1. Conscience • CCC (Catechism of the Catholic Church) defines conscience as: • Person’s experience of himself/herself as a moral agent • Enables one to take responsibility for the act he or she performs

2. Conscience • The ability to know, think about and choose between right and wrong- the values behind the decision

3. Development of Conscience • As you mature you have a sense of right and wrong – usually starts with your family • Usually your norms, values and beliefs (Christian or other) will guide the development of your conscience • Helps you deal with failure, sin or temptation • Need to seek direction (mentor, church…)

4. CONSCIENCE Always take into consideration: object intention circumstances

5. Conscience cont’d • Judgment about the good or evil of concrete acts that will be performed or that have been performed

6. Three related Senses • Three related realizations of conscience: • Conscience as process • Conscience as capacity • Conscience as Judgment

7. Conscience as Capacity • Ability to know and do the good while avoiding evil • Awareness of right and wrong (universal = Golden Rule) • Characteristic of a human = ability to discern right and wrong • Animals = instinct

8. Conscience as Process • Knowing how to perceive accurately and think correctly • Where the disagreements or insights are found • Seek to know the truth and to make it your own • Conscience is formed and examined

9. Conscience as Judgment • Decision that is made based on personal perception and values • Expression of self on fundamental stances • All persons are bound to follow their conscience faithfully…and not forced to act contrary to their conscience

10. Development of Conscience • Is it important to form one’s conscience? • How does one form their conscience?

11. Are people’s conscience changing? – what do you think when people say that teens no longer have a good conscience?

12. JOURNAL • What does it mean when something weighs on your conscience? • What is guilt? When do you have it?

13. C.S. Lewis “I AM WHAT I DO”

14. Who are you? Who do you want to be? Write your obituary….

15. Development of one’s Conscience • Objective= seeking to discover the good that God wills and to which the human person is drawn towards • How? • Sacred Tradition • Gospels • Expert opinions • Prayer • Study • Experience (personal or others’ )

16. Symptoms of Misinformed Conscience • Rationalization= to invent plausible explanations for acts, opinions, etc., that are actually based on other causes • Trivialization= cause to appear unimportant, trifling, etc. • Misinformation = to give false or misleading information to.

17. Symptoms of Misinformed Conscience • 4. End Justifies the Means= doing wrong now to bring about “good” later • 5. Means to an end=doing wrong to bring actions to a conclusion • 6. Difficult to Reason= Being in a hard situation affects one’s ability to make a good decision