On Conscience Theory Of Contemporary Western Catholic New Natural Law School

In Catholic theological tradition and pastoral practice, conscience is viewed as a vital factor in moral decision-making. The New Natural Law School as a contemporary western catholic ethical school was formed after the calling for the renewal of moral theology by the Second Vatican Council.It also pays much attention to the issue of conscience.In this dissertation, the author also focuses the discussion on conscience in the New Natural Law School.In the first chapter, the author outlines the origin, definition and different interpretations around "conscience" in the Bible ,Thomas Aquinas and documents ? of Vatican II.In the second chapter, the author discuss the concept "conscience" redefined by the New Natural Law School: "conscience" is viewed as the result of one's personal awareness which ultimately leads to one's moral principles and responsibility. Since one' moral awareness is divided into different levels, consequently, his conscience is composed of different levels, namely, particular moral conscience, general moral conscience and fuundamental mode of self-awareness. In this theroy, the judgement of conscience is highly viewed as the final element leading to one's moral judgement and all his behavior. As a result, he bears the moral responsibility to act in accordance with his own judgement of conscience.In the third chapter, the author pushes this discussion to the deeper level: a man should establish moral judgement over different "conscience" by his inner nature, and follow the call from the correct conscience and avoid signals from the erroneous one. In order to achieve it, a man ought to cultivate his good impetus in the inner nature, and perfect his judgement in distingushing different elements which lead to the true and moral conscience and the untrue and immoral one.In the forth chapter, the author discusses in detail their understandings about the formation and one's judgement of conscience.In this discussion, the author conducts a comparative study between the conscience theory of the New Natural Law School and that of Mengzi in Chinese Confucian philosophy. In the conculsion, the author discusses the contribution of the New Natural Law School to the theory of conscience in the context of "responsiveness" in apologist tradition.