Philosophy Archives - Page 13 of 13 - Protection of Conscience Project Library

Genuine appeals to conscience

Kenneth R Seeskin

Extract
Kordig denies that the dictates of one’s conscience are always either obligatory or morally permissible. With this thesis I have no quarrel. The recognition that a person’s conscience can be mistaken, sometimes dangerously so, is at least as old as Hobbes and has been maintained by philosophers as diverse as Hegel, Royce, and Nowell- Smith. Still, people do appeal to conscience in moral disputes and, as I will attempt to show, do so in a manner that is philosophically justifiable. My goal is not so much to attack what Kordig has said as it is to argue that his discussion is incomplete: some appeals to conscience are bogus but some are not.

Seeskin KR. Genuine appeals to conscience. J Value Inquiry. 1978;12(4):296-300.

Analysis: An introduction to ethical concepts – Conscience

Eric D’Arcy

Extract
Many people believe in conscience that a pregnant woman has supreme rights over what happens in her own body. Others believe in conscience that the right of the unborn child to life is as good as that of any other human being. In some countries, the law, in the name of the former right, discriminates against an obstetrician who, in the name of the latter, refuses to destroy that life. This is a serious contemporary issue which tests the sincerity of governments that profess respect for conscience.

D’Arcy E. Analysis: An introduction to ethical concepts – Conscience. J Med Ethics. 1977;3(2):98-99.

(Correspondence) Attitudes to Abortion

John Stallworthy

British Medical Journal, BMJ — British Medical Journal

Extract
In the reorganized Health Service it should be easier than hitherto for adequate teams to provide a comnprehensive service in obstetrics and gynaecology if there is the necessary financial support. High ethical standards, conscience, and differing religious beliefs, when associated with freedom, of thought and expression within the fellowship of a team, can prove enriching for the doctors and therefore beneficial to the patients.

Stallworthy J. (Correspondence) Attitudes to Abortion. Br Med J. 1974 Jun 01;2(5917):501.

(Correspondence) Obstetric Appointments and the Abortion Act

JA Stallworthy

Extract
. . . man’s right to live and work according to the dictates of conscience is an asset precious to him and medicine itself. Because of their religious conviction two senior members of this division of obstetrics and gynaecology do not perform abortions. . . If when they leave . . . they can be replaced by men or women of equal calibre Oxford will be fortunate. The integrity, experience, skill, and potential of applicants for these posts will be more important than their willingness to terminate pregnancy.

Stallworthy J. (Correspondence) Obstetric Appointments and the Abortion Act. Br Med J. 1971 Jul 10 3(5766):108.

(Correspondence) Abortion

Arthur ME Kennedy

Canadian Medical Association Journal, CMAJ — Canadian Medical Association Journal

Extract
The appearance of the two letters on abortion in sequence in the Journal . . . illustrated the diverging ethics of the members and future members of our profession. Reading the letter by Dr. Heine was indeed like feeling a breath of fresh unpolluted air in the smog of today’s confused thinking. . . .How different was the letter by the President of the Medical Students’ Society of McGill University stating the unanimous opinion of their Executive Council.

Kennedy AM. (Correspondence) Abortion. Can Med Assoc J. 1971 Jan 09;104(1):70.

Responsibility and Conscience

Lynne Belaief

Extract
In philosophical ethics, if one asks the question, is ethics possible, it is inconveniently, and, I will argue, erroneously assumed that he has also raised the notorious problem, what is the definition of “the good”? Various confusions attend the latter inquiry, including the remarkably ambiguous insistence that “the good” cannot be defined – implying that one in fact knew a great deal about its meaning in order to know this. I here intend to reject this typical but inconvenient quest principally because all such initial inquiries into the definition of “the good” are potentially important only within a particular ethical perspective, which is already therefore presupposed as true. The logic and ethical value of that perspective, here named legalistic or authoritarian ethics, is to be contrasted with the perspective called creative ethics, and discarded.

Belaief L. Responsibility and Conscience. Philos Today. 1969;13(1):60-79.

The Significance of Conscience

Iredell Jenkins

Extract
. . . the following seems the safest procedure. First, to give an account of the most general, and the most generally accepted, characteristics of those experienced occasions that we refer to as issuing from conscience. This will be brief, evocative rather than analytical in method, and selfconsciously undoctrinaire. Second, to consider what inferences can be drawn from this behavior of conscience concerning the sort of mechanism conscience is, the ways in which it operates, and the function that it fills. . . . In short, in this inquiry . . . I shall reason from what conscience does to what it is; from the effects it produces to the structure it has and the purposes it serves; from its impact on human experience to its role in the human economy.

Jenkins I. The Significance of Conscience. Ethics. 1955 Jul;65(4):261-270.