Mika Ojakangas is Professor of Political Thought at the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland. The author of five books and over 80 articles, his research areas include continental political theory, the history of political and ethical thought, and political theology.

• Acknowledgements1. Introduction 2. National Socialism and the Inner TruthThe Call of Heidegger’s ConscienceNihilism of Judgment: Arendt3. Conscience in Moral and Political TheologyChurch Fathers between the Law and the SpiritSynderesis and Conscientia: ScholasticismDivine Instinct The Spark of the Soul: Eckhart and TaulerA Voluntarist Bias of William Ockham?The Lutheran RevocationThe Return of the Repressed: Spiritualists and PietistsCalvin’s Compromise The Puritan God withinOn the Modern Protestant Conscience4. Conscience in Early Modern Moral and Political PhilosophyThe Witness of Natural Law from Suárez to PufendorfThe Candle of the Lord: Cambridge PlatonistsA Crisis of Conscience: Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke5. The Conscience of the Enlightenment The Moral Sense from Shaftesbury to SmithThe Judgement of Intuitive Reason: Clarke, Butler, Price, Reid and BeyondThe French Experience: from Bayle to RousseauThe German Model: Wolff versus CrusiusImmanuel Kant and the Infinite GuiltGerman Idealism: Conscience as Conviction6. From Political Theology to Theologized Politics7. Remarks on Late Modern ConscienceInternalized Coercion: Nietzsche and FreudThe Voice of the Other: Levinas and DerridaEthics of the Real: Lacan8. The Western Politics of ConscienceOn the Socratic Origins of the Politics of Conscience Conclusion

In this full and fascinating study of the history of conscience in the West, Ojakangas shows how conscience is the defining signature of Western political thought. Voice of Conscience is a work of immense scholarship leading towards a devastating conclusion: this conscience, invented by Plato’s Socrates, gave birth to responsibility out of the experience of utter disorientation.