Conscience（良心）

Background

Conscience and Truth

The first quote above is from a letter written by Neesima to Iichiro (Soho) Tokutomi, who had left Doshisha. He had studied at “Eirokusha,” a school of neo-Confucianism, near Doshisha. The Japanese word “conscience” is influenced by Confucianism, especially Mencius, who taught human nature is fundamentally good, and is generally understood as a power innate in human beings. However, after returning to Japan, Neesima was consistently critical of Confucianism. His understanding of conscience is clearly expressed in the phrase “use our conscience with truth in our sights.” The “truth” here can be thought of as the truth presented by Christianity. In other words, the conscience cannot be used correctly without truth that is beyond human. In Neesima, conscience and Christian truth were inextricably linked.

Important Concepts Adjacent to Conscience

In the second quote above, the adjacent concepts that are deeply related to conscience are presented. Conscience has the etymological meaning of “knowing together,” and both “wisdom” and “freedom” are important concepts that support “conscience.” In addition, considering the reality that without “property” we easily lose “freedom” and “conscience,” it is unacceptable to underestimate “property.” From the perspective of Neesima, who worked hard to establish the financial foundation of Doshisha to realize an ideal education, it is impossible to face various difficulties if “property” is neglected. To be self-reliant, to look at reality, but not to be subjugated by it, one needs the four legs of “wisdom, property, liberty, and conscience.”

The Conscience of the Nation

The third quote above is one of the examples of conscience in “The Intentions for the Establishment of Doshisha University.” It talks about conscience concerning the nation and its people and may be seen as a strong reflection of Tokutomi’s view of the nation and its people, who completed the document. However, even for Neesima, conscience was not limited to the inner workings of the individual, but also affected society and the nation. For Neesima, who had seen and lived in Western societies, a modern society or nation was not a given community to be followed by its citizens, but something created by citizens who were independent as individuals and equipped with a conscience, and who entered into a mutual contract. For Japan, which had just begun to build a modern nation, Neesima believed that it was necessary to train independent people who would become the “conscience of the nation,” and he set out to establish Doshisha University as a private school, different from a government-run institution.

Cold Fertilizer and Conscience

The fourth quote above is a letter that includes the words inscribed on the “Conscience Monument,” “I hope that more and more young people will emerge who fill their whole bodies with a conscience.” However, while this sentence is well known, the letter as a whole has rarely been read. The letter, written by Neesima to Yasutada Yokota, then a fifth-year student at Doshisha English School, shows the essence of Neesima’s thoughts and is well worth reading. The parable of “cold fertilizer” is interesting. “Cold fertilizer” is for fertilizing fruit trees in winter to promote growth in spring. Neesima was applying cold fertilizer to various areas to establish a university in the future. For a human being to exert great power in the future, he or she needs to be given the right amount of cold fertilizer at the right time. The “conscience” that fills the entire body is also like a cold fertilizer. Neesima lamented the political situation in Japan at that time, and hoped that “more and more young people will emerge who fill their whole body with conscience.” This was not said about education, but from the 1990s onward, Doshisha began to develop the phrase extracted from the “Conscience Monument” to “Conscience Education.”

Conscience in Late 19th Century America

Neesima encountered the word “conscience” in the United States. I would like to describe what it meant at that time. Since its founding, Christianity has played an important role in the formation and integration of American society. However, since the mid-19th century, the authority of Christianity and the Bible has been shaken under the influence of the Enlightenment, modernism, and Darwinism that came from Europe. In other words, as society gradually became secularized, Christianity, which had once served as the common ground for people’s values and norms, could no longer fulfill its role, and people debated what should form a social consensus. Thus, attention turned to moral philosophy as providing a common ground, regardless of whether or not and to what degree one held Christian faith, and in this context, conscience was given new attention. In other words, conscience was expected to bridge Christian and secular values and contribute to the formation of social consensus. In this respect, the conscience required in this period played a role similar to that of St. Paul’s conscience, which attempted to bridge different values (see “Love Runs through Christianity”).

Conscience in Early Doshisha

For Neesima, conscience was closely tied to his Christian faith, but at the same time, it is worth noting that his educational goals went beyond Christian missionary work in the narrow sense.
　It was at the end of the 19th century that the Japanese word “ryoshin,” which means “good heart,” became established as a translation of the English word “conscience.” At that time, when an appropriate Japanese word corresponding to a foreign word could not be found, words were often searched for in Chinese classics. As can be seen from the fact that “ryoshin” was taken from Mencius, it tended to be understood in the context of the Confucian idea that human nature is fundamentally good.
　Confucian values remained strong in the period when Neesima founded Doshisha, and although he did not use the word “conscience” frequently (he never used the term “conscience education”), he was careful to avoid Confucian nuances when using it. For Neesima, who founded the private school Doshisha in defiance of Confucian values amid an era in which national formation and modern education were based on Confucian values, conscience needed to be linked to the more universal “Christian values.” In this regard, we may recall the following words from “The Intentions for the Establishment of Doshisha University:” “If anyone considers the establishment of Doshisha University as a means to spread Christianity or to train preachers, he or she still does not understand our ideas. Our purpose is even higher.”

Conscience in Western History

The English word “conscience,” which Neesima encountered in the U.S., has a long lineage from Greek thought, and the etymological meaning of conscience is “to know together” from Latin “conscientia,” which is made up of con (with) and scire (to know). The root of “conscientia” is the Greek word “συνείδησις,” also composed of “with” and “to know.” The meaning of a word cannot be identified solely by its etymology, and a variety of interpretations of meaning have developed in each period. However, it is important for Doshisha to “know together” the coming of conscience in Western history, which is not reduced to Confucian nuances.
　The question is “with whom” to know. In general, Western history has considered the following three parties.
1. “Knowing together” with the inner other (self): personal conscience
　Although Socrates and other ancient Greek philosophers did not use the word “conscience,” they emphasized the importance of listening to the voice of the self as the inner other and explored the origin of conscience. Such a conscience that is directed toward one’s inner self can be called a “personal conscience.” From this lineage, modern ideas such as “individual dignity” and “freedom of conscience” also emerge. Conscience is the very core of identity and belief that establishes the individual. Challenging existing social norms, such as “conscientious objection to military service,” is also an important aspect of conscience, and in this respect, it can be seen to be in contrast to Confucian “conscience.”
2. “Knowing together” with others outside (third-party): social conscience
　The process of conscience, in which the individual makes decisions while interacting and vacillating with his or her inner self, is important, but without an external relationship to it, there is a danger of falling into self- righteousness. Even if an individual makes a conscientious decision according to his or her inner mind, this does not justify every action. The power of conscience to share issues with others, to consider how individual decisions and actions affect others and society, and to obtain feedback from others can be called “social conscience” (social dimension of conscience). Social conscience requires us to be open to diversity, rather than remaining closed to the individual.
3. “Knowing together” with God (the transcendent Other): the religious conscience
　Although there was already a tradition of listening to oracles in ancient Greece, it was not until Christianity became the dominant religion in Europe after the fourth century that a tradition of “knowing with God” as the transcendent Other was formed in the history of Western thought. However, it was the church that represented the voice of God. Behind this was the idea that man was sinful and incapable of judging right and wrong on his or her own, and therefore should submit to the authority of the church. On the other hand, the Protestant Reformation held that individuals could stand before God without the intermediary of a church or clergy. Even though there were differences in theological understanding, the formation of a “religious conscience” based on Christian faith prepared the way for later “freedom of religion (faith)” and modern individualism.
　While the concept of conscience explained above has a specificity linked to Western history, if we take “personal conscience,” “social conscience,” and “religious conscience” in a broader sense, we can find universal aspects that are also applicable to the non-Western world.

Contemporary Significance

Science and Conscience

The Japanese word “kagaku” is a translation of science (the Latin word “scientia”) made by Amane Nishi in the early 1880s. Nishi was surprised by the highly specialized nature of the various Western disciplines that were then flowing into Japan and gave the word “science” the translation “kagaku” which means “study of disciplines.” This certainly captures the formal aspect of science at the time, but the nuance that it derives from scientia (knowing) cannot be understood from the Japanese word “kagaku.” If we assume that the original meaning of con-science (knowing together) is to do science together, we can see that science and conscience are closely related, at least at the etymological dimension of the word.
　Knowing (scientia = science) is inextricably linked to the recognition of one’s ignorance, and it is precisely because one is ignorant that one is oriented toward “knowing together” (conscientia = conscience). In other words, the original meaning of conscience demands “knowing together” beyond academic disciplines, i.e., an interdisciplinary quest for knowledge. And therefore, not only must conscience be located within the individual, but the responsibility that stems from conscience must be open to society. Therefore, we must not keep “conscience” within the tradition of Doshisha but rather continue to pursue it as something open and applicable to the outside world.

Expansion of the Concept of Conscience

Considering the wide and long influence of modern science and technology, as exemplified by genome editing and the use of nuclear energy, the conscience of the 21st century must assume responsibility for future generations. This will naturally lead to a view of the survival and sustainability of humanity, and therefore it is not permissible to remain within the dimension of conventional morality, that is, morality that has developed in small groups in a phylogenetically generated manner.
　To properly recognize our responsibility to future generations (intergenerational ethics), we need to embody the perspective of “knowing together” with future generations. This is an urgent task for energy and global environmental issues. In addition, the distinction between “natural” and “artificial” has become blurred due to technological innovation today. It can be said that the traditional distinction between nature, humans, and artifacts is becoming more fluid. Examples include human genome editing and artificial intelligence research. As the fusion of nature and artifacts progresses, new ethical norms are required. Norms that can consider the fundamental interpenetration of humans and artifacts (technology), and the concept of conscience that supports such norms, namely, a conscience that “knows together” with artifacts (AI and robots), are required. The ability to “know together” is not the exclusive property of humans. The concept of conscience can play a role as an interface in building a new relationship between humans, nature, and artifacts.

Business and Conscience

As clearly expressed in the second quote above, “Cultivate the workings of wisdom, property, freedom, and conscience,” Neesima emphasized “property.” In modern parlance, business and conscience are closely related. As noted earlier, conscience in Western history, in the dimension of personal conscience, was a challenge to existing social norms, while in the dimension of social conscience, it was a force that made possible the sharing of issues and values. In other words, conscience is both a “disjunctive power” and a “conjunctive power.” When conscience acts more strongly as a “disjunctive power” in business, it can lead to innovations that go beyond existing products and services. And since it is not an isolated conscience, it will naturally lead to open innovation that will activate other companies as well. Moreover, when conscience acts more strongly as a “conjunctive power” in business, it opens the way to creating shared values (CSV). The practice of value creation through collaboration will be an example of the best practice of conscience in business.

Conscience and Empathy

In psychology, empathy is broadly classified into “emotional empathy” and “cognitive empathy.” Emotional empathy is defined as understanding the emotions of others with one’s physical reactions, while cognitive empathy is defined as inferring the thoughts and intentions of others. The former is a short-term (impromptu) response, while the latter can be seen as a long- term response. Applying this to conscience, we can consider “emotional conscience” and “cognitive conscience.” It goes without saying that “emotional conscience,” which reaches out to those in need, is important, but at the same time, we have witnessed many serious incidents in which an excess of empathy within a “knowing together” group, when it expands without questioning itself or being open to others, has led to the exclusion of others and violence against them. In other words, it is not enough to simply affirm empathy. In other words, empathy cannot be simply affirmed, and a “cognitive conscience” is essential to analyze and respond to the movement and structure when it is about to take a violent turn. The outburst of empathy within a particular group is often based on a conflict of values. Therefore, conscience is put to the test as the ability to mediate between conflicting values.

(Katsuhiro Kohara)