The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics recently hosted the conference "Conscience in Catholicism: Rights, Responsibilities, and Institutional Policies." Scholars from around the world gathered to ...

Primacy of conscience has been thrust to the fore of Church-wide discussions on marriage, contraception and homosexuality at the Ordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family. But as we saw happen in the ...

Freedom of conscience is an individual's last line of defense. That framing is not rhetorical. It is a legal and moral reality.

The New York Times obituary for former defense secretary Robert McNamara (1916–2009) included these sad lines about his later life: “He wore the expression of a haunted man. He could be seen in the ...

This, at least, is how I read the doctrine of Protestants as well as of Catholics. The rule and measure of duty is not utility, nor expedience, nor the happiness of the greatest number, nor State ...

As the conversation surrounding the controversial birth control mandate continues, prominent theologians are saying President Barack Obama's decision on that subject just underlines the need for a ...

After the existential drama of Heidegger's notion of being-towards-death, why do we need a discussion of conscience? As so often in Being and Time, Heidegger insists that although his description of ...

“Celeste, I don’t want you going to Coney Island today. It’s the Fourth of July, and who knows what kind of troublemakers will be there?” My friend Carl and I were planning to spend July 4, 1978, at ...