in the
short run and in the long run? The full moral reality of our actions is not limited to the immediate
present, but extends into the future as well. Moral responsibility requires that we foresee the impact of
our behaviour as far as possible. A morality based on love wants to do the least amount of harm possible.
Therefore, it demands a prudent judgment well informed by predictable consequences.

Exploring what if is not making consequences alone determine whether our actions are right or
wrong. This is excessive. The reality-revealing questions point to other factors as well. But because
consequences are so often the focal point of moral meaning, foreseeable effects demand our serious
attention. The great moral enemy is short-sightedness, the failure to look beyond the immediate good we
seek to the evil effects we cause along with it. In asking what if, then, we look not only for the results in
the short run and in individual dimensions, but we also look at the effects in the long run and in its social
dimensions. Our moral universe is not limited to our contemporaries, nor to the immediate moment.

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Moral responsibility, which is always interpersonal responsibility with history, has swollen to planetary
size and extends through the generations. Discussions surrounding the arms race confirm this. Also, we
have learned this lesson all too well in our fight with ecological balance.

What if cautions us from making elections based on one or two effects, or of extending
consequences only into tomorrow but not to the day after. While the short term and individual
dimensions of an act can have beneficial effects, the long term and social dimensions of an act can have
catastrophic effects. For instance, euthanasia relieves the suffering of a dying patient in the short run, but
what will result from the practice of euthanasia in the long run and from a social point of view? It
threatens the trust upon which the physician-patient relationship depends, and it can devalue human life
as well as the quality and attitude of mercy among health-care providers. Also, we need reflection on the
foreseeable effects of marijuana. Its immediate consequences seem harmless enough, a mild high and no
hangover. But what of the possible long range consequences of genetic deformation and brain damage?
We also need reflection on the use of prescription drugs to settle tension caused by work. For many
people, solving these tensions on the level of biological calm is to ignore the real source of tension which
is often interpersonal, not biological, in the first place. As a result of taking the drugs, the effect is not
only physical calm but also physical and psychological dependence on the drug, as well as ignoring the
needed changes in one‟s interpersonal relationships. (Incidently, here we see that why we take drugs is as
serious as what if.) We also need to ask about the foreseeable effects of surrogate motherhood, of
adopting children by single persons, of using pesticides on our lawns, farms, golf courses, and of
shoplifting even if it is “nickel-and-dime” stuff.

One thing is for sure when we begin to explore what if. We face head-on the stark reality that a
totally private moral act is pure illusion. “It won‟t affect anyone but me” is an impossibility when we take
the relational dimension of our lives seriously and the consequences of our actions just as seriously. The
what if question refuses to let us escape the fact that we belong to others.

Following closely behind the what if question is what else. What else can be done? What are the
possible alternatives? If we think we are forced into an either/or choice, we ought to look again. We
generally have more alternatives open to us than we think. What alternatives do we have to abortion for
the unwanted pregnancy, to oil as our primary energy, to driving along to work, to working overtime five
days a week, to television as our primary source of family entertainment? The point is that, since every
moral election inevitably has some good and some bad outcomes, we need to explore alternatives. If
there were no alternatives, there would be no moral problems. Too often we make the wrong moral
election not because we are bad people, but because we are just unimaginative. We are not able to see the
rich potential for good which lies within us and in our situation. Asking what else keeps us open and
challenges us to be creative and to consult a wide base of moral wisdom and moral vision.

This, then, briefly sketches the reality-revealing questions which help us to see the reality of our
human situation for what it truly is. But beyond asking these questions, the mature and moral conscience
also consults a wide base of moral wisdom to highlight values of our human situation which might
otherwise go unnoticed if we were left on our own. Part three of this book will discuss sources of moral
wisdom to which we might appeal in making a moral judgment. For the Catholic, the moral teaching of
the magisterium has a special place in the formation of conscience. In the Catholic view, a properly
informed conscience is inescapably ecclesial. What is the relation, then, of personal moral conscience to
the authoritative teaching of the church? This is the focus of our next chapter.

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