Conscience and Religious Morality

One would be hard pressed to deny the ordinary man's trust in the moral deliverances of his conscience. Joseph Butler put the case for the infallibility of conscience, when he remarked: ‘Had it strength, as it had right; had it power, as it had manifest authority; it would absolutely govern the world’ (Fifteen Sermons, ii, 13, 14). I think it obvious, in retrospect, that Butler underestimated its ‘strength’ and ‘power’, while overextending its ‘right’ and ‘authority’. Perhaps it is too rash a claim to maintain that conscience serves as an inadequate guide in our moral deliberations, but, to be sure, it can hardly be defended as a sufficient guide to moral conduct.