What is Conscience and what are the Different Types of Conscience:
Each one of us is born with a sense of what is right and wrong. However, without proper
knowledge you could end up forming a bad or a malformed conscience. Therefore to live a
richer, peaceful, and a more moral life each one of us is obligated to know more than what we
know now in order to determine whether our present way of thinking is truly correct or not.
Failure to seek knowledge is also a failure in our obligation to develop a healthy conscience.
This will consequently lead us into committing the sin of omission - not doing what we are
obliged or required to do.
What is conscience?
Conscience is from the Latin word “conscientia” which means “privity of knowledge” or “with
knowledge”. The more popular understanding of conscience is that it is an inner feeling or voice
acting as guide whether a behavior or an act is right or wrong.
Conscience however is more than that.
In Ethics, conscience is not just a by-product of processes like religious teachings, parental
guidance, or indoctrination from groups like your peers, your school, or the workplace.
Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, believes that people have an inborn sense of right
and wrong.
Kinds of conscience
1. Antecedent conscience –
This is the judgement or how a person balances his decision regarding a situation before
making any action. Antecedent conscience approves, commands, advices, warns, or permits
doing the act.
2. Consequent conscience –
This is the judgement of the mind or how the mind sees the morality of an action done.
Consequent conscience either approves the act thus promoting a sense of peace, wellbeing,
and spiritual joy. On the other hand it could also disapprove an act resulting to feelings of
remorse or guilt.
3. True conscience –
This is the kind of conscience where the mind makes correct moral judgement on an act
that was done. True conscience is that the mind gives the correct subjective judgement of how
an act is morally good or morally bad corresponding with the facts of that particular act.
4. Erroneous conscience –
A conscience is erroneous when it represents or describes the moral aspect of an act
incorrectly for example justifying stealing because you used the money to buy medicine for
your sick mother.
A conscience is also erroneous when it takes a morally good act and present it as
something bad. An example of this is making sinners out Catholics for having saints, holy
images, and all the traditions that non-Catholics do not believe in and thus make judgement
that these traditions are sinful.
5. Certain conscience –
This is a type of conscience where the state of mind is absolutely sure without a trace of
doubt in its judgement of what is morally right or wrong in specific issues. Certain conscience is
when the person within himself is one hundred percent convinced backed with moral norms
that an act is either good or bad.
6. Doubtful conscience –
This is a state of mind when it cannot decide with certainty whether an action or behaviour is
good or bad leaving you unsure of what to do or not having any peace of mind after performing
a certain action.
7. Scrupulous conscience –
This is a way of thinking where the mind constantly sees an act to be morally wrong or
interpreting a venial sin to be a mortal sin which results in having feelings of torment and guilt
for no good reason.
8. Lax conscience –
Lax denotes something that is lenient or loose. A lax conscience would then signify as
having a poor sense of what is morally right or morally wrong. This is a state of mind that tends
to select the easy way out and make excuses for mistakes.
9. Timorous or tender conscience –
A state of mind that is constantly in fear not only of sinning but for whatever it is that
may cast at the very least a shadow of sin.
