Comparing the ideas of Aquinas and Freud on the conscience

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Comparing the ideas of Aquinas and Freud on the conscience

Similarities

  • Both understand the conscience as an individual making moral decisions
  • Both think that the conscience can be in opposition to whatever  the majority view held by society might be
  • Both see the conscience as something other than the direct voice of God
  • Both agree that guilt can be disruptive for humanity.
  • They see a link between guilt and human desires for sensual pleasure

Differences

  • Aquinas sees the conscience as the activity of a God -given reason, Freud does not include the concept of God at all
  • Aquinas sees wrongdoing in terms of sin, and right and wrong in terms of God's will, Freud does not have an idea of right and wrong as absolute values, he sees them in terms of the ruling norms of society.
  • Aquinas sees guilt in terms of feelings of being to blame for moral wrongdoing but Freud sees guilt in terms of internal conflict between different personality aspects
  • Freud understands the conscious to work on a more subconscious level but Aquinas understands it as the working of the human reason when making moral decisions
  • Aquinas sees the conscience as morally binding but in Freud's view it does not relate to any form of absolute right and wrong, it reflects the id, ego and super-ego.
  • They were writing in very different times when there were vast differences in the understanding of the world.

Overall comparison

There are many similarities and differences between the views of Aquinas and Freud when approaching the conscience. However, the differences vastly outweigh the similarities with one of the main differences being that they lived and worked at very different times and therefore had very different approaches due to society and culture at the time. 

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