The Hindu Business Line : Confusion in the conscience

But that doesn't daunt Steven D. Smith from writing a research paper, titled `The Tenuous Case for Conscience,' as part of the University of San Diego's public law and legal theory series. He asks a straight question: "When we reverently invoke `conscience,' do we have any idea what we are talking about?"

His essay addresses two issues: First, "What is conscience?" And, second, "Why should `conscience' deserve special respect or accommodation from society, or from the state?" I touch my conscience to find if I knew it, but there is hardly any response, so I begin to read Smith's work.

A `minimalist description' of the niggling word is that when we describe an act as being done from `conscience,' we usually mean at least to say that the person in question acted on the basis of a sincere conviction about what is morally required or forbidden, explains Smith.

`Moral' is a different hill to climb, please note. Thus, "a doctor who refuses to perform an abortion because she believes it is morally wrong is said to be acting on `conscience'; a doctor who declines to perform an abortion because he thinks the procedure is unsafe — or detrimental to a woman's psychological health, or not cost-justified — might in a given case be wholly justified, but we would not describe him as acting from `conscience.'"

We can apply the same rules to other professionals such as accountants and lawyers, too. But, instead of, as a Socrates quote puts it, "playing with words but revealing nothing," Smith attacks the `moral' angle, and asks why the society or the state respect and possibly defer to what it believes to be an `erroneous' judgment of conscience. "Freedom of conscience can thrive only in rarefied environments," he declares. "Except in a peculiar and deeply unstable kind of conventionalist culture, the case for conscience seems to depend on meta-ethical objectivism — on a commitment to the idea that morality is in some sense natural, or given, or objectively true."

Difficult to package morality to make it objectively true, you'd agree. Even if you were able to do that, Smith wouldn't be happy. For him, "That is not enough," because even within an objectivist framework, "some moral positions do and some do not justify giving respect to erroneous judgments of conscience." Moral: Your moral need not be mine.

In conclusion, Smith postulates that freedom of conscience may depend on "a moral position that assigns pre-eminent value to something like `authenticity,' even over conduct that conforms to objective moral truth." That's one truth against another, one value against another. In short, "the modern discourse of conscience" poses a puzzle, you'd realise.

While ministers and convicts talking about conscience, Smith is distressed that the word has become "more widespread and commonplace — perhaps even platitudinous — in our public rhetoric." Do we need a freedom for that, when it can turn to be `parasitic' and `problematic'? Smith looks closely at those invoking conscience and finds "uncertainty, confusion, perhaps even a kind of degradation."

Right or wrong? Oh, that, again, would be a question of conscience!

SayCheek@TheHindu.co.in