^{page 189 note 1} For instance, how does one ascertain when conscience is operative and not just my desires, fears, anxieties, moods, etc? To be sure, I am not suggesting that there does not exist such a recondite agency that causes certain conscious manifestations of a moral sort (i.e. the moral explanatory entity called ‘conscience’), but I would suggest that the epistemological ramifications of how one exactly determines when the voice of conscience speaks is as yet undetermined.

^{page 190 note 1} Conscience theorists speak of ‘judicial conscience’ which pronounces a moral judgment on some past performance, and ‘legislative conscience’ which enables one to decide what one ought to do confronted by a situation demanding moral choice. My use of conscience is quite obviously to be confined to ‘legislative conscience’.

^{page 190 note 2} Philosophy of Religion (London: The English Universities Press, 1965), p. 265.Google Scholar

^{page 190 note 3} Cf. 4 Super Quattuor Libros Sententiarum Subtilissimae Quaestiones 9, E–F.

^{page 190 note 4} ibid., 3, 12, c.

^{page 191 note 1} Cf. 4 Super Quattuor Libros Sententiarum Subtilissimae Quaestiones 3, 13, c.

^{page 192 note 1} (8) and (9) are called such in Scripta Super IV Libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi II, 24, 2, 3, c.

^{page 192 note 2} Quaestianes Quodlibetales III, q. 12, a. 26, c., although the principle in question is not specified as being ‘per se nota secundum se’ or ‘per se nota quoad nos’.

^{page 192 note 3} ‘… the precepts of the natural law…are self-evident principles. Now a thing is said to be self-evident in two ways: first, in itself; secondly in relation to us. Any proposition is said to be self-evident in itself, if its predicate is contained in the notion of the subject.… But some propositions are self-evident only to the wise, who understand the meanings of the terms of such propositions,’ Summa Theologica I-II, q. 94, a. 2, c.

^{page 192 note 4} Quaestiones Disputatae De Veritate q. 17, a. 2, c.

^{page 193 note 1} Quaestiones Disputatae De Veritate q. 17, a. 2, c.

^{page 193 note 2} ibid., q. 17, a. 3, c.

^{page 193 note 3} ibid. q. 17. a. 4, c.

^{page 194 note 1} Kierkegaard, Søren, Fear and Trembling. Trans. Lowrie, Walter (New York, Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1954), p. 124.Google Scholar

^{page 194 note 2} ibid., pp. 124–5.

^{page 195 note 1} De Veritate, op. cit., q. 17, a. 4, c.

^{page 196 note 1} De Veritate, op. cit., q. 17, a. 4, c.

^{page 196 note 2} ibid. q. 17 a. 2, c.

^{page 197 note 1} This Thomistic distinction has rather close affinities with the Kierkegaard of Concluding Un-scientific Postscript, who speaks of the ‘subjective certainty’ of Socrates (i.e., in his immortality) and his ‘objective uncertainty’ as well (i.e., the openness of the scientific evidence in the dispute on immortality). I suggest that this is similar in detail to St. Thomas' concept of ‘false conscience’, where the agent is subjectively certain (i.e., psychologically certain), but also objectively uncertain (i.e., as regard to the epistemic logic of the case). If there is a legitimacy then to the Thomistic distinction, and if furthermore it runs parallel to the above-mentioned Kierkegaardian distinction, then Robert Herbert is surely mistaken in seeing a real paradox in the case of Abraham in this regard: ‘The facts which would justify our saying that a person is objectively uncertain are the very facts which would justify our saying that he is not subjectively certain, and vice-versa.’ ‘Two of Kierkegaard's Uses of “Paradox”, Philosophical Review, vol. 70, 1961, p. 45.

^{page 197 note 2} De Veritate, op. cit., q. 17, a. 4, c.

^{page 198 note 1} Scripta Super IV Libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi II, d. 39, q. 3, a. 3, ad. 5 m.