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Ethics Homepage > Textbook > Winslow |
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Philosophy 302: Ethics Hubbard Winslow, "Conscience Determines What's Right" Abstract: Conscience is a unique eternal faculty enabling us by using reason to feel the difference between right and wrong. Three functions of conscience are (1) feelings of what we ought to do, (2) feelings of self-approval when we do it, and (3) feelings of remorse when we don't. 1. According to Winslow, what is "the exclusive dominion of conscience"? 3. What is the distinguishing susceptibility of conscience? 4. Discuss Winslow's three main functions of conscience.
The "exclusive dominion of conscience," according to Winslow is the intuitive perception and the attending feeling of moral truth. He states the analogy: conscience is to moral truth as taste is to aesthetic truth.
He states conscience is united with the soul–both soul and conscience are are eternal. The two psychological elements are the cognitive (the experiential knowledge of the perception of a moral feeling) and the motive (the volition resulting from reason to act rightly). Problem to be answered by Winslow If moral feelings and the moral faculty are unique in kind, how is it that they are composed of feeling, perception, intellect, and will?
The distinguishing feature of conscience from all other dispositions of the self is the unique feelings of personal obligation and duty. Winslow says these are unique feelings not related to the actions of other persons.
The three main motivating functions of conscience are: (1) the impulse to do (what we believe to be what's) right and avoid (what we believe to be what's) wrong. (Objection to Winslow: note the ambiguous relation to knowledge in his restatement of the role of the intellect.) (2) the unique delightful feeling of approval when we have acted in accordance with duty. (Objection to Winslow: note that we often do our duty grudgingly and often delight in avoiding our duty.) (3) the unique feeling of remorse or guilt when we fail to do our duty (it we are rightly taught at home). (Objection to Winslow: conscience then appears not to be an innate eternal faculty if its exemplification depends on education.) Recommended Sources Conscience:
James Mark Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology. |
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