Aquinas and Freud

Conscience

Content

• Aquinas’ theological approach

• Freud’s psychological approach

Key Knowledge

• details of this approach, including:

  • ratio (reason placed in every person as a result of being created in the image of God)

  • synderesis (inner principle directing a person towards good and away from evil)

  • conscientia (a person’s reason making moral judgements).

  • vincible ignorance (lack of knowledge for which a person is responsible)

  • invincible ignorance (lack of knowledge for which a person is not responsible)

• details of this approach, including: o psychosexual development (early childhood awareness of libido)

  • id (instinctive impulses that seek satisfaction in pleasure)

  • ego (mediates between the id and the demands of social interaction)

  • super-ego (contradicts the id and working on internalised ideals from parents and society tries to make the ego behave morally)