The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics recently hosted the conference "Conscience in Catholicism: Rights, Responsibilities, and Institutional Policies." Scholars from around the world gathered to ...

Conscience. It’s that little voice in our head that tells us the right thing to do, tapping into the side of ourselves that is innately good and kind, helping to silence the side that isn’t. When we ...

Primacy of conscience has been thrust to the fore of Church-wide discussions on marriage, contraception and homosexuality at the Ordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family. But as we saw happen in the ...

The New York Times obituary for former defense secretary Robert McNamara (1916–2009) included these sad lines about his later life: “He wore the expression of a haunted man. He could be seen in the ...

This, at least, is how I read the doctrine of Protestants as well as of Catholics. The rule and measure of duty is not utility, nor expedience, nor the happiness of the greatest number, nor State ...

As the conversation surrounding the controversial birth control mandate continues, prominent theologians are saying President Barack Obama's decision on that subject just underlines the need for a ...

After the existential drama of Heidegger's notion of being-towards-death, why do we need a discussion of conscience? As so often in Being and Time, Heidegger insists that although his description of ...

Fundamental to the liberties of man is that faculty of the soul termed “conscience.” Today that term connotes for most people only a moral monitor—a twinge of mind that indicates a moral judgment of ...

“Choice” is a byword of our secular age. For many, it has become integral to their concept of freedom. In one respect, choice is essential to our shared humanity — it is a way of pointing to our ...

The Catholic tradition on conscience is very extensive, while being quite unified. One may wonder, if the teaching is so unified, why there would be so much to say. The reason is because the tradition ...