4 - Synderesis, Conscientia, and Human Rights

Summary

This chapter begins with an etymological and historical elucidation of the terms conscientia and synderesis. Philosophical and theological reflection on these terms, beginning with St. Jerome and proceeding through thinkers such as Peter Lombard and Philip the Chancellor, constitutes the background against which St. Thomas Aquinas develops his understanding, not only of conscientia and synderesis, but also of objective right (ius) or rights. Much of the debate regarding synderesis, the infallible basis of conscientia, concerns whether it is a power or habitus. Aquinas settles on understanding synderesis as a ‘habit’ of the potential intellect – which, following Aristotle, he understands as a sort of ‘blank slate’ upon which things can be written. One of the things written on the habit of synderesis is the practical version of the principle of non-contradiction: ‘good is to be done and pursued, evil avoided’. This allows him to develop a theory according to which objective rights are primary, although not to the exclusion of subjective rights. It also allows those in agreement with Aquinas to exclude subjective rights that contradict established objective rights.