Modern Moral Conscience

ABSTRACT

The article challenges the individualism and neutrality of modern moral conscience. It looks to the history of the concept to excavate an older tradition that takes conscience to be social and morally responsive, while arguing that dominant contemporary justifications of conscience in terms of integrity are inadequate without reintroducing these social and moral traits. This prompts a rethinking of the nature and value of conscience: first, by demonstrating that a morally-responsive conscience is neither a contradiction in terms nor a political absurdity; second, by suggesting how a morally-responsive conscience can be informed by the social world without being a mere proxy for social power or moribund tradition.     

论生态良知

生态危机已经成为影响人类生存最主要的危机之一,面对这种危机,人类已经采取了一些行之有效的措施。如经济手段,制度手段等,然而最根本的解决方法是培养人们良好的生态意识,在生态意识中,生态良知又是核心。养成生态良知是克服现代生态危机的关键环节。     

良知与和谐社会建设

“致良知”是阳明学说的核心。“致良知”是他的宇宙论、道德论,也是其修养论。“致良知”对构建和谐社会有重要意义。如今中国社会出现了许多不和谐,人与人、人与社会、人与自然冲突、矛盾、对立,比比皆是。但归根到底是人自己与自己不和谐,即身心不和谐。为此,需要从阳明学中,吸取一些智慧“省察克治”,限制乃至祛除无限膨胀的私欲,抛弃消费主义,过勤俭生活。     

Conscience,conscientious objections,and medicine

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - To inform the ongoing discussion of whether claims of conscientious objection allow medical professionals to refuse to perform tasks that would otherwise be...     

Structural conflict and object relations conflict.

A hierarchical model of the mind is required for a more integrated understanding of psychic conflict. At a higher developmental level, the hierarchical model includes the tripartite model, and at a lower level it includes an object-relations model. Psychic conflicts may be classified into object relations conflicts and structural conflicts. The object-relations class of psychic conflict covers the phase of psychic development prior to id-ego-superego differentiation. The earlier psychoanalytic writings tended to ascribe all kinds of symptoms, conflicts, and disorders to structural conflicts. Logical and empirical evidence against the universality of structural conflicts in various disorders and symptoms, even psychoneurotic symptoms, has been summarized and discussed.     

良心和启蒙:真善判断权问题

There were two prevailing sentiments in Europe after the Reformation: One opposing papal authority and one advocating individual freedom. This paper analyzes these two sentiments and finds that the concept of conscience is crucial in understanding them. The issue of conscience is about judging truth and good, and in initiating the Reformation, Martin Luther heavily appealed to his conscience while countering Catholic attacks. With the wide dispersal of the Reformation, Luther’s notion of conscience was well received among his supporters throughout Europe. Descartes later transformed Luther’s conscience into an epistemological being (the cogito), and argued that its existence was the only valid thing that survived his thorough skepticism — and as such is the foundation of human knowledge. Rousseau continued this line of thinking, which we call subjectivism, and re-employed the term conscience as a replacement for cogito, holding that conscience is the final authority in judging good and bad; that, as the starting point of human existence, it cannot be withheld from any human being; and that it therefore constitutes an inalienable human right. This paper argues that the Enlightenment was a subjectivist movement propelled by this conscience-cogito-conscience conceptualization, and that it sought to enlighten this inalienable conscience. __________ Translated from Qiushi xuekan 求是学刊 (Seeking Truth), 2008, (1): 47–54     

Peace, War, and the Christian Conscience

A slightly shortened version of a paper given in London on 8 November 1986, at the commemoration (sponsored by PAX CHRISTI) of the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the PAX Society.     

Curiosity as an Agent of Conscience

Public outcry against social outrages in our nation in the past few years have called for solutions that suggest that we as a nation believe that by strengthening the observational and punishing components of the superego of the American Psyche we can successfully overthrow our moral failings. By using data in regard to Adolph Eichman and other Nazis as clinical examples, it is suggested that the problem of our moral failings resides not in a deficient superego (a refluent moral agent) but in the insufficient development of conscience (a reflective consciousness). The roles that curiosity and impeded curiosity take in the development of morality are shown to be central to an understanding of how conscience differs from superego.     

Private Practice with a Social Conscience

Abstract

A clinician describes her involvement in a non-profit organization that provides low-cost psychotherapy using the volunteer services of clinical social workers in private practice.