Conscience and Moral Decisions


	In the Catechism, the Church says that conscience is a judgment that requires reason where the 

person recognizes the moral quality of an action that happened, is happening, or is going to happen.  

This means that it is the person’s ability to judge right from wrong and how he should act in the 

situations that come up in his life.  It also says that, when correctly informed by the church’s teachings, 

reason, and proper moral values, it leads the person to what is just or right.  In  Fr. Knapp’s article, he 

says that conscience is definitely not a feeling. He says that it is a power and a process that, when 

properly  informed, will lead to what is just and right.  He says that the conscience is the pure core of 

the person and is what he/she truly believes is right or wrong.  He also says that it is where our true 

freedom resides and is where we make the choices that most represent us.  He also explains that it’s 

qualities of a process make it the truest essence of what it means to be human, because it is where we 

use reason to sort through our moral decisions and where we peruse accurate knowledge, facts, and 

spiritual guidelines.


	My favorite of the three moral processes that Fr. Knapp provided was the 8 Step Method, and I’m 

going to attempt to apply it to Othello’s main moral decision.  In the first step, if he would have looked 

to God for help, he would have seen the evils of letting jealousy and rage take over his reason and he 

would have been able to keep his calm better knowing God would be there is he needed help.  As he 

analyzed the situation in the next step, which he did follow, he noticed that the problem came from the 

rumors and stories that Iago told him and demanded proof and began to more toward a morally correct 

situation.  In the third step, he would have noticed that none of Iago’s “evidence” was solid, and that 

most of them involved some sort of extra story that he added while presenting some item.  He would 

have seen that the majority of his worries were based upon the suppositions of Iago, and he would have 

been a lot more likely not to let his emotions cloud his reason.  In the next step, if he would have 

evaluated his options he would have seen some much better choices, instead of quickly just declaring 

that he wanted to kill just about everyone that Iago said did some sort of wrong.  With the next step, he 

followed it, but he listened to the only person that he shouldn’t have listened to.  If he would have 

talked to Cassio or listened to what his wife Desdemona or her maid Emilia he would have noticed that 

Iago was the only one who knew about this problem that seemed like such a huge problem.  In the next 

step, if he would have looked inward and listened to his heart, it would have led him to noticing how 

much he really loved Desdemona and I would hope that that would lead him away from thoughts of 

murder.  It would have helped him to ask himself how that would ever happen if they loved each other 

so much.  The following of these other steps most likely would have led to a much different decision 

that would have require much less death. Also, if for some reason he wasn’t changed by there first 

steps, he would hopefully been able to evaluate the situation afterwards and see that what he did was 

truly an immoral decision.  It realization might have led to forgiveness or a change instead of an even 

further fall that he experiences.