CLEAR CONSCIENCE: MORAL ABSOLUTE OR EXISTENTIAL FICTION?

The article discusses the phenomenon of conscience as a fundamental concept of the moral self-awareness and self-assessment of personality. Social and existential personals mechanisms of regulation of human existence are studied through the prism of conscience and the polyphony of forms of its manifestation. Conscience can act as a restraining principle that warns of the danger of committing an unworthy act and the main motive for the moral behavior, especially in a situation of the moral choice. It is determined, that in the phenomenon of conscience, a higher measure of the development of humanity in a person manifests itself. Conscience in this sense is the highest personification of the spiritual virtues of a person.Considerable attention is paid to the concept of the “clear conscience”, the specifics of its dichotomous aspects are revealed. The possibility of reducing this phenomenon to the status of an absolute moral ideal is analyzed, the complexity and artificial nature of the implementation of this task is revealed. It is concluded, that in the religious tradition a clear conscience is defined as being according to the divine’s truths, as a peculiar state of joining a person to God. The dialectical combination and confrontation between the concepts of the “clear conscience” and “unclean conscience” is understood, the specifics of the manifestation of these phenomena are described separately. At the same time, the fundamental importance of the phenomenon of “clear conscience” as a determining internal component of a personal life choice is emphasized.