Describing And Defining Conscience

Describing And Defining Conscience According to the definition in Colliers encyclopaedia, conscience is the human beings direct or deliberate conviction of right or wrong in resistance to the humans strong impulses and desires, conscience is the force that makes one recognise what one ought to do and bids one to do it. The problem of conscience involves two questions; what is its nature and its origin, and what is its authority? The earliest accounts of conscience, in theological tradition, explain it as the voice of God in the soul directing one to do right. 1. Modern ethics, without the appeal to supernatural principles, has developed to main theories of conscience, intuition and empiricism. Intuitionism agrees with the theological doctrine that there exists a direct and imperative certainty in right and wrong but describes this so called moral sense as a plain fact of moral nature. Various versions of intuitions have regarded the moral sense as analogous to the familiar five senses or as emotional, or as the verdict of moral reason. Empiricism rejects the claim of intuitionism as contradicted by the evidence of past experience and claims that there is no such conviction of right and wrong and that conscience is simply the cumulative inference from past experience directing future conduct. Its authority is not universal or absolute, but varies with circumstances and is ever subject to revision. 2. Conscience is a key term in Christian ethics foundation of traditional moral theology and a word familiar in popular speech. 3. Perhaps the single most important statement on conscience in the documents of Vatican 2, occurs in the Pastoral Constitution of the Church. 4. Man has in his heart a law written by God, to obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged. Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of man. There he alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depths. In a wonderful manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of God and neighbour. Infidelity to conscience, Christians are joined with the rest of men in the search for truth and for the genuine solution to the numerous problems which arise in the life of individuals an from social relationships. { Vat. 2.1966 n.pp 213-214} 1. Colliers Encyclopaedia, Vol. 7,p. 2. Colliers Encyclopaedia, Vol. 7.p. 3. MacQuarrie John, Dictionary of Christian Ethics. 4. Bier W. C. SJ. Conscience-its freedom and limitations. Traditionally, conscience has not been thought of by Christians as a special faculty, or as an intuitive voice of God with in us but simply as the mind of man making moral judgements. This is how Thomas Aquinas classically defined it. Strictly speaking conscience decides in a particular case what is to be done or avoided in the light of a grasp of general moral principles which St. Thomas called Synderesis. Conscience then, is a judgment of the practical reason at work on matters of right and wrong. 5. Indeed, in the popular mind, conscience is often taken to be a synonym for morality itself. The rights of conscience, the duty of conscience, what conscience demands or permits, all these are taken to be summaries of the human moral enterprise. In point of fact, the matter is considerably more complicated than such colloquialisms might lead us to believe. The popular understanding is at least correct is in as much as it insists on a central role for the reality of conscience. Thus, having considered what it means to be a human agent and a human person, and having sought to analyse the moral implications of that agency and that personhood, we now turn to a particular aspect of that human person, conscience. 6. In living the Christian life we have help from the past and the present. We do not face the burden of decision naked and bereft. Never the less, the decision finally must be ours. This might be a daunting prospect if the basis of the Christian life has not justification or acceptance by faith in Christ and not as a reward for a high record of conscientious moral achievement. Indeed it is precisely because the Christian is secure in the knowledge of what Christ has already done for him, that he is able to face unafraid the inevitable uncertainties of moral decisions in the present. To bring to bear moral judgments on the facts of a particular case is known as casuistry. There is much in its history which is dubious and has been questioned, but there is no escape from every Christian being a casuist once he admits that acting from the right motive is not enough; he must also seek to do what is right in the particular circumstances. The training of motive is a matter of ascetic theology; the training of the moral judgment in the situation in the education of conscience. It follows of course that conscience belongs to man as man. It is not the peculiar possession of the Christian. Having the capacity to recognise moral distinctions and apply them in particular cases is part of what we mean by a man. The actual deliverances of conscience and profoundly { and rightly } influenced by time and circumstance, though they are not determined by them. The Christian has the advantage of a more adequate understanding of human life and destiny and deeper grasp of goodness, through Jesus Christ they can be found elsewhere. He has also greater resources through the Holy Spirit in the Church on which to draw. He therefore, has the greater responsibilities. All men, whether they believe it or not, are responsible before God for acting according to their conscience and for educating their conscience according to their circumstances and possibilities. Conclusion: Conscience is what bears witness to and illuminates; conscience judges that inner awareness, evaluating it in an impartial and unbiased way {cf. also Rom. 9:1; 2 Cor 1:12f }. Conscience is not an exterior judge; it is an aspect of the self and thus understood, it can have several different qualities of its own. 5. MacQuarrie, John Dictionary of Christian Ethics, P. 66 6. OConnell, Timothy Principles for a Catholic Morality, P 83 It can be a bad conscience, denying the realities of the moral life. Conscience can function as an infallible guide to action. Paul commands his disciple Timothy to fight the good fight and hold fast to faith and a good conscience. Some men, by rejecting the guidance of conscience, have made shipwreck of their faith { 1 Tim 1: 19 f }. In the final analysis, then, the wisdom and the judgment of the Church are important, but they are not ultimately important. Therefore, the genuinely important role of Church teaching must never be allowed to deteriorate into a a loyalty test for Catholics. Is a Catholic who finds himself or herself able to agree with the judgment of the church a better Catholic than one who cannot? We must say so. For just as to use Church teaching properly is to celebrate it, to ask it to be more than it is to destroy it. To make of that valuable and cherished source of moral wisdom a tool for ecclesiastical discipline or a measure of religious fidelity is to betray it. Indeed, to see the moral teaching of the Church as a test of Catholic loyalty is ultimately to violate the nature of the Church, the nature of humanity and surely the nature of conscience. What do mean by the formation of conscience? The journey of the Christian begins at the moment of conception and ends on death when one is re-united with God and enters a new state of being. Their calling in life is to be the Christian fully alive- repent and believe, the Kingdom of God has come. Moral philosophy is the old fashioned name for ethics while moral theology is the discussion of the principles which govern the behaviour of man/woman. James Fowler described Faith Development in six stages. Stage 1; extends from infancy to approximately age 6. We receive faith from our parents, not by formal teaching but by picking up basic parental attitudes towards God, Christ, prayer, the Church and so on. The childs vision of God is that of a loving parent or threatening personà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. which ever the parent projects on to the child. The child is intuitiveà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ picks up the moods etc. from parent adult. Stage 2; generally extends from age 7 to 12. The child receives faith from a parent or parent substitute e.g. siblings, member of extended family or a teacher in school. We pass on stories of Christianity-what we believe and what we do because of what we believe. We pass these beliefs and actions to children in a simple literalform. Children love stories. Stage 3; begins at age 13 and for many extends right through adulthood. The child now receives faith from ones environment or group. The game plan in life is to belong to a group. Now the child wants to get into middle of a group and stay there. They want to be members and do what the group does. There is security in the group-the herd instinct! Stage 4; this is called a transition stageà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. when one realises that one is accountable for ones life. One is responsible for ones faith and one realises that hiding in a group is no longer possible. Leaving stage 3 means that we feel a greater need for community. Stage 5 ; is attained at about age 30à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. we become mature, liberated persons. We can now deal with organisation and individual uniqueness, logic and intuition. The whole world is now open to us. Stage 6 ; the minimal age for attaining this stage is 38. Fowler says that very few of us reach this stage. The person here becomes a God lover, a people lover, a community person, a strong individual, a pioneer, a barrier breaker e.g. St. Paul. When we speak of conscience 1, we are referring to a general since of value, an awareness of personal responsibility, which is utterly characteristic of the human person. To be human is to be accountable. It is to be a being in charge of ones life. This human capacity for self-direction equally implies a human responsibility for good direction. Indeed, so much is this true that we question the humanity of anyone who lacks an awareness of value. We have varying opinions as to what is right or wrong only because we have common realisation that it makes a difference whether a thing is right or wrong. Thus every discussion of moral values, every consideration of moral questions, has on its presupposition the existence of conscience/ 1. The human person has such a conscience, and only because of that fact is the person genuinely and truly human. What can we say of conscience ? We can assert that the word conscience, as it is generally used both in ordinary conversation and in theology, points at one or other of three quite different ideas and for purposes of simplicity, it will be referred to as conscience / 1, conscience / 2. and conscience / 3. The existence of conscience / 1 does not mean that we rest on our laurels. Quite the contrary, conscience / 1 forces individual human beings to search out the objective moral values of their situation. They feel obliged to analyse their behaviour and their world, to seek to discover what is the really good thing and what is not. This search, this exercise of moral reasoning, can also be termed an act of conscience, conscience / 2. My conscience tells me that it is wrong to take that money. Here we understand conscience / 2. conscience / 2 deals with the specific perception of values, concrete individual values. It emerges in the ongoing process of reflection, discussion and analysis in which human beings have always engaged. At the level of conscience / 2, we can differ and disagree. Some may find it right to withhold taxes used to wage war, while others will find it wrong. Some may judge our culture to be morally depraved, while others will consider it an advancement over previous ages. People disagree and that is characteristic of conscience / 2. So when we speak of conscience / 2, we are speaking of a fragile reality. We are speaking of an aspect of humankind that needs all the help it can get. It needs to be educated. Individual persons are not always to see whats there. They need assistance. If they are sincere persons, they will engage in the process known as formation of conscience. For that, indeed is a characteristic of conscience / 2: it needs to be formed. It needs to be guided, directed and illuminated. It needs to be assisted in many ways. Conscience / 2, then, is quite different from conscience / 1. Its not universal, at least in its conclusions and judgments. Conscience / 3 is consummately concrete, for it is the concrete judgment of specific persons pertaining to their own immediate action. But for all that concreteness, the judgment of conscience / 3 remains infallible. That is to say, it constitutes the final norm by which a persons action must be guided. Why is that ?. The answer lies in the unique conjunction of conscience /1 and conscience /2. It was conscience / 2 that led us to analyse and understand our situation in a particular { fallible } way. We also have conscience / 1. That aspect of conscience demands, insists, requires { infallibly } that we seek to do good and avoid evil. Everyone, of course, must ultimately follow his conscience, this means that he must do right as he sees it right { conscience /3 } with desire and effort to find and to do what is right { conscience / 2 }. Fr.Bernard Haring, The Law of Christ 1..151. Conclusion: In a fundamental way, then, the Church finds itself in the same situation as the individual moral person. Just as the individuals conscience / 2 must search for the truth of its situation and, once found, must kneel before that truth, so much the conscience of the Church. We look to that ecclesial conscience with a certain confidence and trust, but we do not ask of it what it cannot give. Throughout the whole exercise of conscience / 2, as we maturely and prudently listen for whatever wisdom we can receive, we never forget that we are looking, not for the approved, not the permitted, but for the good. We and the Church together search for the true values of our situation, and once we find those values we accept them as challenges for our lives. It is that truth, that goodness, that is Supreme; and to that both and moral agent must bow.

Human Genome Project Essay -- essays research papers fc

Outline Thesis: Large corporations, such as insurance companies, and governments are looking to save money on future policyholders through the use of genetic testing. General information on the Human Genome Project Time of discussion leading up to implementation Who was involved Where does the funding come from Insurance Companies and discrimination Discrimination against unborn children Genetic testing for “bad'; or unwanted traits Fix vs. Abort Not covering unborn with unwanted traits Denying Benefits to Current Members Forcing Genetic test to continue coverage Not covering spouses, children, etc.. who come up “Bad'; Denying coverage to new members 1. New members who want to join but have unwanted traits People switching jobs that need insurance but can’t get it Governments Benefits to people with unwanted traits Will government protect people with a predisposition to recklessness Will governments provide benefits for people with predisposition to genetic disorders? Welfare Will welfare be provided to people with genetic predisposition not to work Will the government try to alter people on welfare Military Will the military attempt to genetically alter persons to become greater soldiers or officers? Will the newly found technologies be used to engineer biological weapons? Corporations Will corporations require genetic testing to be performed as a term of hire? Will corporations issue genetic testing to employees to determine job position? Eugenics A.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Define Eugenics B.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Creating a “Custom Child'; 1.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ability 2.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ethics Privacy and ethical views on genetic testing General concerns of privacy Discrimination from insurance companies Discrimination from government policies Discrimination from employers Who should now the results of a genetic test? Individuals should know Employers should not know Government should not know Insurance should not know Widespread views on the ethical issues of genetic testing Physicians and their views Views of the general public Discussion on the Negative Implications of the Information Derived from the Human Genome Project Should man govern nature? This is a question that has been posed more often recently than ever. Human will soon know the secret to life and be able to ... ...t on their practices, but do expect major clinical changes in the future (Fetters 1). Although the Human Genome Project will bring upon many aspects that will be beneficial for generations to come, there are too many negative implications that will turn a lot of cheeks. Supporters of this effort will in the future regret their choice. There will be employment and insurance barriers due to genetic testing. Perhaps the worst part about the government implications is the biological military applications that will spawn destructive biological weapons. Man should not and could not govern nature. Nature has always prevailed from the beginning of time. Man has finally sealed his own fate. Works Cited Begley, Sharon. “Designer Babies.'; Newsweek 9 November 1998:1-4 Bereano, Phil. “The Politics of DNA’s Meaning.'; Tikku September 1999:23 Branfman, Fred. “The Gene is Out of the Bottle.'; 9 December 1999. Fetters, Michael D. “Family Physicians’ Perspectives on Genetics and the Human Genome Project.'; JAMA 24 November 1999: 1,902. Lee, Thomas F. The Human Genome Project: Cracking the Genetic Code of Life New York: Plenum, 1991.

Arthur Miller’s play Essay

This essay will explore the theme of masculinity as presented by Eddie and Rodolpho in Arthur Miller’s play of a view from the bridge. I will do this by analysing what the male characters say, and how it shows their view of masculinity.  A View From The Bridge, which was based in New York, was set in the 1950’s. During that time many Italian immigrants had fled to New York, and brought their beliefs and views with them. One of there strongest beliefs was in masculinity, which is what I will be exploring in this essay. A stereotypical Italian family had the Male as the head of the house, with him bringing in the money and have the ultimate say in all matters. That is only the stereotype though. Different people have different views, which are affected by class, culture and education amongst others. This is shown in the play by having people with different backgrounds, having different views.  Eddie is the character who seems to have the strongest views of masculinity. Firstly he shows the audience that he wants to protect his family. The first scenario when this comes across when he is having a conversation with Catherine about what she is wearing. Eddie tells her â€Å"I think it’s too short.† This is a typical parental concern for many years and still continues within families. It shows that Eddie cares about her and doesn’t want guys staring at her. To make the message even clearer he even tells Catherine â€Å"I don’t like the looks.† Eddie is just looking out for his family and he wants the best for them. Shortly following this discussion is when Catherine tells Eddie she has got a job. At first he is inquisitive and asks her question like â€Å"where’s the job?† and â€Å"what company?† Once again this shows his protection for his family, but when he finds out she is earning â€Å"fifty dollars a week† his tone changes. Suddenly Eddie becomes against the situation and makes excuses like he â€Å"don’t like that neighbourhood.† I believe the reason Eddie had suddenly become against the situation is because he would no longer be the main provider for the family. It shows that Catherine’s income would be more during the conversation with Marco when he says they could earn maybe â€Å"thirty, forty a week.† That is a massive dent to a proud man’s pride and masculinity. Another thing that proves Eddie to be a masculine man is when Arthur Miller writes about his ‘rocker’. This is a rocking chair, which I believe may symbolise his throne. By having this in the story strengthens the fact that Eddie is head of the house.  Finally Eddie challenged Rodolpho to some ‘friendly’ boxing. Boxing is a sport strongly associated with men due to its violence. Eddies skill at boxing is shown through Beatrice when he says, â€Å"he’s good†. This shows that  Eddie has done it many times before, hence stregnthening his masculinity. Also by striking Rodolpho in the face is a warning to him, to not get on the wrong side of Eddie. Marco didn’t like this so he challenged Eddie to lift a chair with one hand. He couldn’t do it. Then Marco lifted it and smiled â€Å"triumphantly† showing Eddie he had won. This was the first time that Eddie’s masculinity had been challenged.  Throughout the play Eddie also loses some of his masculinity through various event.  These first come though after the arrival of Marco and Rodolpho, when Beatrice says to him â€Å"when am I going to be a wife again,† and â€Å"it’s been 3 months.† That quote tells the audience that Eddie has not had sex for a long, which would greatly dent a male image, especially if your wife is confronting you about it. The next blow to his masculinity came when his daughter disobeyed him. Catherine tells him â€Å"no, were doing it right away.† This is in reference to Catherine and Rodolpho getting married. As head of the house he should be in control of all situations, and having your daughter not obey you is the opposite. It once again shows more masculinity Eddie has lost.  In Eddie’s view of masculinity he shows us regularly that being gay is not acceptable. This is shown to the audience by constantly by him using homophobic comments about Rodolpho i.e. â€Å"He’s like a weird† and â€Å"they callin’ him canary.† Even though he seems to have strong views against homosexuality he kisses Rodolpho. I believe he does this to challenge Rodolphos masculinity, but in doing so drastically reduces his masculine image.

Cardiovascular Disease The Congestive Heart Failure,...

Introduction Cardiovascular disease comprises the congestive heart failure, stroke, and coronary heart disease. These conditions have continued to be the major causes of morbidity and mortality in the United States of America today. The occurrence of cardiovascular diseases is influenced by various factors such as physical, political, environmental, and social factors (Kochanek, 2011). These factors entail access to quality and affordable health care services, affordability to healthy diets, conditions of work, physical exercises, community support, and access to education. Problem and health statistics Heart diseases account for more than one million deaths every year, contributing to more than 40% of the annual deaths. Cardiovascular disease is listed as the second leading cause of mortality among those aged between 40 and 65 years. It is the third leading cause of mortality for people aged between 25 and 44 years. Economically, cardiovascular diseases accounts for approximately 259 billion dollars loss annually in direct and indirect costs in the United States (Kochanek, 2011). This is expected to rise sharply by the year 2020. As a result, from health and economic approaches, cardiovascular disease is a high risk factor that has become a massive burden that requires to be addressed promptly. Notably, these conditions are preventable. Cardiovascular diseases contribute to 27% of morbidity and mortality of people in the state of New Jersey. The state lostShow MoreRelatedCardiovascular Disease And Heart Disease981 Words   |  4 PagesCardiovascular d isease has reportedly been the number one disease killer for men and women in the United States of America. Every one out of four deaths is caused by heart disease in the United States alone (Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention). 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