A man's conscience and his judgment is the same thing; and as the judgment, so also the conscience, may be erroneous.
Interpretation
Conscience and judgment are intertwined, and both can be flawed.
In this quote, Thomas Hobbes emphasizes the deep connection between a person's conscience and their judgment, suggesting that they are ultimately the same in function. He warns that both can be misguided or mistaken, leading to erroneous decisions and moral failures; thus, it is crucial to critically evaluate one's own beliefs and judgments to ensure they align with reason and truth.
In practice
In a philosophy class discussing moral relativism.
Baptism is the sacrament of allegiance of them that are to be received into the Kingdom of God, that is to say, into Eternal life, that is to say, to Remission of Sin. For as Eternal life was lost by the committing, so it is recovered by the remitting of men's sins.
Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.
For it is not the shape, but their use, that makes them angels.
For to accuse requires less eloquence, such is man's nature, than to excuse; and condemnation, than absolution, more resembles justice.
Scientia potentia est, sed parva; quia scientia egregia rara est, nec proinde apparens nisi paucissimis, et in paucis rebus. Scientiae enim ea natura est, ut esse intelligi non possit, nisi ab illis qui sunt scientia praediti.
The end of knowledge is power ... the scope of all speculation is the performing of some action or thing to be done.
Jews are frequently compared to the proverbial 'canary in the coal mine,' an enduring signal for when the world is failing to meet its obligations in tackling bigotry. It has never been clearer to me just how widely understood that truism is.
Perhaps the surest test of an individual's integrity is his refusal to do or say anything that would damage his self-respect.
There is nothing one fears more or is more ashamed of than not being oneself. Yet few people realize even an approximation of their true potential. Most people must live with varying degrees of the shame and fear of not being fully in control of themselves.
It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meannesses, cares, and sorrows into which women are plunged by the prevailing opinion that they were created rather to feel than reason, and that all the power they obtain must be obtained by their charms and weaknesses.
Someone ought to do it, but why should I? Someone ought to do it, so why not I? Between these two sentences lie whole centuries of moral evolution.
The most important question in 21st-century economics may well be, 'What should we do with all the superfluous people, once we have highly intelligent non-conscious algorithms that can do almost everything better than humans?'
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