The concept of conscience has played a key role in traditional religious accounts of morality, but is under attack from more recent empiricist and deflationary accounts. In this talk Professor Cottingham will ask what kind of authority attaches to the ‘inner voice’ of conscience, and raise the question of how far that authority is undermined by the findings of psychoanalytic theory and evolutionary science. He will conclude by reflecting on what the workings of conscience reveal about the essential conflictedness of our human nature.

The speaker is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Reading, as well as a Professorial Research Fellow of Heythrop College, University of London, and an Honorary Fellow of St. John’s College, Oxford, where he started out as an undergraduate. He is also Editor of Ratio, the international journal of analytic philosophy. His principal research interests are in early-modern philosophy (especially Descartes), moral philosophy, and the philosophy of religion. He has published eleven books as sole author, including Descartes, The Rationalists, Philosophy and the Good Life, and On the Meaning of Life. Among his recent books are The Spiritual Dimension(2005), which deals with central themes in the philosophy of religion, and Cartesian Reflections(2008), a collection of his papers on Descartes.

If you are interested in attending please contact David Wyatt (david.wyatt@thomasmoreinstitute.org.uk) to receive an invitation.