Macbeth Themes - Conscience

There are many types of conscience - e.g. sincere (the person believes he is doing right, but may be wrong), true (the person really knows what's right and wrong in a given situation). Macbeth's conscience is working well. It tells him clearly that murdering his King would be wrong, for example because he's Duncan's cousin, Duncan's host, Duncan's subject. He doesn't try to rationalise by pretending to himself that the murder would be a good thing. Duncan has been a good King so he can't claim to be freeing Scotland from a tyrant. But his conscience is flawed - in the early part of the extract he gives reasons against the murder that are basically self-centred - he would do it if there were no consequences, if he could be sure of not being caught, if he could avoid justice. Not a very mature approach to moral decision making. Actually, because of his reasoning Macbeth decides to follow his conscience and not do the murder: "We will proceed no further in this business". But his conviction is shallow and it isn't long before Lady Macbeth persuades him to give in.

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