Meier, C. A. (Zürich). ‘Science et conscience’. France Culture Colloque de Cordoue; Stock

In this paper, ‘Science et conscience’, which he had first broadcast on ‘France Culture’, Professor Meier argues that conscience has its roots in our archetypal nature, and that this hypothesis can be validated through the method of ‘amplification. By this he means the study of what has been said about the nature of conscience at different times and in different cultures; and he himself demonstrates this method in this article, drawing mainly on Greek, Jewish and Christian sources.

He also discusses the question of moral conflict and suggests that all such conflicts are between a conscious and an unconscious stance. I wonder if this is necessarily so. Is it not possible that a person may find himself troubled by the conflict of two mutually opposed values, both of which are, however, consciously accepted? Indeed, the examples which he gives in the last part of this paper have this particular quality. It is this last part—his discussion of the moral conflicts of men like Einstein, Pauli and Oppenheimer—which I found very moving. His description of their dilemma is, I think, a strong argument in favour of the distinction that Jung has made between a ‘moral conscience’ and an ‘ethical conscience’, the ethical conscience being essentially individual and subjective. For the ethical conscience, as Professor Meier writes in conclusion of this paper, is born out of ‘the effort of a whole life, individual and solitary, demanding patience, love and humility’.

I am grateful that Professor Meier has re-opened the discussion of the whole area of ‘conscience’, of morals and ethics, and the insights that a Jungian approach may help us to gain. For as he rightly says, the disintegration of conscience in the masses in the modern world is one of the saddest chapters in the history of mankind. This does indeed make it imperative that we should deploy as energetically and as creatively as possible all the theoretical and scientific tools in our possession. Jung's work is one of them.