Conscience describes two things – what a person believes is right and how a person decides what is right. More than just ‘gut instinct’, our conscience is a ‘moral muscle’.

By informing us of our values and principles, it becomes the standard we use to judge whether or not our actions are ethical.

We can call these two roles ethical awareness and ethical decision making.

Ethical Awareness

This is our ability to recognise ethical values and principles.

The medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas believed our conscience emerged from synderesis: the ‘spark of conscience’. He literally meant the human mind’s ability to understand the world in moral terms. Conscience was the process by which a person brought the principles of synderesis into a practical situation through our decisions.

Ethical Decision Making

This is our ability to make practical decisions informed by ethical values and principles.

In his writings, Aristotle described phronesis: the goodness of practical reason. This was the ability to evaluate a situation clearly so we would know how to act virtuously under the circumstances.

A conscience which is both well formed (shaped by education and experience) and well informed (aware of facts, evidence and so on) enables us to know ourselves and our world and act accordingly.

Seeing conscience in this way is important because it teaches us ethics is not innate. By continuously working to understand our surroundings, we strengthen our moral muscle.

Conscientious Objection

In politics, much of the debate around conscience concerns the “right to conscientious objection”.

• Should pro-life doctors be required to perform abortions or refer patients to doctors who will?
• Must priests break the confessional seal and report sex offenders who confess to them?
• Can pacifists be excused from conscription because of their opposition to war?

For a long time, Western nations, informed by the Catholic intellectual tradition, believed in the “primacy of conscience” – the idea that a person should never be forced to do something they believe is against their most deeply held values and principles.

In recent times, particularly in medicine, this has come to be questioned. Australian bioethicist Julian Savulescu believes doctors working in the public system should be banned from objecting to procedures because it compromises patient care.

This debate sees a clash between two worldviews – one where people’s foremost responsibility is to their own personal beliefs about what is good and right and another where this duty is balanced against the needs of the common good.

Philosopher Michael Walzer believes there are situations where you have a duty to “get your hands dirty” – even if the price is your own sense of goodness. In response, Aristotle might have said, “no person wishes to possess the world if they must first become someone else”. That is, we can’t change who we are or what we believe in for any price.

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Progressivism is a political ideology based on the possibility of moral progress. In practice, this looks like an optimism about the future of humanity.

Progressives believe the course of human history is moving us closer to a state of peace, equality, and prosperity. They also tend to believe in human perfectibility. Politics, technology, and education can overcome human failings to create a utopia.

We can see this in the work of philosophers Steven Pinker and Michael Shermer. Pinker says since the Enlightenment, altruism has been on the rise and violence is declining around the world. Shermer suggests each generation has been smarter than the last, which he believes, has continually reduced impulsive violence.

Hegel’s synthesis

German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel believed moral progress was inescapable. He thought the forces of history shape humanity for the better, pushing it toward perfection.

Hegel believed history unrolled according to a “dialectical” pattern. This was where opposing sides clashed and compromised with one another. These opposing forces, which he called the “thesis” and “antithesis”, would clash before reaching a “synthesis”.

This synthesis would then spark a new antithesis and the process would continue. Hegel thought each stage in the thesis-antithesis-synthesis series moved us closer to a state of perfection. His work is said to have inspired other progressive thinkers, most notably communist philosopher Karl Marx.

The darker side of progress

Today, new forms of genetic editing promise a cure to a range of illnesses and maybe even death itself. Transhumanists believe we can overcome the limitations of our humanity and mortality. They suggest a range of options, from changing our biology to uploading our consciousness into a supercomputer.

But practical efforts to create this perfect world have not always been pleasant. At times it has been outright barbaric.

One example is the eugenics movement. It aimed to breed some people, like those with disabilities, out of society altogether, and cited social progress as their defence.

This is one reason why conservatives often urge caution around progress. They encourage us to be mindful of the potential unintended side effects of new policies or technology.

But progressives are often concerned this will inhibit life changing new developments. They suggest we deal with issues as they arise, rather than trying to predict them in advance.

Heaven on earth

Progressives often see education as the silver bullet solution for social problems. Like Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, they tend to believe all vice is the result of ignorance, not malice. They suggest humans are fundamentally good and education will bring out the better angels of our nature.

But some are sceptical whether education alone will fix all humanity’s woes. They agree humans are mostly good but don’t blame ignorance for evil. Instead, they see war, conflict and violence as the product of oppression and inequality.

Karl Marx believed conflict between the wealthy and the working class was a central theme in human society. He believed the power imbalance between rich and poor was bad for everyone. He famously claimed people would be better throwing away hierarchies based on class and wealth. Only when we’re all equal, he thought, will we be able to perfect ourselves.

English philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft suggested the path to human perfection might require both politics and education. She argued that political change requires us to educate marginalised groups. Otherwise, any change will continue to exclude the groups already on the fringes of society.

This explains why more women and culturally diverse people have contributed to progressive thinking in recent decades. In the past, the leading progressive thinkers tended to be white men. Improved access to education has enabled a greater range of voices to contribute to the larger conversation of what a perfect world might look like and how we could create it.

Contrary to what many assume, the conservative political tradition is neither reactionary nor opposed to change. True conservatives are simply wary of revolutionary change – especially when inspired by utopian idealism.

Conservatives prefer an evolutionary approach, where experience, common sense, and pragmatism lend a certain stability to society and its institutions.

We could sum up the conservative political outlook in a couple of maxims:

1. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”

2. “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater”

It is important to distinguish between conservatism as an ideological outlook and the conservative brand some political parties operate under. Some practice the type of cautious conservatism described above, whereas others are more radical in their outlook.

Conservatism is often associated with liberalism, unregulated capitalism, and in some cases, libertarianism. This is no accident. It’s the product of a mixed history of ideas and the occasional opportunism of certain individuals and political parties who have misappropriated the term for their own political ends.

Vive la révolution!

The most famous and early exponent of conservatism is the Irish-British philosopher, Edmund Burke. In most respects, the long-standing member of the British House of Commons was a classic liberal, respecting the ideals of liberty and equality.

But Burke found the French Revolution a step too far. A quick history lesson: the French Revolution was a 10-year uprising that began in 1789 against the aristocratic social and political systems. It eventually overthrew the monarchy.

In the revolution’s push for radical change, Burke saw the seeds of what we might now call totalitarianism – a society where the individual counts for nothing and the State for all. Burke captures this in his Second Letter on Regicide Peace where, describing the Revolutionary Government of France, he wrote:

“Individuality is left out of their scheme of government. The State is all in all. Everything is referred to the production of force; afterwards, everything is trusted to the use of it. It is military in its principle, in its maxims, in its spirit, and in all its movements. The State has dominion and conquest for its sole objects—dominion over minds by proselytism, over bodies by arms.”

This aversion to radical idealism and its tendency to lay the foundation for a totalitarian state is a theme frequently returned to by conservative philosophers. For example, Karl Popper observes in The Open Society and Its Enemies (Volume One):

“The Utopian attempt to realize an ideal state, using a blueprint of society as a whole, is one which demands a strong centralized rule of a few, and which is therefore likely to lead to a dictatorship.”

Like the pigs in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, after all the unrest and upheaval of the French Revolution, overthrowing the monarchy led to Napoleon’s rule, which is widely regarded as a totalitarian dictatorship. The conservative critique of efforts toward revolutionary change provide such examples as an argument for cautious and prudent evolution instead.

Conservatives are likely to feel that proponents of radical change often fail to realise that they will also be swept aside if something entirely new is to be made. As the contemporary philosopher in the ‘Burkean’ mould, Roger Scruton puts it:

“All that conservatism ultimately means, in my view, is the disposition to hold on to what you know and love. And if you don’t hold on to what you know and love, you will lose it anyway.”

In philosophy, vulnerability describes the ways in which people are less self-sufficient than they think.

It explains how factors beyond our control – like other people, events, and circumstances – can impact our ability to live our best lives. The implications of vulnerability for ethics are considerable and wide reaching.

Vulnerability isn’t a new idea. The ancient Greeks recognised tuche – luck – as a goddess with considerable power. Their plays often show how a person’s circumstances alter on the whim of the gods or a random twist of luck (or, if you like, a twist of fate).

This might seem obvious to many people. Of course, external events can affect our lives. If an air conditioning unit falls out of an apartment and lands on my head tomorrow, it’s going to change my circumstances pretty dramatically. But this isn’t the kind of luck philosophers argue is relevant to ethics.

A question of character

The Stoics, a group of ancient Greek philosophers (who are experiencing a revival today) thought only our own choices could affect our character or wellbeing. If I lose my job, my happiness is only affected if I choose to react to my new circumstances badly. The Stoics thought we could control our reactions and overcome our emotions.

The Stoics, much like Buddhist philosophy, thought our main problem was one of attachment. The more attached to external things – jobs, wealth, even loved ones – the more we risk suffering if we lose those things. Instead, they recommended we only be concerned with what we can control – our own personal virtue. For Stoics, we aren’t vulnerable because the only thing that matters can’t be taken away from us: our virtue.

Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant had similar thoughts. He believed the only thing that mattered for ethics was that we act with good will. Whatever happened to us or around us, so long as we act with the intention of fulfilling our duties, we’d be in the clear, ethically speaking. It’s our rational nature – our ability to think – that defines us ethically. And thinking is completely within our control.

Both Kant and the Stoics believed the ethical life was invulnerable. External circumstances, like luck or other people, couldn’t affect our ability to make good or bad choices. As a result, whether or not we are ethical is up to us.

Can one ever be self-sufficient?

This idea of self-sufficiency has faced challenges more recently. Many philosophers simply don’t think it’s possible to be self-sufficient to the degree that the Stoics and Kant believed. But some go further – seeing a measure of virtue in vulnerability. For example, vulnerability has become a popular term among psychologists and self-help gurus like Brené Brown. They argue vulnerability, dependency, and luck make up important parts of who we are.

Several thinkers, such as Bernard Williams, Thomas Nagel, and Martha Nussbaum have criticised the idea of self-sufficiency. Scottish philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, for example, argues that dependency is in our nature.

We’re all born completely dependent on other people and will reach a similar level of dependency if we live long enough. In the meantime, we’ll be somewhat independent but will still rely on other people for help, for community, and to give meaning to our lives.

MacIntyre thinks this is true even if Kant is right and rational adults are invulnerable to luck (at least in terms of choosing to do their duty). However, against Kant, MacIntyre argues that our capacity for rationality is honed by education and the quality of our education is often beyond our control… as we are dependent on the judgement and circumstances of our parents, society, and so on. Thus, we remain vulnerable in important ways.

Mutual vulnerability

Dr Simon Longstaff, the CEO of The Ethics Centre, has made a different argument in favour of vulnerability. He argues, after Thomas Hobbes, that the reality of mutual vulnerability lies at the heart of how and why we form social bonds. As a result, he argues those who seek to eliminate all forms of vulnerability risk creating a world in which the ‘invulnerable’ show no restraint in their treatment of the vulnerable.

All of this might seem like another academic debate but our understanding of vulnerability has significant consequences for the way we judge ourselves and others. If vulnerability matters, we’re less likely to judge people based on their circumstances. We won’t expect the poor always to lift themselves out of poverty (because unlucky circumstances may deny them the means to do so) nor assume every person struggling with an addiction is necessarily morally deficient. They may simply be stuck with the outcome of events that were (at least initially) beyond their control.

We may also be a little less self-congratulatory. Recognising the ways bad luck can affect people means also seeing how we’ve benefitted from good luck. Rather than assuming all our fortune is the product of hard work and personal virtue, we might be moved by vulnerability to acknowledge how factors beyond our control have worked in our favour.

Finally, vulnerability is one of the concepts that underpins modern debates about privilege and identity politics. If we think people are self-sufficient, we’re less likely to think past injustices have any effect on their present lives. However, if we think factors beyond our control can affect not just our lives but also our character and wellbeing, we might see the claims of minorities in a more open light.

There is a final sense in which vulnerability might be important to ethics. The ‘invulnerable’ person may come to believe their judgement is perfectly formed. They might become ‘immune to doubt’. If people open themselves to the possibility they might be wrong, they live an ‘examined life’ – that is, an ethical life.