Institutional Conscience v. Private Conscience
"When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was...desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband...then the eyes of both of them were opened." This well-known Bible verse from Genesis 3:6 was known as The Fall of Man. Symbolically, when the first humans ate from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil, civilization was conceived. Its most authoritative embodiment was institutional conscience, or manmade laws to uphold order and justice. In the novella Billy Budd, Herman Melville prese…
