III. CONSCIENCE AND OBLIGATION IN BUTLER'S ETHICAL SYSTEM.
CONSCIENCE, as it stands at the head of the hierarchy of ^-^ the human constitution is, according to Butler's definition, that "principle of reflection in men, by which they distinguish between, approve and disapprove their own actions"; "for this is the strict sense of the word, though sometimes it is used so as to take in more."[1] It is not clear whether Butler here refers to a wider use of the term by others or by himself. Certain it is, however, that, although he commonly uses the two terms 'conscience' and 'reflection' as synonymous, he himself does employ 'conscience' to denote something more than a particular kind of intellectual reflection. In addition to the purely reflective judgment of discrimination, the term designates the whole process of consciousness when occupied with moral decision, the concrete mental state including moral feeling, the consciousness of approbation, authority, and obligation. The uniqueness of conscience, in comparison with all other principles of action, is not constituted only by its character as reason in the specific function of determining the relation of our various actions to our constitution, but also by the attendant feeling of approbation. From Butler's common argument in regard to the supremacy and authority of conscience, and his frequent accounts of the way in which it functions, one sees that the term must often be taken as the name of the entire process of the moral consciousness, rather than of a particular or special kind of reasoning. It must be admitted that Butler does not always seem conscious of the distinction, and this confusion has exposed him, I think, to misapprehension. There is, however, no real or fundamental confusion, and the two uses of the term are so far from being inconsistent that they are almost inevitable. Moral discrimination has both a cognitive and an affective aspect. It includes both 'pure practical reason' and moral feeling or 'moral sense.' In
- ↑ Sermons, I, Sects. 7-8, pp. 41-42.
