Illustration of François Chifflart, for the conscience of Victor Hugo
The conscience (German: Gewissen, Greek: syneidèsis, Latin: conscientia, ie "know or know with yourself") compares a learned or born ethical standard with a practical situation. In education, conscience is developed because experience teaches that human tendencies can be held in check.
The conscience is described metaphorically as the voice of the good in the human mind. In (drawing) movies the conscience is often put down as an angel on the shoulder, and occasionally whispers good advice in the ear. Pathology
In order to be able to speak of a conscience, in addition to a cognitive awareness of good and error, a development must have taken place in which events and actions can be learned. If the cognitive awareness is present but the conscience as described here, it becomes difficult or impossible for patients to experience the difference between, for example, the one hundred euro theft and a crime of life or sentence. It is both wrong for them, but they do not experience any difference between the facts mentioned here. In certain personality structures (for example in anti-social or narcissistic personalities) this conscience often lacks part or self-contained. In young children, this cognitive awareness and conscience still needs to be developed. Presumably, conscience begins to form around the age of three years. In severely mentally retarded persons, this awareness may never or hardly develop. If someone has no mental limitation or is otherwise mentally retarded, but lack of conscience, there is often a question of what is now an anti-social personality disorder. Previously, the term for this was psychopathy, a term that is still informal, but nevertheless it is still still in professional use for those people who are a (extreme) danger to their environment by such disorder. Also see
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