Freud's psychological approach to the conscience

• Conscience 


  comes from an inner part of our minds - shaped by our upbringing

  • we have an inner unconscious that interacts with our conscious awareness of our actions

  unconscious mind: repressed thoughts and feelings like primitive desires, wish fulfilment and pleasure

  preconscious mind: memories that are not readily available

  • exists below the level of consciousness - 'like a mental waiting room' where thoughts remain until they 'attract the eye of the conscious' - Freud

  conscious mind: the thoughts a person currently has, which the unconscious mind can't access
• Ego's role in conflict resolution

  The Ego tries to balance the demands of the Id and Superego, repressing, compromising, or compensating to avoid conflict.
• Tripartite personality 


  Id: the primitive, instinctual part of the personality - seeks immediate gratification of desire

  • entirely unconscious
  • driven by libido - sexual pleasure drive - desire sexual gratification
  • links to the genital stage - children become interested with their genitals
  • it is a 'dark inaccessible part of our personality' - Freud
• Tripartite personality


  superego: The moral component of the personality that guides the individual to adhere to societal norms and moral standards

  • stores moral teachings and social rules received during upbringing
  • this also relates to religious and moral feelings as well as the conscience are in Freud's view

  the conscience is not about the moral thing to do - we feel guilty because of the super-ego

  • this may have nothing to do with the rightness or wrongness of our actions but rather the feelings arising from the interplay of the id, ego and super-ego in our minds
• Tripartite personality 


  Ego: The rational, adaptive part of the personality that mediates between the Id and the external world

  • balances the demands of the Id and Superego, repressing, compromising, or compensating to avoid conflict
  • finds socially acceptable ways to satisfy and express the Id's desires while adhering to moral norms
  • driven by the reality principle
  • analogy of a horse:
  • the rider = ego - managing and guiding the horse = id

  the ego acts like the conscience, remembering appropriate actions

  a good conscience = the effective operation of the ego over the id
• Eval Freud 


  Strengths

  • origins of guilt - logical explanation of the origins of our personal feelings of guilt, moral obligation
  • doesn't depend on a belief in an all powerful God to make it coherent
  • Diversity of conscience - accounts for the considerate difference in conscience we find around the world, from society to society and individual to individual in a way that conscience dependent on one God and one moral truth cannot
  • allows people to recognise flaws in their upbringing that impact their moral decision making - overcome the 'voice of the punishing parent'
• Eval Freud


  Weaknesses

  • male-orientated - Oedipus complex - doesn't account for the sexual desires of women - bias means not generalisable to women
  • pessimistic view - we are unable to change ourselves beyond 5 years old
  • unfalsifiable/ lacks scientific basis - case studies
  • supports a corrosive moral relativism - we lose the definitive assurance of right and wrong as there is no ultimate power, making it relative and changeable. People may start to reject these social rules and go their own way
  • deterministic - blame the unconscious