Key Arguments

• He states that 'the authenticity of this phenomenon [conscience] can only be reconquered with difficulty, not really at the expense of the mctaphoric nature of the expres sion "voice of conscience" ... but by moving against the current of moralizing interpretations that actually conceal its force of discovery.'
• He explicitly links this to the 'test of suspicion': 'It is here that the test of suspicion is shown to be beneficial in order to recover the capacity for discovery belonging to the metaphor of the voice.'
• He invokes Hegel’s 'warning shot': 'We indeed find a virulent critique of the misinterpretation of conscience in the pages that the Phenomenology of Spirit devotes to the "moral view of the world"; ... Gewissen belongs to a higher-order dialectic in which acting consciousness and judging consciousness confront one another: the "pardon" resulting from the mutual recognition of the two antagonists ... denotes the authentic phenomenon of conscience.'
• Ricoeur emphasizes that Hegel’s elaborate critique of moral postulates and 'dissemblance' serves a 'strategy of dismantling' moral hypocrisy ('hypoerisy') and that this dismantling only makes sense from the perspective of a subsequent, more authentic moment—'Spirit That Is Certain of Itself: Mo rality'—where conscience is equated with 'certainty of self.'
• He then draws a parallel to Nietzsche: from the second essay of the Genealogy of Morals, he retains 'the parallel presented here with the Hegelian critique of "dissemblance"', noting that Nietzsche himself characterizes '"bad" conscience as falsifying interpretation' over against his 'vision of "grand innocence" as au thentic interpretation.'
• Ricoeur concludes that 'All that matters to me here is the force of the suspicion, implicit in Hegel, explicit in Nietz sche, that conscience is equated with "bad conscience." The worst solu tion for destroying this equation would be to appeal to bad in the name of good conscience.', rejecting a naive appeal to 'good conscience' as remaining within the same compromised circle.

Source Quotes

It is the vertical nature of the call, equal to its interiority, that creates the enigma of the phenomenon of conscience. The authenticity of this phenomenon can only be reconquered with difficulty, not really at the expense of the mctaphoric nature of the expres sion "voice of conscience"—metaphor, in my opinion, not excluding a genuine capacity for discovery47—but by moving against the current of moralizing interpretations that actually conceal its force of discovery. It is here that the test of suspicion is shown to be beneficial in order to recover the capacity for discovery belonging to the metaphor of the voice.

The authenticity of this phenomenon can only be reconquered with difficulty, not really at the expense of the mctaphoric nature of the expres sion "voice of conscience"—metaphor, in my opinion, not excluding a genuine capacity for discovery47—but by moving against the current of moralizing interpretations that actually conceal its force of discovery. It is here that the test of suspicion is shown to be beneficial in order to recover the capacity for discovery belonging to the metaphor of the voice. To do this, we have to mobilize the force of denunciation resonating, be fore the Nietzschcan thunderbolt, in HegePs warning shot.

We indeed find a virulent critique of the misinterpretation of conscience in the pages that the Phenomenology of Spirit devotes to the "moral view of the world";48 what follows in chapter 6 attests to the fact that the authentic phenomenon of conscience is not carried along with the fall of the moral vision of the world. Instead, Gewissen belongs to a higher-order dialectic in which acting consciousness and judging consciousness confront one another: the "pardon" resulting from the mutual recognition of the two antagonists who admit the limits of their viewpoints and renounce their partiality denotes the authentic phenomenon of conscience. It is along the path of this recognition that the critique of the moral vision of the world is found.

Now is not this "overdetermination" (iiberladen) by utilities of all kinds—a genuine overdetermination in the Freudian sense of the term—turned against the biologic determinism that Nietzsche imposes on the reader in §§16—25 in the second essay of Ge nealogy of Morals?59 I shall say nothing, within the context of this study, about the meaning or the possibility of the second innocence proclaimed toward the end of the essay and to which all of Nietzsche's work contributes. All that matters to me here is the force of the suspicion, implicit in Hegel, explicit in Nietz sche, that conscience is equated with "bad conscience." The worst solu tion for destroying this equation would be to appeal to bad in the name of good conscience.

All that matters to me here is the force of the suspicion, implicit in Hegel, explicit in Nietz sche, that conscience is equated with "bad conscience." The worst solu tion for destroying this equation would be to appeal to bad in the name of good conscience. This reversal of pro and con would remain captive to the same circular problematic, justification and judgments of indignation simply being replaced by self-justification and self-glorification.

Key Concepts

• The authenticity of this phenomenon can only be reconquered with difficulty, not really at the expense of the mctaphoric nature of the expres sion "voice of conscience"—metaphor, in my opinion, not excluding a genuine capacity for discovery47—but by moving against the current of moralizing interpretations that actually conceal its force of discovery.
• It is here that the test of suspicion is shown to be beneficial in order to recover the capacity for discovery belonging to the metaphor of the voice.
• Gewissen belongs to a higher-order dialectic in which acting consciousness and judging consciousness confront one another: the "pardon" resulting from the mutual recognition of the two antagonists who admit the limits of their viewpoints and renounce their partiality denotes the authentic phenomenon of conscience.
• All that matters to me here is the force of the suspicion, implicit in Hegel, explicit in Nietz sche, that conscience is equated with "bad conscience."
• The worst solu tion for destroying this equation would be to appeal to bad in the name of good conscience.

Context

Mid‑section of 'c. Conscience', where Ricoeur first examines Hegel’s and then Nietzsche’s critiques of moral conscience, treating them not as refutations but as necessary exercises of suspicion to strip away moralism and recover conscience’s authentic phenomenological core.