Consecrating Error?

Enter Madison, who also conceived of conscience as “in its essence a religious faculty,” but whose interest in it was more political than personal. Smith repeatedly refers to conscience’s “capacity to consecrate error.” The idea is that you would do wrong to act against your conscience because, in doing so, you would be choosing to do what you take to be wrong, and that can never be right—even if you’re wrong about what’s right and wrong. If it’s always wrong to act against your conscience, does it follow that it is always right to act in accord with it? Smith is too quick to answer in the affirmative. According to him, the correct reasoning is: “You believe God wants you to do this; God knows you believe this; and therefore God does want you to do this (even though…in a different sense God might not want people, presumably including you, to do it)”—because what you believe is wrong. But that’s misleading. In fact, you’re responsible not only to your conscience, but for it. If it’s poorly formed, though you would do wrong to act against it, it wouldn’t be right, in the sense of good, for you to act in accord with it. Presumably, what God would really want is for you to reconsider whether your conscience is working as it should.