 Bertrand Russell Quotes 366 |
"Conscience", to which we must now return, may, I think, be defined as praise and blame directed towards oneself in respect of some contemplated act. In most people this is a reflection of the praise and blame that will be bestowed by their community, but in some, owing to emotional or intellectual peculiarities, it has a more individual quality. A man who has an exceptional dislike to the infliction of pain may become an anti-vivisectionist and an opponent of capital punishment. ... In such ways a man's standards of praise and blame may differ from those of his neighbours, and if he is a “conscientious” man he will follow his own standards rather than theirs.
Source: Bertrand Russell: Human Society in Ethics and Politics, (1954), chapter 5
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