1. CHAPTER FIVE
Conscience Formation

2. With and Without Conscience
A practical judgment of reason that helps a person decide the goodness or sinfulness of an action or attitude. It is the subjective norm of morality that we must form properly and then follow

3. Definition of Conscience
What Conscience Is Not:
Conscience as majority opinion.
Conscience as a feeling.
Conscience as a superego.
Conscience as gut-instinct.
Conscience as “Jiminy Cricket.”
Conscience as myth.

4. Definition of Conscience
What Conscience Is:
Conscience is awareness of God’s call to be.
Conscience is awareness of God’s call to know and do the good, that is, to love.
Conscience is a practical judgment of the intellect.

5. How Conscience Works virtue vice
A bad habit, that inclines us to choose the evil rather than the good
A good habit that empowers us to do good with ease

6. SEER – a person in tune with truth, a prophet
How Conscience Works
Study, Elect, Execute, Review:
Elect a course
of action
Review the
decision
Study the facts
Execute the
action
SEER – a person in tune with truth, a prophet

7. How Conscience Works
Study, Elect, Execute, Review
You must always form and keep informing your conscience.
You must follow your conscience.

8. How Conscience Works 1. Study
Study, Elect, Execute, Review
1. Study
Gather information about the moral object, the motives, and the circumstances involved in particular decisions.
Review the fundamental principles of morality and consider how best to apply essential moral rules.

9. How Conscience Works 2. Elect
Study, Elect, Execute, Review
2. Elect
Decision should be based on whether the proposed action is consistent with who you are as God’s creation made in his image.
An essential part of making this decision is to pray.

10. How Conscience Works 3. Execute This involves responsibility.
Study, Elect, Execute, Review
3. Execute
This involves responsibility.
You must do what your conscience tells you is right or you sin.
Be an actor, not a reactor. Take control of your own actions and own them.

11. How Conscience Works 4. Review Study, Elect, Execute, Review
Evaluate and reflect on the actions already performed.
If we have taken the steps to form a good conscience, then our conscience will be clear.
If we have gone against what we know we should have done and sinned, then our conscience can help us repent and reform.

12. Peer Pressure and Conscience
“The moral virtue that ensures firmness in difficulties, and constancy in the pursuit of the good” (CCC1808).
fortitude

13. Peer Pressure and Conscience
martyr
A witness ready to suffer and even die for truth and virtue; martyrdom is the ultimate act of fortitude.

14. Peer Pressure and Conscience
Fortitude
How to resist negative peer pressure:
Resolve to be your own person.
Know your own standards.
Use humor and grace to say “no.”
Stay away from situations that might tempt you.

15. Conscience Virtue Vice Seer Fortitude Martyr
Vocabulary
Conscience
Virtue
Vice
Seer
Fortitude
Martyr