Conscience in moral thought

Abstract

We can say that there is a force deep within the human soul that warns and prevents him from doing evil, and this force itself rebukes him in the event that he commits evil deeds, and on the contrary, in the event of doing good deeds, where we hear an inner voice that prompts us to complete and accomplish the duty, so it encourages him and continues in it, and if he completes his deed, he feels comfortable and happy, and this commanding and prohibitive force within us is called conscience, as it is the one that guides us to do the duty and itself forbids us from doing vice.

This is what the Qur’anic texts and what is based on them from the Islamic heritage indicate that man possesses an enlightened force other than reason that performs the process of obligating duty according to the moral law in Islam, that force is what is called the moral conscience, and with this, we came with two topics, in the first topic we talked about the meaning of conscience in moral studies, and in the second topic we talked about conscience in Islamic thought.

Moreover, we have seen some researchers trying to present an image of moral conscience as an image of obligation, citing Socrates, who represented conscience in what he called the voice of God within him, following that with those who came after him in philosophy. They also relied on what they found in the Old and New Testaments, represented in what they included of images of prohibition that came with the divine commandments and orders and that became widespread after that in religious ethics.