Ontology, Conscience, and Freedom

If, as has been discussed, Freedom entails both spontaneity and efficacy, Conscience, as an unexpected source of behavior modification, seems to satisfy those conditions better than does Consciousness. While Conscience is thereby not immune to a Determinist interpretation, e. g. that it is the subconscious product of some prior conditioning, its possibility, at least, has been demonstrated by Kant, for whom it is a Universal corrective to subjective behavior, and by Heidegger, for whom, conversely, it is a private corrective to anonymous behavior. Now, Sartre's translater, Barnes, acknowledges that English 'conscience' and 'consciousness' are both 'conscience' in French, which, she, of course, renders as the latter of the English alternatives, noting that when Sartre means to distinguish the former from the latter, he qualifies it as 'moral'. However, that qualification could also serve Sartre to distinguish a traditional moral notion of 'conscience', from a novel Ontological one, such as Heidegger's. In other words, perhaps Sartre's theory of Being-for-itself is closer to Heidegger's theory of Conscience than to Husserl's theory of Consciousness. Indeed, the For-itself is "haunted" by Value, according to Sartre, and it is Conscience which is the normative of the two notions. To interpret the For-itself in terms of Conscience shifts the emphasis in its upsurge from its denial of its worldly object to its moment of dawning reflection, as is the case in Heidegger's analytic, requiring further adjustments, as well. For example, while 'self-conscience' might be an awkward locution in English, that very awkwardness could serve to underscore the novelty of the notion. In any case, interpreting Sartre's Consciousness as Ontological Conscience at least makes more plausible his attempts to attribute Freedom to it.