Conscience calls people to do good and to avoid evil
Conscience calls on a human person to do good and to avoid evil. It stirs the
person to make moral judgements about behaviour they:
o are going to do
o are doing
o have done.
Deep within conscience, every human person hears God calling them to ‘love, do
good and to avoid evil.’ This leads them to ask:
o ‘Would that be a loving and good, or a wrong thing to say?’
o ‘Is this a loving and good, or a wrong thing to do?’
o ‘Was that loving and good, or wrong?’
These questions stir people to make what are called moral judgements, or
judgements of moral conscience. People are obliged to follow sincere moral
conscience judgements about the right thing to do faithfully, and to avoid what
their consciences tell them is wrong. Moral conscience judgements examine the
three elements of any moral decision:
o the action itself
o the intention
o the circumstances (including, where relevant, the consequences).
To be moral, each of these must be good. Where the action or the intention or
the circumstances is wrong, if a person were to proceed then they would
behaving in an immoral way. This would disobey conscience.
Action
Actions that are morally good obey God’s laws. Actions that are morally wrong
disobey God’s laws. God’s laws are the final criteria for deciding whether an
action is right or wrong. Actions that disobey God’s laws often cause unforeseen,
long-term harm to others, or harm to the person doing the wrong action. The
action may have ‘felt right’, and the harmful consequences become clear only
later.
Any action that disobeys a law of God is always wrong. There are no
circumstances, for example, when it can be right to commit murder, abortion, sex
abuse, rape or theft. Sometimes people try to justify immoral actions by saying
that their intentions were good. However, an act that disobeys God’s laws is
always wrong in itself, regardless of a person’s intentions.
Intention
For a judgment to be morally good, the intention must be right as well. Even if an
action follows an ideal revealed by God, it is morally wrong to perform it for the
wrong intention. For example, if the truth was told about someone but the real
intention were to get revenge by causing them serious embarrassment, the
choice would be morally wrong. The same would be true if someone gives
money to another person to buy drugs or alcohol which would lead to harm for
that person.
Circumstances, including relevant circumstances
Sometimes an action can be morally right in itself, but to do it would be wrong in
the circumstances. For example, swinging a golf club in a crowded lift would be
wrong because of the harmful effects on others.
The circumstances include consequences. If a person considers doing
something that is morally acceptable in itself, but the consequences of that action
would be against God’s law, it would be wrong to perform the action in these
circumstances.
A scientist, for example, may undertake an experiment in safe laboratory
conditions with the intention of discovering new knowledge. However, the
scientist may also know that the findings will be used by others for immoral
purposes, such as to destroy innocent people, to commit a crime or to
manipulate others. Faced with such consequences, the scientist would be acting
morally by deciding to abandon the experiment.