The Freudian concept of the super-ego and Jung's idea of a primary moral reaction in the unconscious - the voice of the self - are compared. From its origin the superego is connected with human destructiveness, but for Jung individual conscience is based on a collision between the ego and the inner world of archetypes. With reference to Neumann's ‘New Ethic’, some implications of Jung's idea of the unconscious ambiguity of good and evil are discussed. Finally an attempt is made to relate the concept of the primary moral reaction to a developmental and clinical framework, notably Klein's depressive position, but only a partial integration is possible.