What is a (Mistaken) Conscience According to Robert Spaemann?

The aim of this article is to examine critically several selected theses and specifics of Spaemann’s concept of (mistaken) conscience. It will also attempt to demonstrate the shift in his thinking from relevant passages in his 1982 book to those in his pivotal 1996 publication. The third primary text from 1990, in which Spaemann interprets Aquinas’s concept, is also taken into account. The author of the article identifies and interprets selected theses and contrasts several specifics of Spaemann’s position with the basic points of Aquinas’s concept, primarily in order to show how Spaemann answers the question: what is (mistaken) conscience? The answer in the first book contains metaphors and sounds somewhat sceptical, while in the text from 1990 Spaemann defines the judgments of (mistaken) conscience as (mistaken) judgments of practical reason. He also understands mistaken conscience as, however, a “moral defect” and a “perplexing situation”. He develops this idea in his second book, where conscience is defined as “moral judgment”. In both books, he also works with the characteristic of conscience as a “voice.”

Keywords: Robert Spaemann; Moral Epistemology; Conscience; Mistaken Conscience