PHIL 456SConscience

Catalog

We are familiar with "conscientious objection", when a person objects to some practice, such as a war or abortion, by appeal to their conscience. But what are people talking about when they make these claims? What is conscience? What is the difference between claims of conscience and ordinary moral claims? This course will selectively examine the history of philosophical reflection on conscience and contemporary debates about conscientious objection. Special attention will be paid to the ideas that conscience manifests a form of self-knowledge or self-assessment and that it is connected in some way with integrity and the "true self."