Personal Conscience

Out of the five domains of ethical responsibility we read this week (i.e., students welfare, the institution, the profession, the community and personal conscience), personal conscience is my favorite one and would like to share a few thoughts about it.

Sometimes the environment in which we work, the circumstances under which we present our situation and other factors make it extremely difficult to obey our conscience when it comes to ethical responsibilities. More often than not we ignore our conscience and take decisions with the view to protecting the image of our institution, or secure our profession and more so to satisfy the members of the community in which we serve. There is nothing wrong with that but I think our conscience must supersede. I always maintain that conscience is the secrete word from God. God speaks to us in diverse ways. At any point in time we face dilemma or acute problem, what comes to our mind is direct voice from God especially if we are to choose between good and bad. Our life experience may come into play but God has an absolute control of our mind if we rely on Him. Let’s therefore pray to GOD for His intervention in such circumstances. We cannot do it all by ourselves but we have an assurance that if we belong to Christ, God has given us His Spirit and through Him we have an understanding of what is right and wrong.

One Russian writer, Alexander Soizhenitsyn said, “Even the most rational approach to ethics is defenseless if there isn't the will to do what is right”. He explained further that, “The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man”. What I personally learned from Alexander is that we may have institution’s name to protect, we may have our profession to secure and be loyal to the community we serve, but the students welfare should be paramount if we have the will to do so. Let’s therefore use our conscience in the perspective of Christianity to handle the four other domains.