Most people experience a feeling of guilt after doing certain acts (or even thinking about them).
This is what we call ‘having a conscience’.
However, it is not clear where this comes from, or whether that this feeling of guilt is a reliable guide to ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.
Here we explore three perspectives on the nature of the conscience, and whether it has any value as a moral guide.
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo argues that God has given people an ability to distinguish between right and wrong, and this is what we call the conscience.
He explains,
There has been set before their eyes that which in their conscience to see they would be compelled; and as if from without the voice of God were brought to them. (‘Exposition’ n.d.: sec. 1)
He means that the conscience is like the voice of God, and IF correctly understood is a reliable guide to right and wrong.
Joseph Fletcher
Joseph Fletcher argues that we have no such ability, and what we call ‘having a conscience’ is actually the feeling of applying the ‘agapéic calculus’ to a situation.
He claims,
There is no conscience; “conscience” is merely a word for our attempts to make decisions creatively, constructively, fittingly. (1966: 53)
He means that our feelings of ‘guilt’ come from an awareness of having misapplied the agapéic calculus, and that this can be avoided by being more deliberate in our decisions.
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud argues that the ‘conscience’ is actually the ‘super-ego’ — the internalised (or ‘introjected’) voice of our parents.
He writes
An interpretation of the normal, conscious sense of guilt (conscience) presents no difficulties; it is based on the tension between the ego and the ego ideal and it is the expression of a condemnation of the ego by its critical agency [i.e. the superego]. (1923: 471)
This means a person’s conscience reflects their upbringing, NOT any objective standard of right and wrong.
References
Augustine. n.d. 'Exposition on Psalm 58', New Advent <https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1801058.htm> [accessed 31 May 2026]
Fletcher, Joseph. 1966. 'Situation Ethics: The New Morality' (Westminster Press)
Freud, Sigmund. 1923 [1986]. 'The Ego and the Id', in 'The Essentials of Psycho-Analysis', ed. Anna Freud (Vintage Books), pp. 439–483
