Question

Authoritarian v. Humanistic Conscience

give your OWN example of Authoritarian ND your OWN example of Humanistic Conscience

100 words or more.

Answer 1

The Authoritarian Conscience: he believed that all humans were influenced by authority figures who apply rules and punishments gor breaking them. God can be seen as the authority figure. The Humanistic Approach: This was a later development which Fromm saw as healthier as it asses and evaluates behaviour.

A negative authoritarian conscience can be seen from, fromm's own expierences in Nazi Germany.

We are all influenced by external authorities e.g. parents, teachers, society. Rules are applied by these figures and punishment given for breaking them, we then internalise the and this can be thought of as our conscience. However this is just a fear of displeasing.

A good authoritarian conscience proides a sense of secruity and well-being, as it provides a structure that we can work within to ensure that both society and we are moral.

Humanistic conscience assesses and evaluates our behaviour; we use if to judge how successful we are as people. It is our real self and we use it to realise our potential as people.

Humanistic appraoch is the opposite to the slavish obedience and conformity of the authoritarian conscience. Being obedient to the authoritarian conscience can lead us to murdering innocents (as the Nazis did) in a way that taking responsibility to follow our humanistic conscience cannot.

Erich Fromm (1900-1980) was a German social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He followed in the footsteps of Piaget and had two approaches to conscience:

• The Authoritarian Conscience: he believed that all humans were influenced by authority figures who apply rules and punishments gor breaking them. God can be seen as the authority figure.
• The Humanistic Approach: This was a later development which Fromm saw as healthier as it asses and evaluates behaviour. This is the conscience we use to judge ourselves as people and to give out lives some moral honesty

In simple words Humanistic conscience is not the internalized voice of an authority whom we are eager to please and afraid of displeasing; it is our own voice, present in every human being and independent of external sanctions and rewards. It is the reaction of our total personality to its proper functioning or dysfunctioning; not a reaction to the functioning of this or that capacity but to the totality of capacities which constitute our human and our individual existence