Primordial Moral Awareness: Levinas, Conscience, and the Unavoidable Call to Responsibility
The phenomenon of conscience as articulated in Roman Catholic moral theology has at least three dimensions: a fundamental and universal call to moral goodness; the search for moral truth; and a commitment to act in a particular way. Recent moral theology has tended to focus on the latter two dimensi...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
2015
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| In: |
Heythrop journal
Year: 2015, Volume: 56, Issue: 4, Pages: 604-618 |
| RelBib Classification: | KDB Roman Catholic Church NCA Ethics TK Recent history VA Philosophy |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The phenomenon of conscience as articulated in Roman Catholic moral theology has at least three dimensions: a fundamental and universal call to moral goodness; the search for moral truth; and a commitment to act in a particular way. Recent moral theology has tended to focus on the latter two dimensions, but there has been a strong call from Thomas Ryan for attention to the first dimension of conscience, especially its constitution in ‘horizontal relationality’. In this article I respond to Ryan's call, and demonstrate that the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas can show how the experience of conscience is constituted in horizontal relationality, as well as that it supports an understanding of conscience as a universal call to responsibility. Correlatively, and perhaps more significantly, the introduction of Levinas’ philosophy into the discussion of conscience sheds light on a significant aspect of this call to moral responsibility. This highlights that the Roman Catholic understanding of conscience has ethical consequences for theology more broadly considered (as well as the other academic disciplines) in terms of understanding why it is impossible to set aside considerations of responsibility in the search for truth. |
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| ISSN: | 1468-2265 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Heythrop journal
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/heyj.12267 |