Moral Conscience through the Ages - by Richard Sorabji (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In Moral Conscience through the Ages, Richard Sorabji brings his erudition and philosophical acumen to bear on a fundamental question: what is conscience? Examining the ways we have conceived of that little voice in our heads-our self-directed judge-he teases out its most enduring elements, the aspects that have survived from the Greek playwrights in the fifth century BCE through St Paul, the Church Fathers, Catholics and Protestants, all the way to the 17th century's political unrest and the critics and champions of the eighteenth to twentieth centuries.

Sorabji examines an impressive breadth of topics: the longing for different kinds of freedom of conscience, the proper limits of freedom itself, protests at conscience's being 'terrorized, ' dilemmas of conscience, the value of conscience to human beings, its secularization, its reliability, and ways to improve it. These historical issues are alive today, with fresh concerns about topics such as conscientious objection, the force of conscience, or the balance between freedoms of conscience, religion, and speech. The result is a stunningly comprehensive look at a central component of our moral understanding.

Review Quotes

"Sorabji's close reading of subtle arguments spanning 25 centuries, as he transliterates key Greek and Latin terms and does his best to define their particular meanings in different periods, enables us to see how later figures took up or rejected earlier ideas."

-- "Times Higher Education"

"In this fascinating and magisterial study, Richard Sorabji both demonstrates and describes the intense interest philosophers have had in the ethically central phenomenon of conscience ever since the ancients.... Readers will find here both excellent history of philosophy and, it may be hoped, a stimulus to contemporary thought."-- "Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews"

"Sorabji convincingly establishes that many important philosophical issues emerge only if we situate the discussion of conscience in these wider contexts. As a result, his volume explores debates over whether one can effectively pressure conscience to change without hypocrisy, as well as the historical and philosophical connections among freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, and tolerance. Moreover, Sorabji traces discussions of conscience not just through the usual suspects, such as Socrates, Augustine, Aquinas, Butler, and Kant, but also through the classical Greek playwrights, St. Paul, Huss, Cromwell, and Gandhi. While the treatment of each thinker or movement is concise, Sorabji details how the relevant concepts and arguments change to address new social, political, or religious circumstances. It is in demonstrating these webs of connection and change across centuries that Sorabji is at his best....Sorabji's encyclopaedic investigation is an excellent starting point for scholars investigating the many debates over the scope and significance of conscience."--Jeffrey Hause "The Philosophical Quarterly"

About the Author

Richard Sorabji is honorary fellow of Wolfson College at Oxford University and fellow and emeritus professor at King's College, London. He is the editor of over one hundred books and author of fifteen books, including Necessity, Cause, and Blame; Self; and Gandhi and the Stoics, all published by the University of Chicago Press.