Good Conscience, False Consciousness, Judging Reason

Abstract

In all scientific or popular reflections on the theory of practical conduct, during the 20th century, almost no mention is made of a ‘good conscience’: people simply have it¹, that means, they are assured of themselves, because they believe themselves to possess the ‘true consciousness’, whereas possible adversaries are flatly accused of manifesting a ‘false consciousness’². The seeming evidence of this opinion as well as the pious adoption of the conditions and consequences implied in it make the relation of ‘good conscience’ and ‘false consciousness’ an eminent theme of a philosophy striving at unequivocal enlightenment of disguised phenomena through fundamental inquiry. Such a philosophy must, therefore, also scrutinize the irrational foundations of contemporary thought and even detect and dissolve the dregs of uncritically adopted new or old dogmatism, doctrinaire basic positions and so-called ‘critical philosophies’.³ The destruction of taboos (together with the corresponding radical destruction of acknowledged social regulating systems), so very common in our time, is naively and in good faith employed to eliminate remainders of a ‘bad conscience’.