Conscience and Its Critics: Protestant Conscience, Enlightenment Reason, and Modern Subjectivity

Jay Newman is a professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph. He
is the author of Biblical Religion and Family Values: A Problem in the
Philosophy of Culture and Competition in Religious Life, Religion vs.
Television: Competitors in Cultural Contex

Proponents of liberalism in the English-speaking world ordinarily see
themselves as simultaneously respecting the claims of conscience and the
claims of reason, but in this scholarly monograph University of Toronto
political scientist Edward G. Andrew focuses on tensions between the
ideals underlying these claims as well as between progressive thinkers
who understand those ideals differently.

This book is primarily a study in the history of ideas and concentrates
mainly on diverse philosophical, theological, and political conceptions
of conscience in early modern thought, particularly among English
Protestants who contributed greatly to our contemporary understanding of
liberalism and democracy. Emphasizing that “[c]onscience and reason
are not identical to each other,” Andrew argues that “Protestant
conscience and Enlightenment reason may have different class
backgrounds.” He relates these themes to issues in contemporary
political and cultural theory and gives special attention to fashionable
postmodernist topics concerning subjectivity. Andrew is effective in
surveying numerous nuances of the idea of conscience and indicating
social consequences of the variation. He also has a sounder appreciation
of theological factors than many other contemporary political theorists.

If Andrew’s central argument is not compelling, it may be partly
because he is less sensitive to the complexity of the idea of reason
than to that of the idea of conscience, as he too often settles for
something close to a postmodernist caricature of the philosophical ideal
of reason. He offers little insight into the classical and medieval
roots of the tensions he discusses, and he seems generally to undervalue
the intellectual influences of Renaissance humanism and the more
indirect ones of anti-Trinitarianism, Anabaptism, and related
traditions. When proceeding from historical survey to philosophical
conclusions, Andrew’s analysis sometimes rambles, and some readers
might well prefer if Andrew had more directly addressed core
philosophical issues concerning personal commitment and the relations of
liberty and authority, faith and reason, and insight and inference.
Still, this thoughtful book on important subjects gives readers plenty
to think about and rates a place in university library collections.