Conscience and its recovery

the long version

The lack of moral conscience in contemporary society is frequently noted and lamented, but how valid is the idea of "conscience" today? Does it have a referent, or is the concept merely rhetorical? Guyton B. Hammond proposes in this book that the concept is valid, but that for its utopian possibilities to be recovered, it must be revised. He builds upon earlier theories toward the construction of a Post-Puritan, Post-patriarchal, Post-bourgeois interpretation of conscience that is viable for the present age. Hammond explores the two dominant and opposing theories of conscience - the traditional view, holding that it springs from an innate sense of "right" that, if violated, induces guilt; and its Freudian opposite, which defines conscience as a manifestation of family values springing from the internalisation of parental admonitions - and finds that neither is completely in accord with contemporary experience. Drawing on the Frankfurt school, Paul Tillich's theology, feminist psychoanalytic theory, and family studies research, Hammond constructs an alternative approach to the Westem idea of conscience.