How individual was conscience in the early-modern period? Observations on the development of Catholic moral theology

Reinhardt, Nicole

doi:10.1080/0048721x.2015.1024039

How individual was conscience in the early-modern period? Observations on the development of Catholic moral theology

Reinhardt, Nicole

Authors

Nicole Reinhardt

Abstract

This article investigates how the notion of individual conscience has to be understood within the early-modern development of Catholic moral theology. It highlights that 16th-century Catholic theologians continued to understand conscience mainly in Thomist terms as a rational judgment. Yet they also came to investigate more deeply questions of intention and individual circumstances that might interfere with the perfect execution of moral reasoning. Particular emphasis is given to the question of probabilism and whether this new method of analyzing moral agency provided a stepping stone towards a more individualized conception of conscience, as some intellectual historians have contended. The article argues that whilst probabilism sharpened the awareness for problems of conscience, this development cannot be disconnected from the culture of counsel of conscience, inscribed into the fundamentally Thomist definition of it.

Citation

Reinhardt, N. (2015). How individual was conscience in the early-modern period? Observations on the development of Catholic moral theology. Religion, 45(3), 409-428. https://doi.org/10.1080/0048721x.2015.1024039

Journal Article Type	Article
Online Publication Date	May 29, 2015
Publication Date	May 29, 2015
Deposit Date	Jun 30, 2015
Publicly Available Date	Nov 29, 2016
Journal	Religion
Print ISSN	0048-721X
Electronic ISSN	1096-1151
Publisher	Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	45
Issue	3
Pages	409-428
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1080/0048721x.2015.1024039
Keywords	Conscience, Moral theology, Casuistry, Probabilism, Society of Jesus.

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Copyright Statement
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Religion on 29/05/2015, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/0048721X.2015.1024039.