Współczesny spór o sumienie – subiektywny sąd czy głos prawdy?

Abstract

The multitude of views and convictions, characteristic of the pluralist culture, determines a specific understanding the word “morality”, which in the post-modern atmosphere acquires above all a customary and pragmatic sense. An understanding of morality without universalistic ethical references is typical of the nature of the postmodern philosophy as well as the social and cultural climate it create The culture that has eliminated all universalisms strives to convince the society that it is impossible to justify on philosophical grounds any universal ethical norms that are based on an objective definition of good and evil. Therefore, one should try to remember at all times that the exceptional role of human conscience remains in a close relationship with the prime significance of truth and can be properly understood and justified only in relation to truth. The domination of the idea of conscience as the ultimate instance is justified only to the extent to which it relates to the objective truth about the world and man. Thus, conscience signifies the perceptible and commanding presence of the voice of truth within man himself. Upon contact of man’s inside with God’s truth, human conscience withstands subjectivity. Such understanding of conscience begets the conviction that man should heed more closely the recognized truth than his own likings and friendship or community tie A man of conscience will never abandon truth for compromise, good feeling, success, respect or regard. And I am not referring to an abstract truth, but to the truth that belongs to the moral order: the truth closely related to the moral value of a specific act, the truth that is judged within one’s own conscience. Hence, it is God who acts as the ultimate source o f the truth serving as a point of reference for the conscience and mobilising it in one direction only: towards good.