Conscience is that faculty that enjoins and activates all of these,
occasionally resulting in 'taking a stand'.
I agree with that.
And I agree with your conscience argument.
But where you and I separate is whether the exercise of one's conscience should be cost free.
Your argument seems to me to be that he should be free to follow his conscience, even though that will have a negative impact on other people, and not pay a social price for that. My position earlier, before I dropped out of the discussion for a bit, was that he's free to follow his conscience -- the conscience that says he doesn't want to give massages to women or people of certain sexual persuasions -- but he may have to pay a price for that, and the price may be not being permitted to engage freely in massage as a profession. He has options. He can give up massage as a profession. He can teach massage and carefully select the subjects he chooses to demonstrate on. He can make massage videos. He can work exclusively for a private club which excludes all those persons he doesn't want to serve. He can give massages just to friends as a kindness, not charging or making it a business. Those are some of his options.
What he might NOT have is the right to follow both his conscience and his preferences without having to sacrifice any part of either.
I'm not surprised that you would think this way -- our society is moving more and more to the principle that we should get to exercise our consciences or our desires without cost.
A classic example in a different context was a letter in the local web based news site that complained about people driving through town with their stereos blasting, and a response letter from a girl who provided only her first name which said that she was a teen who enjoyed doing that, that she had every right to play her music as loudly as she wanted to, and if people didn't like it, tough. Different venue, same principle. |
