This fifth chapter explores the issue of conscientious provision and its role in the regulation of conscience. It first argues that conscientious provision ought to be protected in a similar manner to conscientious objection. It argues that it is problematic to fail to consider conscientious provision as worthy of protection. It then examines what the protection of conscientious provision might entail and what a model for its regulation would be. It tests this model in relation to the provision of an abortion in the United States after the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org, et. al.

This first chapter provides an introduction to the book as well as outlining some of its major themes and issues. It provides a general outline of the theory of conscience defended in the book.

This final chapter provides a summary of the theory presented in the book. It outlines the nature of conscience as well as how it might be constrained to protect the interests of others. It then addresses some lingering issues that arise from the theory.

This third chapter explores the reasons why there is a general belief that conscience ought to be protected. It begins by exploring some of the misconceptions about why we might wish to protect conscience before exploring three reasons that are more plausible. These three reasons are personal integrity, equal concern and respect, and moral responsibility. The chapter argues that these reasons do not act independently but are mutually supportive. All three, therefore, have a part to play in why conscience ought to be protected. However, it is noted in the chapter that none of these reasons provide a justification for unfettered conscience.

This sixth chapter explores issues surrounding collective acts of conscience. Specifically, it focuses on the issue of complicity as well as institutional conscience. Complicity in conscience is a frequent subject of discussion, as many conscience claims, such as referrals of treatment or supervision, rely on notions of complicity. However, complicity in conscience is significantly different from complicity in other areas of law and ethics, and there is insufficient exploration as to why. This chapter provides a firmer grounding for complicity. From there, the chapter moves to a discussion of institutional conscience. The chapter explores the reasons generally used in support of institutional conscience but argues that most do not survive scrutiny. Instead, it claims that institutional conscience does not provide any adequate protection for individual conscience and, instead, often overrides or limits it. It then provides reasons for an alternative view of how institutions ought to engage with conscience.

This second chapter explores the nature of the conception of conscience. It provides a broad definition of conscience as requiring only that a decision be about an individual’s conduct, be based on a moral belief, and be inward-facing. The chapter also explores some of the major misconceptions about what is necessary for something to be a decision of conscience. It provides an overview of the role of conscience within moral reasoning as well as how conscience operates.

This seventh chapter explores how conscience might be regulated on the basis of the theory proposed in earlier chapters. The emphasis of the chapter is on a broad sketch of how that regulation might work, as opposed to a model statute or other more specific model. It presents a series of nested connections between various stakeholders such as government bodies, healthcare institutions, third parties such as insurance companies, individual healthcare providers, and patients. All of these parties have roles to play in the regulation of conscience.

The sense of duty is a virtue of caring, not directly about the good, or even about justice, but about doing one’s duty. Insofar as doing what one takes to be one’s duty is in fact to do what is good, the sense of duty functions as a backup for the more direct virtues of caring – generosity, compassion, and truthfulness, as well as justice. Being a virtue of caring, the sense of duty can be expressed in emotions: a feeling of satisfaction in having done one’s duties or feelings of guilt or shame at having neglected them. The sense of duty can vary, emotionally, according to how one conceives the authoritative source of duty, on a spectrum from reverence, through respect, to resentful acceptance. Example of the extremes beyond the spectrum are some Hebrew psalmists’ delight in the law of God and the contempt of the utter moral cynic.

Heidegger says very little about language in Being and Time, but he says quite a lot about “discourse” (Rede). What is discourse, according to Heidegger, and what is its relation to language? It is, he says, the “foundation” of language, so they cannot be identical. He also says that the “spoken expression” of discourse is language, but can discourse also be unspoken, or even nonlingustic? Remaining silent and the call of conscience, he also says, are kinds of discourse. In this chapter, I argue that what Heidegger means by “discourse” is communicative expression in a broad sense, which includes but is not limited to language. Expression and communication are, however, what discourse and language have in common. I show that competing accounts in the secondary literature either understate or overstate those features, which are essential to both linguistic and nonlinguistic cases of discourse

How should a constitutional state – one that respects subjects’ basic rights – treat civil disobedients? This chapter presents and critically engages with some of the most prominent answers legal scholars, political theorists, and philosophers have given to this question. On what I call punitive approaches, which I present in section 1, civil disobedience is first and foremost an act of resistance that threatens the constitutional order, and thus a public wrong worthy of punishment. Theorists of civil disobedience have challenged this approach since the 1960s, especially by conceiving of civil disobedience as a kind of dissent, which liberal democratic societies ought to and can ‘make room’ for. Sections 2 and 3 examine these ‘constitutionalizing’ approaches, with section 2 focusing on the case for leniency, and section 3 on the case for broad accommodation. Section 4 examines the costs of constitutionalizing approaches and reclaims the understanding of civil disobedience as a kind of resistance, alongside its uncivil counterparts, that is sometimes justified and even necessary in constitutional democracies.

Max Weber understood how democracy in the seventeenth century was tied to Calvinist individualism and the rejection of external forms. Thomas Hobbes hated the consequences of puritan rule and argued that politics needed to accept the principle of the mask in order to create social order. The lawyer William Prynne in his Histrio-mastix portrayed theatre as the root of all evils in the royalist regime, but he himself proved a masterly performer in working to undermine the regime. The most radical democratic thinking came from the ‘Levellers’ who harked back to the Garden of Eden and natural human innocence. Shakespeare interrogated the ambivalent myth of Eden in Henry VI Part Two, as did Milton in Paradise Lost. The Putney debates constitute the main focus of this chapter. Common soldiers with Leveller views argued with their generals about constitutional principles. Close analysis of the debate reveals the complications that followed from claims to sincerity, couched as insistence that because God had spoken to them speakers were following their consciences, avoiding rhetoric or hypocrisy. The religious context in fact allowed a high level of democratic exchange.

Christian August Crusius (1715–1775) was one of the most important German philosophers in the middle of the eighteenth century. His series of four German textbooks offered a systematic and sophisticated alternative to Wolffianism. Kant was at the beginning of his academic career when Crusius’ philosophical works were first published, so it is not surprising that Kant would come to be influenced by Crusius’ philosophy. This chapter contains a translation of selections from books 1 and 2 of Crusius’ Guide to Living Rationally (1744), capturing his theory of the will and desire, his theory of freedom, his voluntarist theory of ethics, his theory of the end of human life, and his moral proof of the immortality of the soul. The selections will help readers better understand Kant’s reference to Crusius’ moral philosophy as one based on the “will of God” (5:40), among many other things.

A multilevel conception of identity is proposed in this chapter, with individual, social, human, and ecological levels. Emphasis is placed on the nature of the relationships among the different identity positions, with a focus on dialogical flexibility and the distinction between consonant and dissonant dialogues. The risk of over-positioning is analyzed, indicating the one-sided exaggeration of one of the identities, and attention is devoted to the “level confusion” resulting from a lack of distinction between the different levels. An elaborate discussion of the concept of conscience is presented. From a neurological perspective, evidence shows that the natural inclination of bonding and caring puts limitations on our circle of moral regard. Finally, the worldviews of two historical icons, Jane Addams and Andrew Carnegie, are compared in order to demonstrate the value of promoter positions.