Self-Knowledge and the Approximation of Divine Judgment: Conscience in the Practical Philosophy and Moral Theology of Immanuel Kant

Abstract

Conscience as an individual’s moral self-awareness has received very little attention in recent decades. H. Richard Niebuhr developed a theory of conscience as moral self-awareness, but, after Niebuhr, interest in this particular understanding of conscience largely disappeared, generally because of its association with the practical philosophy and moral theology of Immanuel Kant. The common assumption is that Kant’s theory of conscience compliments his theory of autonomy: conscience is the means by which the autonomous individual rightly knows herself because it is the means by which she holds herself accountable to the moral order she has made for herself. In this essay I challenge this understanding of Kant’s theory of autonomy and, in turn, Kant’s theory of conscience. I argue that Kant understands conscience to be the knowledge we have of ourselves as we strive to approximate the knowledge God has of us as God holds us accountable to the moral law that we should believe God promulgates to us. I conclude that Kant’s theory of conscience is indeed valuable for contemporary Christian ethics because it draws attention to an important yet neglected biblical and theological witness—namely, that God intimately knows each individual and that each individual is singularly accountable before God.