The Many Faces of Conscience: A Comment on Professor McLeod

Professor McLeod’s paper has two parts. The first part is about the value of conscience as a general matter. Why should we respect and try to accommodate conscience anyway? The second part is a more specific argument related to abortion: Professor McLeod argues that although the consciences of medical professionals who are committed to providing abortions and of those who are opposed to performing abortions are both valuable, the former group—that is, the abortion providers—should receive greater accommodation.

It is likely that this more specific argument is of greater interest to the participants in this conference. But time is limited, and although I would have objections to that more specific argument, my assignment was to talk about general premises and problems involving conscience. So with apologies … , I’m going to focus on the first part of Professor McLeod’s paper.