Coscienza in Conflitto: An Analysis of Dante Alighieri and Thomas Aquinas’s Views on
Conscience
What is conscience? Has the idea of the conscience as an element of the human soul been
consistent across history? Is it, as John Milton writes, an “umpire” that guides human actions?
(Paradise Lost 3.195-198). Or is it rather an awareness of responsibility and power over the self
as Friedrich Nietzsche writes? (“A Genealogy of Morals” p. 67). This essay will focus on the
idea of the conscience as expressed by two influential late medieval thinkers, Dante Alighieri
and Thomas Aquinas. Although Aquinas is often considered to be Dante’s mentor, they were not
in complete agreement in this area. Dante, unlike Aquinas, placed less emphasis on human
reason in relation to the conscience and thought of it in a more spiritual, divine way. So even
though Aquinas and Dante both believe that man has a conscience, they differ in their views of
what it is and how it works. Dante perceives conscience as a supernaturally implanted power
governed by divine influence that can become reduced through man’s disconnect with it.
Aquinas believes that it is an application of knowledge that must not be acted against and can
malfunction due to flawed judgment or incomplete development.
Dante’s view of conscience as a supernaturally implanted power governed by divine
influence is best illustrated in Dante the pilgrim’s response in Inferno to his feelings of being
unable to describe Betran de Born’s physical nature. In this scene, he says, “Conscience, though,
lends me confidence to try. / That good companion renders all men free / under its breastplate,
knowing we are pure” (Inferno 28.115-117). In this way, Dante the pilgrim, and by extension
Dante the poet, believes that the conscience is a divine hand which “lends” “confidence” (115).
It is a faculty, or power, of his soul which gives him assistance, a faculty that can only be there
because of God’s implantation of it. This is a view that John S. Carroll supports as well in his
book Prisoners of Hope: An Exposition of Dante’s Purgatorio. Although he says this in relation
to purgatory, his statement, “…there is innate in the soul (here Dante is not doubtful, for with
him it was a primary fact of consciousness) a power that judges, warns, advises, – what [is
known] as conscience” (p. 230) still applies. For Dante, conscience is unchanging, regardless of
the environment it is in. It remains “That good companion” that “renders all men free.” However,
if for Dante the conscience is a power that judges as well as counsels, it brings up a connection to
Thomas Aquinas’s view of the same part of the soul since he also says that the conscience
judges. So, with that said, where do their divisions lie? For that delineation, a specific
examination of Aquinas’s idea of conscience is helpful.
According to the Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas’s premier work on all theories
divine and rational (human), conscience is “…not a power, but an act.” (ST I. q79. a13). He
elaborates on this definition by saying “…conscience, according to the very nature of the word,
implies the relation of knowledge to something: for conscience may be resolved into ‘cum alio
scientia,’ i.e. knowledge applied to an individual case” (ST I. q79. a13). This is where the
division between Dante and Aquinas begins, for if a person is to possess knowledge, there must
follow a realization of where that knowledge is coming from. For Aquinas, a person applies their
knowledge to an “individual case,” meaning the person has to perform some act of reason in his
conscience to derive information he can use to make a judgment to apply to said case. This
brings about a problem because then the human has to discover things for himself and can
therefore come to incorrect conclusions and thus applications of those conclusions to his
judgments. Aquinas tries to resolve this by stating that synderesis, a separate Scholastic term for
the inborn understanding of universal natural law, provides the conscience with the information
it needs to lean towards the good in any judgments it makes. But, this in itself creates an issue.
Synderesis has speculative principles, which are innate comprehensions of natural law, but
practical principles, also innate but are primarily the tools of the conscience, are the active ways
in which natural law is applied by humans to a situation. (ST I. q79. a12). As was mentioned
before, it is the application of practical principles that can fail, keeping the conscience from
being a power since a power is incapable of failure. Stephen P. Garvey concurs with this in his
article “Two Kinds of Criminal Wrongs” when he says, “[The conscience can] misapply the
moral law to the facts…” (284). The act of these judgments becomes a prominent feature in
Aquinas’s proper definition of conscience. Of course, this is very different from Dante’s notion
of it because even though Dante thinks conscience can judge, it is actually God’s perfect
judgment that gets relayed through the conscience with natural law, making the conscience have
judgment as an act within it but functions more as an advisor that can be called on whenever a
person is in trouble. Because of this, for Dante the judgments of conscience are more divine,
accurate, and universal than Aquinas’s view of them, which holds that they are much more
rational, inaccurate, and particular. Therefore, due to its dependency on fallible human reason,
the conscience cannot be an innate, infallible power that gives direct divine aid like Dante’s view
of it can, making it consistent with Aquinas’s definition of it as only an act.
Given the fact that conscience to Dante is all about divine guidance, there comes the
question of how a person can still falter in their decisions with the presence of such a flawless
power. Dante addresses this problem that humans experience by saying that the conscience itself
never falters but rather the person’s connection to it can be severed and as such makes them rely
too much on their own misguided reason which then can result in bad choices. One of the
examples that speaks to this is in Purgatorio when Virgil and Dante the pilgrim are approaching
Mount Purgatory and Dante perceives that his guide is suffering guilt and self-disapproval for
allowing them to stay behind and listen to Casella’s song in the previous canto. In the narration,
Dante the pilgrim thinks in relation to Virgil “But he, it seemed, was gnawed by self-reproach. /
Such dignity of conscience, clear and clean, / bitten so keenly by so slight a fault!” (Purgatorio
3.7-9). At first glance with the phrase, “…conscience, clear and clean / bitten…,” (8-9), it
appears that the conscience sustains a wound from the action of being “bitten” (9). But, this is a
misunderstanding because it assumes that the reader should take the meaning of it literally.
Dante does not intend that. Instead, it is more symbolic and metaphorical. Specifically, Dante the
poet, through Dante the pilgrim, is saying that Virgil’s conscience is experiencing a detachment
from him because of the strain of his “self-reproach” (7), which he is “gnawed by” (7). What this
means is that the shame that Virgil is feeling is, bit by bit, making him unable to connect with all
of his faculties, including his conscience. So, when it says the conscience has been “bitten,” (9) it
actually conveys the removal of the services it can provide Virgil with because of the effects of
shame produced by his “self-reproach.” (7). This makes sense because, if the perspective of the
conscience is taken into account as opposed to the person’s, it would definitely feel as if it had
been “bitten” (9) due to its lost connection with the person it is meant to be serving. In this case,
that would be Virgil. This metaphorical approach of interpreting the text is not an impossible,
uncouth way of looking at it. As John Macready says in his article, “Eichmann in Inferno: An
Examination of Conscience in Dante’s Commedia,” “Metaphors redeem meaning out of chaos
and provide a bridge between the sensory and non-sensory realms of human experience. They
join the worlds of being and appearance and allow one to navigate inner landscapes.” (p. 4).
Since the bite conscience receives is metaphorical, it should be understood that it cannot ever
experience a real injury because of its relationship to God. If it could, it would be a violation of
the love that God has for a person’s soul, a soul He has created. For Dante, this is his way of
expressing the fact that God is always with a person but that he must maintain a strong
connection with his conscience if he wishes to receive His help. Without that connection, he can
lose his way and make bad decisions, hence presenting the dangers of losing that link.
Another example in which Dante elaborates on the detachment between man and his
conscience and the resulting bad choices that can come from such a break takes place in the
context of committing sin. Dante uses visual obscurities as a metaphor to show the effects of sin
on the soul by making it so the person can no longer connect with his conscience. A situation in
which this happens is in Purgatorio when Virgil and Dante the pilgrim are on the terrace of envy
and they meet the souls who have had their eyes sewn shut and are thus blinded. With Dante
speaking to them, the scene proceeds as follows:
To these I turned. ‘You, who are confident,’
so I began, ‘to see the Light Supreme –
which your desires are set upon alone –
May grace soon clarify the scum that blurs
your consciences, and let the streams of mind descend –
with all of memory’s power – through you once more.
(Purgatorio 13.85-90)
In this hopeful speech, Dante the pilgrim is describing how envy, the sin that the souls have
committed, functions as a form of “scum” (88) that “blurs” (88) their “consciences” (89), making
them unable to experience the “streams of mind” (89) brought on by “memory’s power” (90).
This is significant because, through this scene, Dante the poet is showing how when a person
commits sin, he cannot use his faculties to their fullest capabilities. The conscience, being one of
those faculties, is then rendered incapable of giving the soul aid. In a more general way, Dante
the poet is saying that when a person commits sin, he can become blinded, much like the souls
on this terrace. By using visual obscurity in this way, it highlights how if a person does
something wrong and loves the wrong things, in this situation other peoples’ property or assets, it
can damage the connection he has with his conscience by submerging it in darkness. Such a view
is explicated by Macready when he makes the statement, “Conscience is a mode of ethical
knowing that is illuminated by rightly directed love or darkened by love gone astray” (p. 5). By
using the concept and metaphor of visual obscurity, the reader gets the impression in a more
immediate way of how crucial it is for a person to keep away from sin, for it can, in a figurative
sense, make him unable to see his conscience and therefore connect to it.
Further into the Commedia, a second instance of the concept of how sin detaches a person
from their conscience and causes it to be enveloped in darkness appears. This time, it comes in
Paradiso when Dante is in the fifth heaven, Mars, and is listening to his great-great grandfather,
Cacciaguida, tell him about his future exile and how people will react to him if he tries to tell
them about his experiences in the afterlife. In Allen Mandelbaum’s translation, Cacciaguida’s
words are, “…A conscience that is dark— / either through its or through another’s shame— /
indeed will find that what you speak is harsh.” (Paradiso 17.124-126). Again, this passage shows
how sinful deeds, which cause the “shame” (125) that Cassiaguida mentions, become agents that
can sever the ties a person has with their conscience by making it turn “dark” (124). This concept
of darkness, to be sure, should never be confused with the conscience being corrupt or evil in
itself, for that is not possible for Dante. Rather, it is merely a way to explain how a person cannot
see their conscience if they have committed a sin, thus making it “dark” according to their
perspective. They are then unable to receive the goodness it can provide. This notion of how sin
darkens the conscience is also stated by Carroll when he says in his book In Patria: An
Exposition of Dante’s Paradiso, “True, a conscience darkened by its own sin or another’s will
find thy words bitter…” (p.277). This example is so profound because Dante is not just limiting
it to the sins that one person commits. He is also saying that a person can become affected by
other people’s sins as well. To Dante, sin, whether committed directly by a person or through a
relationship with someone else who has sinned, equally breaks a person’s connection with his or
her conscience.
Now that Dante’s concept of how man can make bad decisions by having a broken
connection with his conscience has been established, Aquinas’s interpretation of this same issue
becomes useful since he believes that man suffers from bad choices when his conscience is not
fully developed, therefore causing it to malfunction. Aquinas thinks that when a person sins, he
or she has acted in accordance with an erroneous conscience which has erred due to ignorance.
This specific type of ignorance is called “invincible ignorance.” The danger with this type of
ignorance is that it can distort the reality of an encountered problem and thus make the
conscience think that it is making the right judgment in application to it when it is actually
making the wrong one. To put it another way, Michael G. Baylor says in his book Action and
Person: Conscience in the Late Scholasticism and the Young Luther, “…Aquinas meant that the
ignorance concerns the factual nature of the particular case and that, because of his ignorance,
the agent’s conscience, in effect, is unaware of the true nature of the action involved.” (p.55).
Aquinas did not approve of having an ignorant conscience, though. To him, a person is
responsible for developing it fully and pursuing knowledge about what is right or wrong so that
their reason can be better supplied. If a person does not pursue such knowledge, they have what
he called “voluntary ignorance.” These kinds of people are, as Baylor says, “…[ignorant] of the
moral principles involved [in a situation], which all men are obliged to know, or [are ignorant]
from negligence in perceiving the factual circumstances [of a situation]” (p.55). Those conditions
display a lack of concern on the part of the person to find out what is morally acceptable. For that
reason, Aquinas views voluntary ignorance as the worst kind and therefore should never be
excused, unlike invincible ignorance, which he thinks can be. Regardless, both forms of it lead to
the conscience being under-developed and making flawed choices.
As a matter of following one’s conscience, Dante believes that the exercise of free will is
paramount when deciding whether or not to follow its directives. To say it differently, Dante
believes that it is permissible to go against the conscience and that the conscience is not
necessarily binding. He does not think that a person must obey it in all situations. This is shown
plainly in Purgatorio when Dante the pilgrim, Virgil, and Statius are standing in front of the fire
on the terrace of lust. In Kirkpatrick’s translation, Virgil tries to encourage Dante to walk
through the flames with the lines, “Have done, I say, have done with fearfulness. / Turn this way.
Come and enter safely in!’” (Purgatorio 27.31-32) and Dante resists by saying in the narration,
“But I, against all conscience, stood stock still.” (Purgatorio 27.33). Although it would behoove
Dante to listen to both Virgil and his conscience and proceed through the flames of divine love,
he still refuses to do so. In this moment, his sense of free will triumphs in the face of his own
conscience. By having this scene, Dante the poet demonstrates his belief that the will is the major
decider of what the soul actually does. It does not have to be nor is it ruled by the conscience,
therefore making the will free to act of its own volition. As has been established before, the
conscience is a power that can be listened to or shunned. It is always up to the person to consult
with and call on its guidance, for the person’s authority by application of his will is stronger than
the authority of his conscience. That is not to say that the conscience does not make its presence
known if a person decides not to follow it or consult with it. However, for Dante, the most
important point is that the person has a choice to the extent to which he will use it or allow it to
influence him and thus his choices. Such an explanation is also offered in Purgatorio when
Dante the pilgrim is listening to Marco the Lombard say, “Of better nature and of greater power /
you are free subjects. And you have a mind / that planets cannot rule or stars concern.”
(Purgatorio 16.79-81). By incorporating this text, Dante the poet is saying that a person is his
own ruler and that no other entity is in charge of his decisions and conduct. This applies to the
conscience as well since not even it can bind a person to specific actions if the person does not
let it.
Aquinas, on the other hand, believes in the concept of free will like Dante, but he is much
more insistent that the conscience is binding and that a person, despite his or her ability to, must
not act against it. In fact, he takes it a step further by saying it is evil to do such a thing. Even if
the conscience is erroneous, a person has a responsibility to not act against it. This is a view
further expressed by Tobias Hoffmann in his article “Conscience and Synderesis” in The Oxford
Handbook of Aquinas with the statement, “For Aquinas, the binding character of conscience,
whether erring or not, means that acting against the conscience is always evil.” (260). In this
way, it is a sin to Aquinas for a person to act contrary to his conscience no matter if it is good or
bad. Because of that, Aquinas fully realizes that, since a conscience can be erring, good
outcomes are not always assured by following it. If this is indeed the case, a person must take
action to rectify the mistakes in judgment it makes by correcting whatever problem is hindering
it, whether that be his conscience’s ignorance or by repairing the deficiencies his conscience has
by ceasing his negligence of it. Either way, Aquinas holds that a person is responsible for
forming his conscience properly so that it can bind him in a positive way, which will then lead to
a well lived life. Dante, in contrast, believes that the will must be trained properly, not the
conscience, so that it can lead to the making of good decisions. Returning to the previously
mentioned scene in Purgatorio, it is evident that for Dante, going against the conscience is not a
sin but is instead a poor choice of free will. He would have been better off had he walked
through the flames, but he was not sinning for choosing not to do so. This would not be true in
Aquinas’s estimation because going against the conscience is always a sin, especially in
situations where the conscience is making good judgments as it has here.
Despite the fact that Dante and Aquinas both believed that a person has a conscience,
they were quite different in that Dante perceived it as a supernatural power that provides divine
guidance and can become detached from the soul whereas Aquinas thought it was merely an act
of human judgment that must be followed and could become dysfunctional through flawed
knowledge or incomplete development. With these distinctions made, it is possible to see that,
contrary to the traditional view that Dante was a literary disciple of Aquinas’s, he nevertheless
did have his own opinions that he did not mind expressing in his work. As such, his view of the
conscience parallels John Milton’s, who believes that God made humans “Sufficient to have
stood though free to fall.” (Paradise Lost 3.99). Through their contributions, the modern day
conception of conscience has evolved into it being an “inner voice” of God that tells a person
what he or she should do. By continuing to study this notion and other ideas from Dante and
Milton, people now and far into the future will be able to gain a stronger understanding of not
only the conscience but also of themselves.
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