Psychology, Social

Understanding the general concept of ‘CONSCIENCE ‘ as a foundation of good conduct.

It is common to hear words like ‘he has no conscience at all, or his conscience is died long time ago, and the like. Today let’s take a look at the general concept of conscience, meaning, types of conscience, and some few characteristics.

WHAT IS CONSCIENCE ?

Conscience is a power or energy which enables human being to make correct judgement. Conscience forms the foundation of good behaviour or conduct in any society. On the other hand, conscience is that part of the mind that makes you aware of your actions as being right or wrong. It is the feeling that something is morally right or wrong. We also learn from the Bible in Romans 2:15 that conscience is God given. Conscience is inward-looking and an internal character that comes from within oneself. So, let us the characteristics of conscience.

BASIC CHARACTERISTICS OF CONSCIENCE

Basic characteristics of conscience include the following:-

  1. It acts as inner power that warns or condemns you for doing or not doing something.
  2. Tenderness and sympathy, pity, and true love characterize conscience, and, hence, doing against the conscience always haunt.; but people with active conscience, rarel act against their conscience.
  3. Conscience activate our duty and obligation: There is a conscience clause in human beings that involves a duty to society, and such duty and obligation to the society pushes individual’s actions.
  4. Conscience demands the right and proper use of our intelligence towards a judgment. How do you know that you have used the right judgment? We can obtain answers to the questions from the types of conscience and seeing where you belong.

TYPES OF CONSCIENCE

There are severl types of conscience characterising human beings. In this article, I chose to share a few categories that I considered important.

1. RIGHT CONSCIENCE.

The Right conscience characterizes a person who correctly judges right things as right both in the individual’s perspective and in society’s eyes. The conscience is right when there is no harm posed to others by the exercise but a person may chose to do something which is harmful.

2. ERROMEOUS CONSCIENCE.

An individual with erroneous conscience erroneously justifies things wrong in the eyes of society as right, lies as truth, false cultural values as correct, and always goes the opposite direction. Sometimes, people lie deliberately to hurt someone, and some lie without knowing. Self-defense and self-esteem form  the main characters of an individual with an erroneous  conscience

3. A CERTAIN CONSCIENCE.

A Certain conscience is in place when one is convinced without any doubt that an action is good or bad. Because of such a belief, an individual always act with certainity.

4. A DOUBTFUL CONSCIENCE.

A doubtful conscience is the type of conscience that happens when someone makes judgment with worries or fear. It is a judgment done out of doubt that something bad might be happening. To avoid the concequences of such bad occurance, a doubtful conscience pushes you to make a certain decision as a mitigator.

5. PERIPLEXED CONSCIENCE.

Perplexed conscience occurs when someone doubts everything in solving personal life problems. A person with perplexed conscience doubts even his ability to do things. Some people don’t believe in themselves in anything and find their problems to be prominent than themselves. Because of the belief that their problems are prominent than themselves, they live with unsolved problems which affect not only them but also the society theu are in.

6. A SCRUPULOUS CONSCIENCE.

An individual with scrupulous conscience undergoes psychological trauma or depression always. The cause for such traumatic experience could be psychological background, family influence, ignorance, spiritual causes, or blindness of life. An individual with scrupulous conscience always suffers from endless pains.

7. DEAD CONSCIENCE.

This is the type of conscience that does not judge things seriously and does not consider important things more important. A dead conscience is blunt. In most cases, people with dead conscience are the major cause of trouble in society. A good example include terrorists, thieves, or sexual maniacs are people with dead conscience. Dead conscience may be a result of bad company, and too much interest in money or material things.

CONCLUSION

You can all agree with me that conscience is a foundation of good conduct and that most of us believe that conscience is an honest voice that warns us from bad judgment and directs us to do good. We have seen different types of conscience, and thus as a member of society, you will have to consider the lesson you obtained from this article in the way of behaving and what you should do and not to. Proper use of our conscience can help us make the world a safe place to live. Proper use of our conscience can help us in making the world a safe place to live.

By Deodatus Robert Mgembe.