Conscience and Moral Judgement

I have been studying conscience and moral judgement and explored the ideas of conscience and moral decision-making. Both together form a way of you knowing what is right and what is wrong. without you even knowing your mind has set up what is good and what is bad, but your conscience is not necessarily right. I think that conscience isn't just a feeling, its a decision according to our moral judgement. We need to make decisions not just do what we feel like, because we need to decide for ourselves what we consider right and wrong. I think that you don't have to go through your whole life accepting what other people define as good and bad and make your own choices in what you think is right and wrong, because it is up to you. Your conscience is never absolute as it is socially and culturally defined. what is right and wrong depends on that specific cultures values and moral beliefs. conscience is the persons commitment to living by your values and morals, doing something not worrying about what the punishment might be. If you believe you know what is right and what is wrong you will do it because you have to, because you believe its right, not what anyone else thinks is right or wrong. 

I am going to respond to this situation using the moral decision making process;

 A friend of yours, who is also a popular and well-known student, boasts to you that he/she has managed to steal a copy of the semester science exam. He/she is prepared to sell it to anyone for $10.00. This test has a 50% weighting on the overall result. What do you do? Would you buy a copy for yourself? Would you report the incident?

the issue is that you don't really want to get your friend in trouble and reporting the incident will make you lose friends. The friend that stole the copy of the exam is doing the wrong thing because whoever buys the test will be cheating. boasting about it is also wrong because stealing isn't a moral code of mine, it is wrong. The person who buys the copy will have it easy as all they have to do is copy it, which isn't fair to all the other students who studied and tried extra hard towards the exam. your conscience is doing what you believe is good and bad and not having the easy way out. The friend that stole the copy is getting the easy way out. it is important to stop him/her from selling the copy.

stealing and selling the copy of the science exam might be considered as a moral for the friend, but it isn't in this culture and stealing is considered wrong. 

my decision will affect me and my friends friendship, and friendship is a huge moral of mine, being loyal to your friends and caring for them. It will affect the person who was going to buy the copy, it shows them that they need to try harder and strive for there goals and morals. getting out the easy way is not an option, your conscience should tell you whether is is wrong or right and the person cheating has morals that cheating is right as there conscience told them to cheat on the test.

there are many choices i could make to prevent my friend from selling the copy, my first option would be to buy the copy from my friend pretending i am going to use it, then putting it in the bin so no one gets to buy it. this will mean that my friend would not know i am doing this and will think i want to cheat, but actually i am going with my morals and trying hard for the test, if i do this no one will be able to cheat and my friend wont feel betrayed. my second option is to talk to my friend and ask him/her if they think what they are doing is right and that if they sell the copy i would report it to the teacher. So it would be up to him/her to decide whether to not sell the copy and live by her/his morals. If he/she did sell the copy, he/she would get in trouble by the school and would fail the test which means not selling the copy is the only option that would support there morals, if that's what they think is right. This option would mean that my friend would most likely be annoyed and angry at me, but in the end they would thank me, because i helped her/him to try harder and consider her/his morals. 

there will most likely not be any consequences for these options unless for the second option my friend decides to sell the copy and i report it to the teacher, making my friend in big trouble and my morals of friendship being deceived. Reporting this situation will be the last option, and it basically up to my friend to decide what is really important to them and what isn't.

My family and friends would tell me to report it not really caring about our friendship, as they know that there morals are to do well at school as this is the common values and goals by most people. They would say that stealing is wrong and that my friend should have bad consequences regarding this horrible situation in which morals have been broken. this environment and culture has morals to do well at school and get a good job that will earn you plenty of money. The community urges us to live by what they consider the common good, but ultimately it is up to you to decide what your own goals and values are although the community advise you to live by what they consider the right way. 

Jesus would tell me to do what i think is right ans what i consider good and bad, he would tell me to decide on what my morals are and live by that. He would tell me to accept everyone else morals but also live by my own values. he would tell me that my conscience is right, it tells me how to live my own life and what i am doing is good or bad, living my other peoples morals isn't living the right way unless you believe that is the right way because it is completely up to you. 

the virtues of faith, hope and love, wise judgement, courage, justice and wholeness relate to this situation in many ways. love is to listen and care for those you love, your friends and family, and to listen to what they have to say to you and how they want to help you. Also you should be considering the friend in the situation and how it will affect them and there values. Love also leads to faith in which my friends and family have in me and respect my choices, just as i respect theirs. Having wise judgement is living by common sense and what other people expect from you and believe you should be able to do be doing it the right way (the community or countries way). having common sense for your morals include what the people around you believe is the right way to live by, from your family, friends and community. In this situation even thought you have love and faith in your friend you should be following the wise judgement and have enough courage to face your friend and tell him/her that you think what they are doing is awfully wrong, and if they consider your thought it might help them to realize what there morals include. having courage is having the ability to confront your friend that stole the copy and tell them that you will report it if they don't stop. Being responsible in this situation means following the common values of the community and in this situation helping your friend and preventing him/her to deceive the common values of the community. wholeness is being together as one, it relates to this situation as it shows that the common sense of everyone's morals should be considered and to follow the communities moral code you have to live by that and believe what you are doing is right, together we should all be following the common values set by the community in order to have wholeness in the community. 

the churches teach me to follow my conscience although there are different consciences, there's a good conscience, an evil conscience a clear conscience a weak conscience, a seared conscience and a corrupt conscience. We are expected by god to follow our good conscience but if we follow our evil conscience and do something wrong god expects us to feel guilt, to god guilt is a very real thing and is taken very seriously by Christians. when we fail morally we are expected to deal with it through guilt, as god will forgive us.

Therefor the decision i would make is to confront my friend and tell him/her that what he/she is doing is wrong and that they should think it over before they sell it and if they do sell it i will report it, as what they are doing is wrong and needs to be reported for my friend to feel guilt and know that she/he has done something wrong. Reporting the decision is living my the common values of most people and having courage to stand up to my friend and say what i believe is right. it is because i have faith in my self and i know that what i am doing is the right thing.