Don’t Trust Your Conscience

Everyone has heard the expression, “Let your conscience be your guide.”

In fact, many people base their entire moral life on the idea that their conscience will keep them from doing bad things. 

I have something very important to tell you. 

It won’t. Not for most people. And not most of the time.

Throughout Western history, people took it as a given that the conscience was not enough—that God and God-based moral instruction were also necessary. That so many people believe today that the conscience is all they need to act morally is a product of modern secular society. In fact, it is just one more example of the many irrational ideas that our secular society has produced. Others include “men give birth,” “Western civilization is no better than any other,” and “if you’re color-blind, you’re racist."

But none of these beliefs is more irrational than the belief that the conscience is all you need—that it can replace God, the Bible, and Judeo-Christian values as a producer of moral behavior.

The reality is that most people's consciences are, to say the least, easily manipulated. It is hard to imagine any aspect of human life more malleable than the conscience. It is as malleable as putty. And as sturdy.

If the conscience were morally effective, what evildoer or supporter of evil would sleep well at night? Yet, people who commit evil, whether for personal reasons (such as murderers, thieves, and rapists) or for ideological reasons (such as Nazis, communists, and Islamic terrorists) sleep as soundly as anyone else.

Also, if the conscience were morally effective, why doesn’t it stop anyone who commits evil from doing so?

That alone should end the issue. But let’s continue.

Virtually every individual who has committed or supported evil has had a clear conscience. That's why “I let conscience be my guide” is meaningless intellectually and morally. 

Most people get it backward. People’s feelings and behavior produce their conscience. Their conscience doesn’t produce their feelings and behavior. Most people do either what they want to do and then tell their conscience that what they did was right, or their feelings decide what is right and they label those feelings "conscience.”

Here's another proof that the conscience is largely useless in directing moral behavior: People on the opposite sides of every conflict are equally convinced they are listening to their conscience. 

Take the morally clear example of World War II.

German soldiers and concentration camp guards followed their consciences—but so did the Allied troops and leaders who fought them. 

The Western spies who gave atom bomb secrets to the great mass murderer Josef Stalin followed their consciences—but so did the anti-communists who opposed Stalin. 

Even the Japanese soldiers who used Korean women as “comfort women”—women they gang raped day after day—all followed their consciences, but so did the Allied troops and leaders who fought the Japanese in World War II. 

The list is endless.

And we don't need the extreme example of World War II.

People who believe the human fetus has a right to live (unless its death is necessary to save the life of the mother) and those who do not believe the human fetus has a right to live (unless the mother wants it to) are both equally convinced their consciences dictate their views.

People who believe it is moral to surgically remove the healthy breasts of any girl or young woman who says she is a boy have a completely clear conscience, as do those who think this act constitutes mutilation.

Given the moral unreliability of the conscience, conscience means little more than what one feels is right or wrong. In other words, in most people conscience is just a euphemism for “what I feel.”

So then, given the frequent uselessness of the conscience, how is one to be morally guided?

The answer is by building a conscience. The conscience we are born with needs to be developed just like the muscles we are born with need to be developed.

It takes four things:

Truth—because lies are the mother of evil.

Courage—because good is impossible without it.

God (the God of the Bible) 

And reason. 

Because God without reason leads to fanaticism. And because reason without God leads to moral chaos. In fact, irony of ironies, reason without God ends with the death of reason. Unless, of course, you believe “men give birth” is rational.

So you can let your conscience be your guide, but only if you build it properly—with truth, courage, God, and reason. 

I’m Dennis Prager.