Abstract:
This qualitative study explores Thomas Green's (1999) treatise, Voices: The
Educational Formation of Conscience; for the purpose of reconstruing the transformative
usefulness of conscience in moral education. Conscience is "reflexive judgment about
things that matter" (Green, 1999, p. 21). Paul Lehmann (1963) suggested that we must
"do the conscience over or do the conscience in" (p. 327). Thomas Green "does the
conscience over", arguing that a philosophy of moral education, and not a moral
philosophy, provides the only framework from which governance of moral behaviour can
be understood. Narratives from four one-to-one interviews and a focus group are
analysed and interpreted in search of: (a) awareness and understanding of conscience, (b)
voices of conscience, (c) normation, (d) reflexive emotions, and (e) the idea of the sacred.
Participants in this study (ages 16-21) demonstrated an active awareness of their
conscience and a willingness to engage in a reflective process of their moral behaviour.
They understood their conscience to be a process of self-judgment about what is right and
wrong, and that its authority comes from within themselves. Narrative accounts from
childhood indicated that conscience is there "from the beginning" with evidence of selfcorrecting behaviour. A maturing conscience is accompanied by an increased cognitive
capacity, more complicated life experiences, and individualization. Moral motivation
was grounded in " a desire to connect with things that are most important." A model for
conscience formation is proposed, which visualizes a critical path of reflexive emotions.
It is argued that schools, striving to shape good citizens, can promote conscience formation through a "curriculum of moral skills"; a curriculum that embraces complexity, diversity, social criticism, and selfhood.
