Jain Moral Doctrine

Author(s): Harisatya Bhattacharya
Publisher: Jain Sahitya Vikas Mandal

Page 23

JAIN MORAL DOCTRINE
scientia. Synderesis refers to an 'original righteousness' which persists in spite of the corruption of the human soul and its consequent Fall. This original righteousness is nothing other than the essential nature of man in its completeness.
Later on, Synderesis or the spark or fire put into the heart of man' in the words of Jeremy Taylor, is distinguished from Conscientia which refers to the particular attitude of man to good or bad action, 'bringing fuel to this fire'. Aquinas of course placed both Synderesis and Conscientia under the same class but looked upon them as modes of intellectual powers. Bonaventura, on the other hand, maintained that Synderesis was the basis of right volition and as such, consisted in the original tendency of the moral disposition while Conscientia was the basis of right judgment. Duns Seotus's view generally followed the Thomistic contention and according to Jeremy Taylor also, Synderesis was the general repository of moral principles or measures, i.e., the underlying rule of conscience, while the Conscientia itself was 'a conjunction of the universal practical law (i.e. Synderesis) with the particular moral action'.
It matters little whether Synderesis and Conscientia are held to be identical faculties, as seems to have been held originally or as distinct ones as maintained later on. The fact stands prominent in the midst of the scholastic disputes that they in their combination pass judgments on our acts as to their moral character. What is more important in this connection is to note that these faculties are innate; their manner of passing judgments is not determined by any considerations of the effects of the acts relating to either individual sensuous pleasure or social utility Bonaventura explicity, though in the manner of the scholasticism of his age, points out that 'God has implanted a double rule of right in man's nature, one for judging rightly, and this is the rectitude of conscience; another for right volition, and this is the rectitude of Synderesis.' Now, God in a rational religion being identified with the essential nature of man, the two So-called God-given faculties for moral judgments cannot but be evolutions from within the fundamental self of man; so that the test of the moral character of an act is always: whether or not, it is consistent with the essentially perfect nature of the agent.
That the essential nature of man in its fulness is the ultimate basis for our moral judgment has thus been abundantly clear from what we have stated above. Butler, in describing the character of conscience, pointedly refers to the fact by saying; Conscience is 'the principle in man by which he approves or disapproves his heart,