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See also: term used both popularly and technically in many different senses for that See also: mental faculty which decides between right and wrong
.
In popular usage " See also: conscience " is generally understood to give intuitively authoritative decisions as regards the moral quality of single actions; this usage implicitly assumes that every See also: action has an See also: objective or intrinsic goodness or badness, which " See also: con-science " may be said to discern much in the same way as the See also: eye See also: sees or the ear hears
.
Moralists generally, however, are agreed that in all moral judgments of this character there is an implied reference to moral See also: laws, the validity of which is in some ethical systems the true subject See also: matter of conscience
.
The See also: part played by conscience in relation to general moral laws and particular cases will vary according to the view taken of the character of the general laws
.
If, on what is called the " jural
theory, these laws are regarded as deriving their authority from an See also: external source, the operation of conscience is so far limited
.
It may be held to recognize the validity of divine laws, for example; or it may be confined to the deductive See also: process of applying those laws to particular cases, known as " cases of conscience " (see CASUISTRY)
.
If, on the other See also: hand, the general laws are regarded as intuitive, then the discernment of them may be taken as the true See also: function of conscience
.
In either theory, conscience may be understood as the active principle in the soul which, in face of two alternatives, tells a See also: man that he ought to select the one which is in conformity with the moral See also: law
.
Apart from the two functions of discerning between right and wrong, and actively predisposing the See also: agent to moral action, conscience has further a retrospective action whereby remorse falls upon the man who recognizes that he has broken a moral law
.
See See also: ETHICS; also See also: BUTLER,
See also: JOSEPH; and compare the moral sense " See also: doctrine of See also: Shaftesbury
.
There are certain See also: special uses of the word " conscience." A Conscience clause is the term given to a special See also: provision often inserted in an See also: English See also: act of parliament to enable persons having religious scruples to absent themselves from certain services, or to abstain from certain duties, otherwise prescribed by the act
.
Conscience See also: money is the name given to a payment voluntarily made by a See also: person who has evaded his obligations, especially in respect of taxes and the like
.
This usage derives from the last function of conscience mentioned above . Conscience Courts were See also: local courts, established by acts of parliament in See also: London and various provincial towns, for the recovery of small debts, usually sums under L5
.
They were superseded by county courts (q.v.)
.
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