For Lent this year, I decided to read about conscience. It's been a jarring experience because I have realized that my idea of conscience is largely at odds with the philosophical tradition of conscience. I have never sat down and thought about it—I take it for granted I know what a conscience is because I have one just like I have a left foot.
Let me tell you what my conscience is to me. It's a voice that speaks to me sometimes. It says things like, "Don't do that," or "Go back and say you're sorry," or "He has been a very good friend in the past and you should spend more time with him now even though you don't care much about hockey anymore and hockey is the only thing he cares about."
My conscience, as I have always understood it, only speaks to me sometimes. It intervenes at morally crucial moments but most of the time it does nothing at all. And when it intervenes, it doesn't so much say "Do this!" or "Don't do that!" as it says, "Reconsider the thing that you are about to do!"
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