2c. Content of Religion and ethics (H573/02) - 5. Significant Ideas - Conscience — OCR A-Level Religious Studies
2c. Content of Religion and ethics (H573/02) - 5. Significant Ideas - Conscience explained
2c. Content of Religion and ethics (H573/02) - 5.
Read the full explanation
Significant Ideas - Conscience covers 7 specification points, including Aquinas’ theological approach and Freud’s psychological approach. Open a point below for its explanation and revision guidance.
Your focus
- Aquinas’ theological approach
- Freud’s psychological approach
- details of this approach, including: ratio (reason placed in every person as a result of being created in the image of God); synderesis (inner principle directing a person towards good and away from evil); conscientia (a person’s reason making moral judgements). vincible ignorance (lack of knowledge for which a person is responsible); invincible ignorance (lack of knowledge for which a person is not responsible)
Show all 7 objectives
- details of this approach, including: psychosexual development (early childhood awareness of libido); id (instinctive impulses that seek satisfaction in pleasure); ego (mediates between the id and the demands of social interaction); super-ego (contradicts the id and working on internalised ideals from parents and society tries to make the ego behave morally)
- comparison between Aquinas and Freud: on the concept of guilt; on the presence or absence of God within the workings of the conscience and super-ego; on the process of moral decision-making
- whether conscience is linked to, or separate from, reason and the unconscious mind
- whether conscience exists at all or is instead an umbrella term covering various factors involved in moral decision-making, such as culture, environment, genetic predisposition and education