James F Childress
Abstract
Unfortunately the phrase “appeals to conscience” is ambiguous. First, it may indicate an appeal to another person’s conscience in order to convince him to act in certain ways. Second, it may mean the invocation of one’s own conscience to interpret and justify one’s conduct to others. Third, it may indicate the invocation of conscience in debates with oneself about the right course of action, conscience being understood as a participant in the debate, a referee , or a final arbiter. Although it is possible to distinguish these three meanings of “appeals to conscience,” they are usually intertwined in our moral discourse. Nevertheless, I shall concentrate on the second meaning, referring to the other two only when it is necessary to fill out the picture.1 Appeals to conscience in the second sense raise important issues of justification and public policy which can be considered apart from the other meanings of appeals to conscience. My concern is with what we might call “conscientious objection”.
Childress JF. Appeals to Conscience. Ethics. 1979 Jul;89(4):315-335.