양심의 자유에서의 양심 개념의 비교적 고찰

This article aims to study the concept of conscience which is premise in every spiritual activity of humane being. The humane conscience is affected by the religious belief, the spiritual thinking and the thinking about learning or art. Therefore the clause on the freedom of conscience can deal with including the freedom of thought. The freedom of conscience was separated from the freedom of religion, so nowadays the former protects the secular life and the latter does religious faith of the humane being. Although the both of them are prescribed on the same article, they have quite a different meanings. The concept of conscience can divide into two parts, private conscience and public conscience or the subjective conscience and the objective conscience according as whether it involves a certain contents about the conscience. The ground of conscience has been unfolded variously from ethicalㆍmoral one till religiousㆍsociological and philosophical one etc. The conscience is regarded as ethicalㆍmoral awareness of the humane being. The extension to the ground of conscience doesn’t mean to allow what is beyond the law or order. So the resisting conscience and the opposing one must not be beyond legalism. The conscience of article 19 in constitution is not the same the public conscience that has a member of the National Assembly or a judge but the personal conscience. The Supreme Court hangs on to the judgement denying the freedom of conscience in the accidents related with the conscience. The Constitutional Court suggests in a series of decisions that “Conscience includes inner valuableㆍethical judgement on personal character building more extensively as well as a world view, one’s view of life, principle, belief”The concept of conscience must be understood as the subjective conscientious theory. Therefore the legal discussion about the conscience must be started not from the general law, the general moral and the universality etc., but from the uppermost value judgment, the final judgmental organ and so on.